Tag: Star Trek

Facebook Rolls Out Star Trek-Themed Reactions To Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is honoring the 50th anniversary of Star Trek with a custom set of Reaction emojis. The social network says only users in the U.S. and Canada who have shown interest in the sci-fi franchise or interacted with Star Trek-related content are able to see the themed emojis.

What Brands Need To Do
While it appears that there’s no involvement from the owners of Star Trek’s IP on this initiative, this move shows a new possibility for brands to integrate their IP with Facebook’s platform. In an age of peak distraction and ad avoidance, such native integrations can provide brands with a better chance at effectively connecting with their target audiences. If your brand would like to consider similar integrations on popular digital platforms to reach consumers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image courtesy of Facebook’s Vimeo Video

CBS Gets Serious About Its OTT Streaming Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Yesterday, CBS Broadcasting Inc. surprised the “trekkies” with the announcement of a new Star Trek TV series. More surprisingly, however, is how the broadcaster plans to distribute the long-awaited TV reboot. Reportedly, CBS is set to air the premiere episode on TV in early 2017 but will be putting all remaining episodes exclusively on CBS All Access, the subscription-based OTT streaming service it launched last fall.

Market Impact
Covering all CBS’ current content and back catalogue, All Access currently has about 100,000 subscribers, a number that pales in comparison to the likes of Netflix (69 million subs worldwide) and Hulu (9 million). As a longstanding Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek has built up a sizable number of devoted fans over the decades, a fanbase that CBS is clearly betting on to fuel the growth of its fledgling streaming service.

With more and more attention shifting from linear TV viewing to on-demand streaming, it makes sense for CBS to take proactive measures and leverage the enduring popularity of Star Trek franchise to raise the profile of its streaming service. Whether other networks will follow suit and start developing high-profile content exclusively for streaming platforms remains to be seen, but in the long run, this will likely prove to be a smart move for CBS.

 

Source: The Verge

Apple Launches New AppStore.com URLs

Posted on by Lab Team

Apple’s latest product launch may have slipped under your radar. On January 31, Apple updated its Developer documentation to include reference to new “easy-to-read links to your app…which use the AppStore.com base URL plus a specific form of your app or company name.” This announcement was unusually subtle for Apple, but was noticed widely during the Super Bowl ad for the new Star Trek movie, which pointed viewers to AppStore.com/StarTrekApp.  Vanity URLs will be issued to new apps by Apple, without the option for developers to configure them, and direct conflicts will be resolved by leading common extensions to a search page.