“We are here to try to expose the underbelly of business in true pulp fashion,” said Adam Sodowick, who is getting close to launching Pulp Business, the virtual media company that is the creation of his Lincoln-based startup Intelligent Business Entertainment Inc.
With three episodic series ready to go at launch – Satan was a CEO, True Office Romance and Fantastic Accounting Mysteries –
Pulp Business will be telling fictionalized versions of the types of stories that only get shared by co-workers and friends after work and after a few drinks. Tales of bosses who make their underlings’ life Hell, or crazy and foolish business deals, or workplace hookups and breakups.
The website and the titles are emceed by a virtual distaff version of Rod Serling named Sabrina Smythe who is ostensibly the CEO of the virtual enterprise Pulp Business. The three launch titles feature tales crafted by writers in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. The stories will be told in a visually compelling fashion, essentially motion-animated comics, similar to the types of web titles recently used by companies like
Marvel Comics. Interactive marketing specialists Virilion, which did some work for Marvel, is doing the motion graphics for Pulp Business.
Pulp Business plans to make money primarily through a sort of up-front but limited product placement in each story. So one week’s episode might see a character driving a certain car or drinking a certain vodka. But the number of placements or sponsorships will be limited on each episode, Sodowick said.
“We only allow a certain amount of advertisers in on any given moment, because you can’t have too much, because that would kill it,” he said.
According to research firm PQ Media, in its Global Branded Entertainment Marketing Forecast 2010-2014 report, the Internet is the fastest growing segment of the product placement industry. Last year, that industry grew by more than 10 percent to $40 million, while the overall marketplace decreased by 2.8 percent, the first decrease in the use of product placement since it was first tracked.
The stories will be available through a website, as well as mobile web, and apps for the Android operating system from Google Inc. and the iOS in both iPhone and iPad flavors.
Key to growing the Pulp Business, which just added its first employee other than Sodowick, is a strong social network function as well, according to Sodowick.
“A big component of this business is a social component, which hasn’t been launched yet,” he said. “The key things is these characters spill over into Facebook and Twitter and Linkedin.”
But the virtual characters are not the only social part of the Pulp Business model.
“One of the fundamental keystones of this company is that everybody has a story,” Sodowick said. As the Pulp Business viewership climbs, and more people sign up to comment on the stories, Sodowick also wants people to start sharing their own stories about demonic CEOs or magic-fingered accountants.
Sodowick’s last startup was Fifty Lessons Ltd., a BBC-backed digital production company that provided video interviews with CEOs on business topics.
Fifty Lessons, born in the United Kingdom, moved its headquarters across the pond to Boston in 2007.
While he wouldn’t get into details such as amounts, Sodowick said that Intelligent Business Entertainment is mostly self-funded with some backing from a few individuals.
“The business has literally hit the streets with a small group of investors. We’re looking at a lot of different various options for funding,” he said. Going forward, the company is seeking between $3 million and $5 million in startup funding, ideally in a first tranche to get Pulp Business through launch to a ramp up to 1 million viewers, at which point Sodowick would want to finish out the first round.
“We’re keeping the field very wide in terms of funding, and we are taking a more non-traditional route,” Sodowick said. “I think it will be a combination sales, selling equity and of selling rights.”
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Michael Salafia | Interactive Marketing | Michael@Pulpbusiness.com
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