SXM recently helped launch hit, viral d-to-c granola product Tom’s Granola AKA Tom’s Perfect 10. Beginning in October 2020 we have managed a 12 month, grassroots branded content, advocacy and user participation campaign to help launch this product.
Produced with Whistle Network for Verizon’s new Go90 platform, Trick Shot Lab is comedic sports series starring YouTuber stars, The Legendary Shots. Filmed as a 12 x 6 minute reality series on location in Alabama. Each episode sees the Legendary team plan and execute a different trick shot. Whether its in the Alabama’s biggest cave, at 60 miles per hour on a deserted forrest road, or from a potato cannon, each episode takes the trick shot genre to the next level.
ChefShock was created by Tom Bannister/SXM and is Twitch’s first original programming commission. ChefShock is a live broadcast cooking series starring Food Network star Justin Warner. Each two hour episode of ChefShock starts with Justin unpacking the groceries and ends with him eating the food with nothing edited or prepared in the between. The recipes and ingredients are sent out earlier for viewers to buy them and then cook along and ask questions. Through a partnership with Instacart viewers can buy the recipes and have them delivered within an hour. ChefShock currently averages fifteen thousand unique viewers per episode, watching an average of twenty one minutes per viewer with an average number of four thousand eight hundred viewer comments per episode.
Produced with Comedy Central, Matumbo Goldberg is a scripted comedy series starring Anthony Anderson, Jenna Elfman, Thomas Middleditch, and Michael Lerner. Produced in 4 x 5-minute episodes, Matumbo tells the story of a middle aged marketing exec who is downsized and decides to place himself on the African orphan adoption agency website as 4-year-old ‘Matumbo from Nairobi’. He is adopted by the Goldbergs, a particularly clueless suburban couple, and proceeds to take advantage of their naivete. Matumbo Goldberg was released by Comedy Central.
SXM developed the this short film Los Ninos Sicarios into a long form series in a development deal with Sony Picture Television and Rob Lambert.
SXM developed the Sundance Film Festival short films MeTube 1 and MeTube 2 into a long form series in a development deal with Tony Hale (Veep). Here is the pitch deck.
In A City is community led short film collaboration directed by and starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and produced with his company/digital community Hit Record for Samsung Camera. SXM, Hit Record and Samsung produced one 2.5 minute short film, a 2.5 minute documentary, five call to action videos hosted by Joseph Gordon Levitt and 20 social media posts serviced by Samsung and Hit Record to their communities which tracked the campaign and encouraged participation. In late October we announced that Joseph Gordon Levitt would be directing a short film using Samsung new 4K Camera (the NX1) in a request video. Joseph asked members of his 300,000 strong community Hit Record to submit ideas, music, lyrics and also apply to be cinematographers for the piece. We received 5000 entries from which we produced the In A City film (a musical poem filmed in 7 cities across the globe including Los Angeles, Prague, Rio, Tokyo, Sheffield, Cairo and London). In each city Joseph chose a cinematographer and worked closely with them to film segments at his direction. The final film was released on Youtube at the beginning of December after which we also released a making of documentary. In A City was the first global community led short film collaboration creating tremendous engagement on social media platforms (twitter, tumblr, youtube ) and positioned Samsung firmly in the low cost, high quality DLSR camera market. Some further highlights from the campaign included strong traction on earned media including editorial placement on the front page of Tumblr. Above you will find links to the short film itself, the documentary and the initial request video along with some additional photos.
CTRL was the first digital series to be produced by a major studio. Originally developed from a short film which played at Sundance, CTRL stars Tony Hale (Arrested Development) and Steve Howey (Reba). Sponsored by Nestea, CTRL was a short-form scripted series in a 10 x 5-minute episodes format and was released on NBC.com, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes. CTRL has continually been ranked amongst the top digital series’ of all time. Watch the trailer here.
Created and produced by SXM, Armed Response is a scripted series of 4 x 5 minutes. Armed Response combines the first person shooter, combat footage, and found footage genres to create a new type of action program for digital. Armed Response follows the story of an SRT team who uncover a Mexican drug cartel at the Port Of Long Beach. The series was produced and released in partnership with Defy Media, with Filmnation buying in as a sponsor for the launch of their movie White House Down once production was complete. Watch the trailer here.
Created and produced by SXM, Jump Outs is a half-hour reality program for millennial audiences co-produced with Dailymotion. Teams of contestants (a parkour team, a football team, and a skateboard team) must get into an abandoned property, pickup an amulet, and transport it to the other side. The catch? Embedded in that project is an elite police unit called ‘The Jump Out Boys’. Jump Outs combines video games, music videos, and reality TV in an attempt to develop a unique format tailored to a new generation of viewers.
SXM secured and negotiated key talent and created and produced this long-form Samsung Commercial celebrating the launch of Samsung’s latest camera. James Franco both directed and starred in The Photographer. The commercial was covered in global press outlets around the world, delivering 472 million impressions for Samsung. The Photographer continues to be viewed and written about worldwide.
Fact Checkers Unit was a special bonus episode of our hit branded entertainment series starring James Franco. In this episode, the Fact Checkers are tasked with checking whether James Franco is pregnant. They discover he is in fact a ‘shape shifter’ and only does the ‘pregnant lady’ to get a seat on the subway. The Fact Checkers use Samsung’s latest Galaxy Note 2 during their mission. FCU Franco was released through Samsung SNS pages including Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. The episode received over 50 million impressions and 5 million video views; it was also played on airlines worldwide and written about in the LA Times and other global publications. Watch the episode here.
SOS Island is an innovative social media reality series, and one of the first of it’s kind. 12,500 people from 132 countries applied through a MICROSITE, and 16 contestants were chosen. Those chosen were flown to Puerto Rico to train with Survivorman Les Stroud and then marooned on a tropical, uninhabited island with only S4 Zoom Camera phones. The contestants lived on SOS Island for two weeks with limited food and shelter, and the audience could follow along and interact with them in two ways; via social media and through hour-long live broadcasts direct to Samsung’s Youtube page. Viewers also participated in Google hangouts with contestants and voted on their favorites using the microsite. After two weeks, the contestants left the island. Over the following six weeks, 12 x 10-minute challenge episodes were released in partnership with XBOX and Youtube. Episodes combined survival and technology, all integrating and utilizing the S4 Zoom. SOS Island created 4.3 billion ad impressions for Samsung; over 100,000 people voted on the contestants and 4000 user-generated videos were uploaded to Youtube referencing the show. SXM created a format that tied together online video, gaming, live broadcasting, and social media – all while showcasing the many innovative attributes of the S4 Zoom.
Fact Checkers Unit is a scripted short-form branded entertainment series developed from a Sundance Film Festival short film. Using Samsung’s hit Galaxy S1 device, two fact checkers break all the rules to check the most absurd facts about celebrities. This season features cameos from Luke Perry, Karolina Kurkova, Alex Trebek, Donald Faisson, Jon Heder, Dave Navarro, and others. Fact Checkers Unit was produced with and distributed by NBC Universal on NBC.com, Hulu.com, and accross worldwide cable outlets
In Season 2, the Fact Checkers are employed at a music magazine and must use the Samsung Galaxy Note to help them on a road trip during encounters with celebrities like T-Pain, Moby, Thomas Middleditch, TJ Miller, Run DMC, and others. Samsung Mobile collaborated from the earliest stage of pre-production, co-developing the scripts, highlighting specific benefits of the device, and seamlessly integrating the Galaxy Note into the heart of the storyline. Fact Checkers Unit S2 was distributed on digital and mobile platforms (including Samsung’s Social Network) with extensive support across MTV’s global sites. Season 2 received over 9 million video views within 6 weeks, and was translated into 6 languages as it was watched on a global basis. Viewers spent an average of 4.1 minutes watching each video, resulting in a dwell time for Season 2 of over 300,000 hours. Total campaign impressions equaled 827 million, and Fact Checkers Unit was integral in helping Samsung create a new market for a brand new type of device. Within two months of campaign, Samsung shipped over 1 million Galaxy Notes, and traffic to Samsung.com spiked by 37% during FCU’s flight window.
The Comment Show was a weekly talk show we created produced in 2013 with VEVO. Hosted by YouTube stars David So and Jimmy Tatro, we produced 14 x 5 minute episodes. The Comment Show is an interactive talk show which aggregates funny comments placed under music videos of that week and uses those comments for skits, gags, and even interactions with the commenters themselves. Each episode averaged about 1 million views between VEVO.com, Vevo’s YT pages, and mobile platforms.
SXM secured and negotiated key talent and produced a long-form Samsung Commercial celebrating the launch of Samsung’s latest tablet. James Franco both directed and starred in The Ultimate Multitasker. The commercial was covered in global press outlets around the world, delivering 493 million impressions for Samsung. The Ultimate Multitasker continues to be viewed and written about worldwide.
Easy To Assemble was a groundbreaking digital series sponsored by IKEA. Launching in 2008, Easy To Assemble was a forerunner of the digital campaigns and branded entertainment that have since become commonplace. Easy To Assemble was a scripted sitcom, set within an IKEA store. Easy To Assemble went on for four seasons between 2008 and 2012 and won numerous advertising and creative awards. Ad Week magazine awarded Easy To Assemble one of the top five Best Branded Deals of 2010. That same year, Easy To Assemble was nominated for seven “Streamy” awards, winning “Best Ensemble Cast” and “Best Product Integration.” The star, Ileana Douglas, was nominated for “Best Individual Performance” at the 14th Annual Webby Awards, and Easy To Assemble won for both “Best Branded Content”, and “Best Comedy Episode”. Additionally, Illeana received the ITV Fest 2010 Innovator Award and the 2010 “Best Online Performance Award” from the 2010 Banff World TV Fest. Easy To Assemble and IKEA were also honored to receive the 2010 NATPE “Digital Luminary Award”. In 2012, the series was a Webby Honoree for both Individual Performance and Best Writing.
CrowdFunded is a monthly talk show series produced with Complex Media and Mountain Dew and starring pro-skate boarder Spencer Nuzzi. Each month we profile the coolest projects coming out of the world of crowd funding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGO etc).
SXM partnered with Half Brick Studios (creators of top mobile game Fruit Ninja) and Facebook to produce a live Fruit Ninja tournament featured real ninja warriors. Our Facebook Live broadcast hit 42,000 viewers during the live hour. It helped Half Brick increase their FB post reach by 1,974% over the average post and 300% over similar game competitors like Angry Birds.
Extreme Retreat was a long-form digital commercial series produced by SXM. We produced 4 x 2-minute commercials which promoted various Galaxy Tabs from 2010 – 2012. The series was also notable because it featured appearances from Beth Behrs (Two Broke Girls) and Thomas Middleditch (Silcon Valley) before they were famous. Extreme Retreat follows the adventures of Mitch Manikowski, who takes his employees on crazy retreats in the Sahara and Peruvian Andes instead of Vegas or a spa. The Galaxy Tab helps employees survive the experience and even get their work done.
Diagnosis Stories is a moving documentary series (4 x 5 minutes) produced with Disney and sponsored by Eli Lilly Diabetes Care. We traveled America tracking the journeys of four different families as they cope with and overcome the diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes in a family member. Diagnosis Stories was produced to provide emotional support and be a tool for families undergoing similar struggles. There is very little Eli Lilly branding in this series. Disney released the series across multiple platforms including web, cable, and mobile in 2011.
