Producer Michael Sugar and a roster of Hollywood talent decided to engage brands in a new way

In early May, sandwiched between NewFronts and traditional broadcast (and now streaming) fronts, a new showcase for pitches to major advertisers will debut.

Billed as The Way Upfronts, the series of virtual presentations scheduled for May 7 and 8 is a hybrid of ad-supported television's annual spring shows and the supercharged energy of a festival market. There are plans to host quarterly in-person events, with next month's launch edition intended to increase visibility at a time when talent is already making the rounds and fully emerging from a strike-marked 2023.

Oscar-winning producer and manager Michael Sugar's company, Sugar23, is spearheading the new initiative, which has attracted participation from brands representing some $120 billion in spending. These Madison Avenue dollars are attracted to Zoom talent. Although organizers have not shared the names of the presenters with the public, the event's host committee includes Scarlett Johansson, Colin Jost, John Legend, Tom Brady, Elizabeth Banks and Steven Soderbergh.

There will be 20 slots for presenters, with a roster of A-list producers and stars presenting films, TV shows, documentaries and books, many in the early stages of development.

Sugar's credits include the Oscar-winning film Projector as well as notable series like 13 reasons why And The Knick. Sugar23 has already made significant progress over the years in its efforts to work with major brands.

In an interview with Deadline, Sugar said the goal was to create a new paradigm for facilitating connections between talent and advertisers. “It’s closer to the way Hollywood presents on a daily basis,” he said. “Pitches, sizzle reels, ideas, packaged scripts, whatever. What we are creating is a market. What I believe will happen is we will sell out some shows. … I’ve seen what’s coming, and it’s good.

The new market will ideally benefit all stakeholders, Sugar said.

“We want the distributors to win,” he said. “That’s the key. We want studios to win, we want talent to win, we want brands to win. We want every leg of the stool to win here. What we want to do is increase the flow of opportunity for everyone by moving the billions of dollars spent on media and marketing to a new medium to spend them on.

The economic aspects of the event will naturally be more variable than those of a traditional front, given that linear advertising still relies on 30-second spots, the prices of which have remained stable despite the drop in audience. Six-figure investments will likely be the starting point for some projects, but much larger spending will also give brands ownership stakes in projects. According to Sugar, having participation is more desirable for them than simply earning impressions, seeking to get their products on screen, or activating sponsorships around programming.

The Way Upfronts will coincide with a notable shift in the streaming landscape in 2024, which will be reflected in the upfront presentations taking place May 13-15 in New York. Amazon and Netflix will join traditional media companies with in-person shows for the first time, which have recently made major pushes into the video advertising business. Disney, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery, meanwhile, will tout their ad-supported streaming offerings. And then there's YouTube, of course, which occupies its own unique but very broad lane.

Ad-supported streaming “is a very important piece of the puzzle and I don’t think we’re trying to disintermediate that,” Sugar said. At the same time, he added, “there are question marks over whether advertisers are only reaching consumers who are normally beyond a paywall via an advertising tier who may or may not represent who they are trying to reach.”

Talent agencies have long represented both celebrities and A-list brands and have insisted for decades that the two sides of the industry must eventually become more closely intertwined. Some media buyers have also moved toward more direct exchanges with talent. Acknowledging this history, Sugar said he doesn't claim to be the first to understand the basic concept. “What’s different about our approach,” he said, “is that we are leading on intellectual property. We lead with creators, not with traders, not with relationship brokers. And that solves the execution challenge, because even if a brand was sold this concept by their creative agency or media buyer – “Hey, we should do entertainment!” – they wouldn’t know how. They would rely on the wrong people for ideas. »

Without an effort like Way Upfronts, Sugar believes, “brands would see things that couldn't overcome the hurdles in Hollywood,” as opposed to the “premium” fare her storefront would offer. “What we're taking as our marks are the leaders of Glengarry,” he continued, with a nod to the main plot point of David Mamet's book. Glengarry Glen Ross. “The opportunity to get involved early.”