Hollywood’s heroes of the silver screen
BY SANDY STRASSER
Many generations have grown up with the blue-and-gold logo of the American entertainment giant Warner Brothers. The company based in the Californian city of Burbank is one of the so-called “majors” – the six largest film companies in the United States. Along with Columbia Pictures, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios, it is one of the global players courting the favour of viewers the world over. Now the movie industry pioneer is planning to go one step further and conquer the United Arab Emirates.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is a fully-comprehensive, broadly diversified entertainment company and the world market leader in the development, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment and associated business fields. Warner Bros. in turn is a company owned by the Time Warner Group, which spearheads all areas of the entertainment sector – from movies to television productions, home videos or DVDs, animated films, comic books, interactive entertainment and games all the way through to product and brand licensing, international cinemas and radio. Furthermore, it is one of the world’s most renowned, diverse and successful film and television studios. The company was founded on 4 April 1923 by the four brothers Albert, Sam, Harry and Jack. The brothers are legends within the American film industry, particularly the flamboyant showman Jack L. Warner. In 1927, the family created the benchmark for innovation and influence – synonymous with the name Warner Bros. ever since – with the world’s first talking film “The Jazz Singer”.
As self-made pioneers, the Warners then continued to add sound to their movies, introduced the first “four-legged star”, revived film musicals, heralded an era of gangster movies and produced numerous socially important films that raised national awareness of the growing problems of their respective times. Since then, the Warner Bros. studios have created an impressive legacy of huge diversity on the basis of first-class entertainment and technological vision, producing record figures for 21 years in succession. The company’s consistency and success are the results of the stable management throughout its entire history, long-term creative relationships with countless international stars and top producers and its steadfast commitment. Today, the Warner Bros. collection comprises more than 6,650 movies, 40,000 television productions and 14,000 animated features, including more than 1,500 classic animated short films.
Now the movie industry pioneer plans to conquer the United Arab Emirates by opening a theme park in Abu Dhabi. The first project phase of Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi is planned to commence in 2018. Numerous constructions are already under way and amusement rides are in the process of being built. The building project on Yas Island, one of the world’s leading locations for business, leisure and recreation, will also include the brand’s only hotel. Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi will unite the stories and the characters from the film studio’s vast portfolio, including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, along with animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry. Visitors of all ages will be able to delve into such “places” as Gotham City and Metropolis and experience the animated worlds of Looney Tunes & Co. up-close-and-personal – all under a single roof.
His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Miral, said: “It is incredibly exciting to announce that we are bringing the iconic Warner Bros. brand to Yas Island. Miral’s investment in the Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi theme park is estimated at 1 billion dollars and is a milestone in the emirate’s journey to put Abu Dhabi on the global map and become one of the world’s leading tourist destinations. By meeting the global, regional and local demand for a world-class entertainment destination, supported by an equally world-class travel and tourism infrastructure, we are fulfilling our ambition to drive visitor numbers and enrich the UAE’s appeal as a truly international destination that appeals to both residents and travelling guests. Miral is central to this development with a number of significant and exciting projects in the pipeline,” continued Al Mubarak.
Kevin Tsujihara, Chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment, commented: “Warner Bros. has been entertaining audiences for more than 90 years with the world’s most-loved characters and franchises. Working with our partners at Miral, we’ll bring this expertise to Yas Island, one of the world’s leading entertainment destinations, to create a fully-interactive, innovative and unique experience that will allow fans of all ages to experience the most exciting aspects of Warner Bros. in a completely immersive environment.”
Digital Transformation
A brief portrait of Adstream
As a global and innovative provider of digital asset management (DAM) solutions and services for distributing marketing assets, Adstream is also committed to quality. Consequently, Adstream is the ideal creation, optimisation, storage and global distribution partner for companies and agencies, using highly sophisticated analysis tools to enable its customers to make the right decisions. The Adstream platform is the first holistically cloud-based solution that seamlessly maps the workflow with broadcasters, publishers and digital platforms. The solution is particularly characterised by its strengths in the area of video with integrated links to social media. It unites classic project and campaign management with the coordination, distribution and archiving of marketing assets. With this, Adstream increases its customers’ workflow efficiency, accelerates the creation and coordination of campaigns and reduces the time-to-market. Controlling assets across all channels improves brand consistency. By evaluating all measures and processes, the company increases the required transparency and sustainably reduces costs for its customers. Adstream was founded in Australia in 2001 and was a pioneer in the digital distribution of commercials to broadcasters. Meanwhile, it is the leading service provider and digitally linked to more than 40,000 publishing houses, TV broadcasters, VOD platform and online portals, supplying these with two millions assets each year. Today, more than 5,000 globally-active enterprises have entrusted the service provider with their 26 million marketing assets. These include 70 percent of leading brands and top international agency networks. Globally, 42 offices look after customers in 125 countries.
Warner Bros. and Adstream
To maintain an overview of the more than 30,000 videos and 28 terabytes of material at Warner Bros. in 65 countries, it became necessary to introduce a global digital asset management (DAM) system and to integrate it into the existing marketing ecosystem. The Adstream platform has precisely fulfilled these requirements and has verifiably reduced costs and time for providing, transcoding and distributing data – for example, trailers – by between 30 and 70 percent, depending on the region.
Additional Link
This article was published in The Produktkulturmagazin, issue Q3 2016. Picture credit © Hulton Archive / Freier Fotograf / Getty Images
