Andy Climan, CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures, has seen firsthand how storytelling is changing industries across the world. In this exclusive interview, he discusses how data, creativity, and AI-enabled storytelling are turning media and entertainment into powerful platforms for knowledge exchange.
How do you see the entertainment and media industries evolving into platforms for knowledge exchange in today’s digital era?
The tools of storytelling were once solely the provenance of media and entertainment. Today, storytelling is essential to a wide range of consumer-facing businesses, and the skill sets of media and entertainment are increasingly the “front-end” for gathering and servicing customers in industries as diverse as finance, travel, and healthcare, just to name a few.
Media and entertainment platforms are evolving into the world of “media singularity,” where entertainment, sports, games, finance, shopping, news, information, and social media converge on communities that are supported by algorithms that understand the consumer and anticipate and serve the consumer’s needs. It is a comfortable place that makes the consumer feel included and respected, a seemingly harmonious relationship that leads to a proper balance of goods and services in exchange for earning an increasing amount of the consumer’s expenditures for both necessary and discretionary items.
The key to success for these evolving platforms is no longer spending tens of millions of dollars on network television advertising and other legacy media to create consumer awareness of movie and television premieres or branded consumer products.
Success moving forward is based on data, reach, personalization, and monetization. Increasingly precise data and analytics, coupled with the application of AI, is accelerating the impact and timeframe of these changes in consumer behavior.
From your experience at the intersection of media and investment, how can creative industries balance artistic integrity with economic growth in the knowledge economy?
I believe there is plenty of room for “popcorn” entertainment as well as for entertainment that tells human stories that touch the heart. The growth areas of the industry include the next generation of digital production, both short and long-form, along with more documentaries, productions that highlight the human stories from sports, and news and information that can gather communities and inspire.
Digital technology, with a boost from AI, is rapidly lowering the cost of production and democratizing the ability to produce. Importantly, this is a worldwide phenomenon. Digital distribution has built a global platform to reach audiences. The key to success is to find your audience. Influencers have shown the way to galvanize audiences into communities.
The goal is to establish and grow your community, with the benefit of loyal fans who will understand and enjoy your content while allowing profitable monetization. Artistic integrity should be essential to creators building and nurturing their communities.
How do cross-border collaborations in media and entertainment contribute to building global knowledge networks and promoting cultural exchange?
I believe it is a blessing that we now live on a global media and entertainment platform. Hollywood is now just one of the centers of creative excellence, with increasing investment and expertise found in creative centers in the GCC, Asia, Latin America, and, increasingly, Africa.
The US global studios and streamers have moved production overseas, supporting the development of new studios and giving tremendous opportunities for training the next generation of global creators. Further, the streaming platforms are global, and they are making additional investments in local production.
Entertainment is no longer dominated by American-centric stars and storytelling. Korea, Turkey, and Latin America have led the way for globalizing production that would not have found audiences in the US or globally in the past. Developing AI technologies have the capacity to localize language for entertainment produced anywhere in the world.
New digital production technologies, enhanced with AI, are developing quickly, making it possible to produce high-quality productions without the heavy capital costs associated with legacy Hollywood production. Clearly, this leads to storytelling and cultural exchange that bridges cultures, educates, and, hopefully, brings better understanding to audiences around the world. It is an exciting time to be a creator!
What lessons can emerging markets—particularly in MENA—draw from the US entertainment ecosystem in nurturing creative industries as a cornerstone of their knowledge economies?
The MENA region has historically benefited from great storytelling. Films that have been influential in my own life have come from Egypt and Lebanon.
I have been wildly impressed with both the public and private sector support in the GCC to develop the next generation of storytellers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. What is needed to grow creative industries is now well underway.
There needs to be disciplined investment in film, television, and digital media. Many new production studios have been funded across the region. There is training being developed by both these studios and universities in the region. My hope is that the investment in infrastructure and training is far-sighted in keeping pace with the extraordinary breakthroughs in production technology.
The next generation of filmmakers will have tools to produce the most visually engaging stories—tools that we could only have dreamed of 20 years ago.
