HISTORY's Moment in Media: A Walk Through Digitas' NewFront Past

Digital video was a nascent industry and several Digitas execs had decided that this new medium required a conferenceslashshowcase to show that it could one day take on or at least play alongside the broadcast and cable giantsamp160 The event wasn39t designed to be a marketplace for ad time like the Upfronts but instead to serve as an opportunity to showcase upcoming content to the ad industry also like the Upfronts and hopefully prompt the industry to take a closer look at the new formatAnd still it was Michael Eisner that titan of old media who made headlinesEisner three years from his departure from the Walt Disney Company was there to talk about the digitalvideo producer he39d launched called Vuguruamp160 But onstage at the Digitas event where he was being interviewed by Veoh39s Dmitry Shapiro Eisner foreshadowing the creatorsvsplatforms debates to come challenged the videosharing platform39s founder on the revenue actually being paid out to content creatorsIn that first year the Digitas event was just one of several similar events put on by digital agencies and creators during and around the television Upfrontsamp160 Microsoft hosted one as did digitalvideo producers like Ripe Digital Entertainment and Broadband Enterprisesamp160 Still as longtime ad journalist Mike Shields wrote in an Adweek piece wonderfully titled quotDude Where39s My Digital Upfrontquot quotThe consensus holds that a formal Upfront season will never happen in the online spacequotDigitas the Publicis digital agency was determined to prove that consensus wrongamp160 About 100 people attended in that first year marketers reporters and agency execsamp160 Over the next few years Digitas continued mounting the event each year to showcase creators and the digital format to agencies and brandsamp160 Big names kept coming Al Gore one year Demi Moore in anotheramp160 In 2012 Rashida Jones sent her first tweet from the NewFront stageBy that year the NewFronts were well establishedamp160 quotInternetVideo 39NewFront39 Aims to Disrupt TV Upfrontquot read a headline in Ad Ageamp160 The twoweek series of presentations ran from April 19 to May 2 and attracted major players like AOL Google and its YouTube subsidiary Hulu Microsoft Vevo and YahooThat growth came in part because Digitas was loosening its control of the eventamp160 For that year the NewFronts were produced by six socalled founding partners including Digitasamp160 The other partners made clear to the advertising holding companies that this was no longer solely the agency39s showamp160 Still a Digitas session was a highlight the New York Times reported that 600 people attended the agency39s panel discussionFor the next year 2013 the Interactive Advertising Bureau assumed controlamp160 As Stephanie Sarofian who helped found the NewFronts at Digitas later told Digiday quotWe had to turn to a Switzerlandtype entity if we wanted other agencies to participatequotamp160 The shift workedamp160 Since then the founding partners still play a role in programming the event but things have only gotten biggeramp160 In 2014 AOL invited 1700 people to a rollicking NewFront at the Brooklyn Navy Yard with free booze on the ferry over from Manhattanamp160 In 2018 the IAB added a West Coast miniNewFronts held in Los Angeles in the fallAnd this year39s New York event down to just one week and held just a few weeks ago at the end of April and beginning of May attracted everyone from Viacom to ESPN to Condamp233 Nast to the BBC to the New York Timesamp160 quotBig Media Is Crashing the NewFrontsquot said a Digiday headline previewing the event not like Michael Eisner all those years ago with their careerpivot startups but because it39s now the place the big players need to beClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: A Walk Through Digitas' NewFront Past

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: A Walk Through Digitas' NewFront Past

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