Fox‘s new offer to advertisers may get Madison Avenue a little animated.
Fox, known for Sunday-night fare like “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “American Dad!,” wants to give marketers more cartoonish content to work with, whether it be an original animated short or series or a new piece of “branded content” devised in collaboration with the sponsor. To do so, Fox has struck a partnership with Toonstar, a production outlet that creates high-quality animation much faster than the stuff that is produced for some of the network’s popular series.
“We are one of the bigger properties out there that has always been committed to animation, and that Sunday night is so incredibly important to us,” says Katrina Cukaj, executive vice president of advertising sales and portfolio marketing at Fox Advertising, during a recent interview. “How do we continue to broaden and innovate?”
The answer, for now, is with Toonstar, which will create animated content for digital venues, much of which will rely on creators and have the potential to respond immediately to cultural events and trends. One of the challenges Fox has with its TV programs is that they appeal to younger audiences, but have a long production schedule, which makes the process of embedding advertising messages in the shows more difficult.
