Universal will go D2C from November with a campaign based on forthcoming movie American Gangster.
The Hollywood reporter says the service will launch first in Europe and will soft launch at the same time in the US. Universal’s stated aim is to wrest back some control from then operators. Jeremy Laws, SVP of Universal Mobile Entertainment, said: “We want to be master of our own destiny more, to have an environment we control.”The aim is to theme pages around films so that ringtones, wallpaper and games are sold from the same place. Despite the move to D2C, Universal still expects majority of its mobile revenue to come from carrier decks for the foreseeable future.
Universal is not the first Hollywood studio to go off-portal. Fox’s entire campaign around The Simpsons Movie was D2C, while Paramount launched its own consumer-facing service in January.
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