Great Big Story Agency Post

Nov 15, Michael Elias

Last Wednesday, an old M-school student came to our class to talk about what she has done since she has graduated. Her name was Jackie Omanoff and she is a Producer and Director for the ad agency Great Big Story. She makes documentaries about different short stories that revolve around different people and cultures. She talked about how she did not go to film school and majored in Marketing at lmu, but she just tried out this pathway after college and she really enjoys it. Most of her peers she said went to film school, but she said she is lucky that she did not need to go to film school to get to where she is now. She also said that her job involves a lot of travelling, which is both a good and a bad thing. She also said that digital marketing agencies that focus on branding make more money, but she likes the creative freedom that comes with agencies like Great Big Story and she feels that they still pay a substantial amount of money for her job.

Now for information about the media company Great Big Story itself. They have offices based in New York as well as in London. They launched their company in October 2015 by CNN. They have made over 2,600 videos and have published them on sites such as Facebook and Youtube. The head of the company was Andrew Morse and Courtney Coupe. They were largely successful for 5 years, but they actually recently decided to stop operations for this company. On October 21, 2020, WarnerMedia news and sports chairman and CNN president Jeff Zucker announced that he would be shutting down Great Big Story because “we did not see a path to grow it financially.”

It is a shame that a media agency as interesting as Great Big Story was ended due to not being able to turn a profit. It shows that in the marketing world, the goal is still to make money - not to tell amazing stories. This makes me sad because it shows that marketing is still about manipulation and making the people want a product or information. In this case, Great Big Story made this form of content in the form of interesting, quirky stories as a supplemental for CNN to grow their consumer base. Because it was popular in itself but not as a supplemental, they were unable to draw in the numbers that were comparable to CNN, and that is why it got shut down. This is a reason why I would like to maybe go into pure film production instead of film production related to marketing - so that the focus is on the creativity and less on the making of money. Although, I am aware that Hollywood itself only speaks green, so maybe the world of filmmaking does not match my own optimism, which is sad. I think that film companies should focus on making money, but they do not need to be so formulaic and manipulative about it. I am certain there are plenty of stories that are being unheard right now and could appeal to a large audience for the reason that they have not been seen or heard before. Things that are considered “indie” just need a chance for a big budget and a little luck, and then they could be considered on the same scale as big-name companies.