New Stakeholder Innovation Across Content & Web3
Exploring the future of corporate ownership, marketing, and investor relations.
Hello Everyone!
This week we'll be highlighting two content driven businesses that are taking an innovative approach to their stakeholder ecosystems and finding new ways to distribute revenues and equity participation. Increasingly, digital media and storytelling have become prerequisites for creating highly engaged consumers so naturally we are seeing media and production businesses create successful early case studies in this space.
First, we want to give a special shoutout to everyone we met in Miami, especially the panelist who joined our conversation about digital brand loyalty and customer engagement at The Marketing Innovation Week.
Topics covered:
Fortune 500 companies are deliberate, and despite the instability in the crypto markets, many companies are still committed Web3 and ‘ownership economy’ initiatives that will launch next year.
Nike and Starbucks have traditionally been important trendsetters for consumer innovation among Fortune 500 brands and both are leaning into Web3 with Nike recently launching .SWOOSH - a digital community and experience and Starbucks launching Odyssey - digital collectable stamps that offer rewards and new coffee experiences.
Panelist emphasized the importance of transitioning Web3 initiatives away from stunt, short-term campaigns towards real utility that drives customer loyalty.
The key to successful innovation at large companies is meeting customers where they are at today and partnering with startups to learn from their experience / knowledge in new markets.
Stakeholder Labs wants to thank Brand Innovators for hosting to event. We’re looking forward to hosting more discussions with business leaders on the topics of innovation, stakeholders, and brand loyalty.
Success of “The Chosen” exhibits the power of retail investor communities (NY Times)
Conceived by a little-known creator, featuring no major stars and funded primarily, at first, through small contributions without the support of a Hollywood studio, The TV Series The Chosen is challenging Hollywood financing models with an avid retail investor community of believers.
The Chosen raised $10M from over 15,000 investors in a Regulation A+ offering in 2020 with investors set to receive 120% return before a profit share with the show’s creators.
The first two episodes of the show’s third season premiered together in theaters on Nov. 18, and brought in more than $8 million, coming in third at the weekend box office behind mainstream movies that screened in more theaters.
The Chosen could prove to be a playbook for how popular IP can fund, produce and distribute with a unified group of stakeholders.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Announce Equity Focused Film Production Company (Hollywood Reporter)
Affleck and Damon have joined a list of Hollywood’s most powerful stars, directors and writers who have been increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with streaming-era paychecks, namely the refusal of entertainment companies to share the money generated from breakout hits.
Mr. Damon said in a statement that Artists Equity would allow film and television creators to “take ownership of their creative power, providing a platform for both established and emerging filmmakers to streamline the development of their content.”
Artists Equity harks back to the original United Artists, which was founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith as a way to exert greater control over their creative and financial destinies. (United Artists has long since become a traditional film company and is now owned by Amazon.)
“I’ve had people sort of pull me aside and say, you know, that this is going to be a lot of pressure, a lot of work,” Mr. Affleck said. “And there was part of me, I have to admit, that was like — come on, these studio guys sit behind desks and make phone calls. The artists are the ones who have to go off and actually make the movie and do all the work.”