We keep hearing that marketers increasingly like the idea of Web series as a promotional too, and are finally starting to pay more for them. Case in point: the WSJ says Vogue and IMG are producing a 12-episode online reality series Model.Live for $3 million, or about $31,000 a minute.
That's quite a leap from Michael Eisner's "Foreign Body," which at $5,000 a minute had "big" budget by Web video standards.
Clothing retailer Express LLC paid a little more than $1 million to sponsor the series, and Vogue is guaranteeing Express 83.4 million views during three months on Bebo.com. That works out to a cost of $12 per thousand impressions, a very low ad rate for high-quality video, which usually runs north of $20.
The series will also be distributed on Veoh.com, Vogue.tv and Hulu.com, where Vogue and IMG hope to recoup the rest of the production costs. Vogue plans to promote the series in the magazine and on Manhattan buses. This will be tough: Eisners' "Foreign Body," had a tough time getting views, except for the few times it was a "Featured Video" on YouTube. Then again, Foregin Body was really, really boring.
What does $31,000-per-minute Web video look like? Here's a promo for the series:
See Also: Michael Eisner's Web Flop
Michael Eisner Spends Big - By Web Standards - For 'Foreign Body'
The Cost Of Online Video: $8 Billion And Counting
