Jib Jab Sells Out to Bud

Hmmmm "viral" is such a keen word! Speaking of viral,It reminds me of a story once posted here by a person who told it in the common auto-biographical tone of "a friend of mine" or this "guy i once knew"
This eloquent and insightful passage has an "Everyone's doing it" kinda vibe to it.Anyone willing to do a minute of research can find out who...Gracious indeed! I'll leave it at that.

I'm reminded of the famous story about the boy who was ashamed of his virginity.

"Everyone else is doing it," he thought, "I just need to get a start. After that it'll come easy."

But what could he do? Where could he go?

His teacher? His priest?

"Well," he said to himself, "Those fraternity boys seem to get a lot of action. Maybe I'll party with them."

And party he did. Party until he was bloody and couldn't stand anymore. Party until he was blinded with oozing eyes. Party, indeed.

Was it good for him? Who can say? The boys from Chapter 322 had a great time.

And he got that experience which he had wanted for so long.

{insert ad hominem insult here}
{anonymous signature}

{see above for expression of wanking exstacy in icon form}

Whether it's good or bad it's hard to do anything in the entertainment world these days without some kind of endorsement. And that's been more or less true for a long time. "Selling out" isn't receiving money from a big coprporation. "Selling out" is letting that money or corporation influence your work beyond the extent that you're comfortable with. And it has happened, so maybe some suspicion is warranted at times (corporations rarely give out endorsements from philanthropy - they usually have a stake in it). But I think Jib Jab will be okay in the long run (as someone pointed out, they have done marketing and commercials in the past, and they have always aimed for a big audience, so it fits). And besides, who wouldn't want to focus on animation full time even if it did mean a little compromise here and there? I don't blame them at all for the move. Congrats!

complaining is free.
budweiser pays well im sure

What the heck?

Who will pay their bills and allow them to do what they love- animation?

Bloggin community?

What a stupid post.

This looks like the kind of thing Budweiser would kick up to generate interest.

Don't fall for the corporate double-think.

Congrats to Evan, Greg and the rest of the JibJab gang down in Santa Monica. You guys deserve all the recognition and funding. I love their Matzah short.

Aloha,
the Ape

Hey guys. This is Gregg at JibJab. I just want to thank the people in this forum for their support. Everyone here knows how hard it is to earn enough cash to funnel it into the original projects. That's always been the way we've kept JibJab alive and the Bud gig gives us the chance to (1) have some fun with classic Bud characters and (2) fund the next round of growth at our company.

As for the idea that we or Budweiser had anything to do with the JibJobbed animation, it is totaly ridiculous. We have stated in our blog that we would never, ever risk our reputation and relationship with our audience with sleazy attempts to trick people and generate buzz. If our work doesn't generate buzz, we'd rather focus on making our next project better than wasting time with cheap PR stunts. We respect our audience too much to try and pull that kind of crap. As for the Jib Jobbed animation. We think it's kind of funny. We are also utterly confused that the guy who made this would blast us for doing commercial work. HE'S AN ONLINE MARKETING GUY! What the @#$% is that all about???? Oh well.

Thanks again for the continued support. Keep cranking those flash animations and getting them out there on the web. You never know when your animation might turn "viral"!

Did we hear the same carping when U2 "sold out" to Apple, allowing them to use U2 songs to promote iTunes, their "signature" iPod, etc?

Or how 'bout PBS, who has had corporate sponsorship for years?

So these guys got a sponsorship deal. So what? They have a steady income stream now and can really focus on their craft.

Selective outrage really annoys me...

Hi Greg, you guys were my inspiration back in 1999 when I got my first computer and first copy of Flash. You made it look possible to reach an audience independently. Thanks.

Pat

Do your thing Gregg!

I guess those guy are just jealous.

So....
Being commercial animators (which is what they are as they intended to generate revenue from their site) and working on a commercial is selling-out?
You ought to sell-out and get a life.

Good on them.

WTF?! Do these maroons just assume animation is our hobby? JibJab's been doing commercial work for some time now... Matzah's moves were so smooth it blew me away, NICE WORK GUYS!

Congrats to Jib Jab. Doing what you love to do and being paid for it is hardly "selling out".

Great way to pay the bills and generate revenue. I am sick of people who think anything other then independent is considered selling out.

Hey Gregg, I hope you stick around AWN and share a few of your secrets and tips with the rest of us. We are a friendly group, you might find it fun.

:o I'd love to "sellout" if thats what you choose to call it!
Jib Jab rocks!

Ewwww, everythings a "conspiracy"! hahaha! What a joke!

congrats, bud is a good client to have if you ask me..

:) Thanks greg for stopping by and clarifying that a bit.
I think "some" of the animation professionals have forgotten whats its like to be starting out and have an over-inflated self important air about themselves that they just can't seen to ever let go of? Blowhards I like to call em.
Nice to see one in the industry who is still down to earth enough to talk to us Non-Union peons who know nothing of the industry or its ways.:rolleyes:
Kudos to you and your team.
Keep up the fine work!

This is who that domain is registered to:

http://www.nickstamoulis.com/

It's a web PR firm which specializes in online "buzz".

Anyone willing to spend 3 minutes research can find this out.

First, guy registers to post JUST ABOUT THIS. No other info.

Then, the domain is registered to a PR firm.

I was at an advertising conference a few months back where all the agencies were talking about doing this sort of thing.

Looks pretty transparent to me.

Swank,

I see you changed your avatar.

That "blowhard" swipe is at me.

Apologies for an incorrect assertation. It's well documented that PR firms do that sort of thing, in this Gregg says it isn't.

Even if it was a web marketing thing, that in no way denegrates Gregg and and Evan's work. So I'm not sure why anyone would fly off the handle like that.

One knucklehead with a forum and ZERO posts.
That should generate some buzz!
Bud has no problem selling thier product and they have Multi Million dollar ad campaigns and top notch (appeal wise) commercials.
90-95% Of the people who drink bud dont give a ratts ass about what some guy has to say about a funny commercial.:eek:

Someone asked me how to find out who owns a website, so I figure I'd share it with everyone.

Go to register.com (other registration sites probably have this, too.)

Type in the domain name and click the "whois" option. You'll have to repeat a code so they know you're not a spammer. And this will take you to a page that gives you the ownership info. Usually a name of registrant, their main domain, their phone number.

In this case I used the phone number to find out who owned the site. If you Google a phone number it will give you the white page listing. Here it gave me other registrations of various sites.

Yeah, it's amazing that Anheiser-Busch would bother with sort of thing, but they're doing it more and more because it costs way less than TV advertising.

Advertisers are quickly trying to pull out of traditional :30 spots and "viral" advertising through word of mouth on the internet is one big way of doing this. Another is creating "content" for TV. Burger King's ad agency, for instance, just signed a development deal with a network to develop shows.

It's a web PR firm which specializes in online "buzz".

If this is a viral marketing campaign, I wonder who it's meant to promote, Jib Jab or Budweiser. I'd say that it doesn't look to be effectively doing either, until you look at the comments in defense and praise of Jib Jab.

For the record, I've worked with Greg and Evan at Jib Jab and I don't recall them ever saying anything about not wanting to sell out.

Also, internic.net has the WhoIs lookup, but it's one level deep. Using the "domain" radio button it will basically tell you which WhoIs site to go to in order to fully lookup the total of information on the domain.

I am totally disappointed in the sales world if they would do something with such obvious red flags; to believe there's any hope of it working is to insult us by believing we would not see them. It would appear the only intelligence they have to be concerned about is their own.

I agree. "Selling out" has been the cry of envy for years, the call of dissatisfaction and self-righteousness from the moronical. I remember about 20 years ago some of my friends who were into Pink Floyd said that Floyd had sold out because some of their music had some political overtones or some other hogwash. They also said it wasn't Pink Floyd anymore without Waters. Whatever. If they're doing what they want, and they still have an audience, and they're making a living, who gives a rat's bald behind what some folks think. There will always be trash talkers out there. Who you gonna listen to?

Show me the money.

My only complaint would be that when they hit the big time with their presidential stuff, you couldn't view the old stuff without subscribing. I have been a long time fan. Don't really care for their cut out stuff, but it's marketable. I want to access their old doggy bar story things. But can't afford a subscription. So guess I'll have to remember them from memory. Haven't been there in a while, so if they are back up don't jump on me. They took them down around Christmas. And speaking of Christmas I was probably one of the first to download their ugly Santa Screensaver.

Hey, I know about money. I don't think since St. Francis there's been anyone that didn't sell out....and he sold out to the highest power.