Firebrand Flames Out

I'm going to crank this part of the blog back up & while this isn't exactly happy news for the "space", it's definitely news that NBCU backed Firebrand has tossed in the towel after only a few months. The new splash screen (obituary?) on the site (don't know how long this will be live...) kind of says it all, "its never easy when art meets commerce". Given that someone there understands at least that much, the disappointing part was that they gave up so quickly. I wasn't impressed with Firebrand and frankly I'm not impressed with Honeyshed so far (probably none of them were impressed by us, either!). But I do respect that what they were trying to do is hard and different and the first steps are unlikely to be all that amazing. So the shame of it all is the timing. This was over so fast that we didn't learn anything. There was no innovation phase, there was no iteration. Is it really a surprise that just throwing up a bunch of high art commercials didn't immediately go viral? That it didn't immediately lead to double digit sales growth for the advertisers? Did anyone really think that reconstructing the value chain between manufacturers and consumers would be that easy? I think it calls into question (again) whether or not big media companies can really play a meaningful role in innovation in the space (I think the exception at the moment is Viacom, where Mika Salmi appears for the moment to be playing the intrapreneurial role extremely well. I hope it lasts.) vs. simply M&A (where I'd give high marks to Quincy Smith). I'm really optimistic about 2008. I love what we're doing at ExpoTV and I love what a lot of other people are doing in video, in commerce & in the spaces in between. But make no mistake, it isn't going to be easy to remake a media landscape where some big edifices have been built over a long period of time. Just like there's no way to go through a maze in a straight line, no one is going to get it right on the first go. Update: AdRants has written the definitive post on the downfall of Firebrand here. Beyond the merciless de-construction of the premise, the comments are interesting, including one from Shari Leventhal, Firebrand's former CMO.