2oth Century Fox invites content reps from the US carriers to LA and dazzles them with its vision for mobile. Hollywood is targeting mobile, with 20th Centu
2oth Century Fox invites content reps from the US carriers to LA and dazzles them with its vision for mobile. Hollywood is targeting mobile, with 20th Century Fox the latest studio to park its tank on the lawn.
Tinseltown is waking up to the potential of a device with a screen in the pockets of 1.5 billion people and counting. Fox is leading the charge with three attention-grabbing moves in the last six months.
The studio has:
* Signed a two-year deal with Sorrent to develop mobile content based on movies including Robots and Ice Age 2.
Article continues belowAdvertisement
* Created one-minute mobisodes based on the TV series 24 offered by Verizon in the US and Vodafone in the UK .
* Become the first Hollywood entity to offer a short code (20 Fox 23069) to let US consumers route to its content without navigating a network portal.
Foxs commitment was sealed in February when the company invited US carriers to LA to present its mobile vision and convey its seriousness about the medium. Mitch Feinman, VP of content for Foxs parent company Newscorp, said: I think the carriers may have worried that Hollywood just wants to shovel content at them without thought. So this was a seminal event. We had senior Fox execs there to demonstrate the length and scope of our commitment to mobile.
Fox is right to be supportive. Film-related product delivers: Disney has built a mobile business based on classic IP while Star Wars ringtones, launched by Lucasfilm, THQ Wireless and Orange in Europe , marched to number one status.
Fox is now making efforts to tie the promotion of mobile content in with its general marketing activity. Greg Ballard, CEO of Sorrent, believes this is key. The beauty of working on film-related product is having a huge marketing machine already out there doing your work for you. You just have to make sure youre a part of it, he said.
