JibJab: Throw the cartoons, not the advertising
by Jeff Mellen
JibJab (http://www.jibjab.com),
a Brooklyn-based digital media company started by two brothers, is
still trying to find itself. Is it in the digital cartoon and
animated short business, leasing out its creations to AtomFilms and
the like? Or is it an advertising company looking to "think
beyond the banner?" Is its forte interactive music and
lyrical gadgets, or crude humor, or both?
To an impartial observer like me, I'd say that JibJab should progress
in the direction that distinguishes it the most from other web sites
and digital media offerings. On first glance, there isn't much
to differentiate it from many of the other digital animated shorts
I've seen. There are the series which attempt to "push
the envelope" in terms of content-- and by "pushing the
envelope," I of course mean "relying on crude humor which
wouldn't make it on television." Many of the earlier cartoons
on the site-- such as 30-second snippets of "Dirty Santa"
and the dog-centric series "Exit 109" fall into this category.
Frankly, I've seen enough of crude humor for crude humor's sake--
it's not largely off the air because it's offensive-- it's off TV
because it isn't funny.
JibJab does considerably better with its interactive musical gadgets,
such as "Capitol Ill," featuring a rapping Al Gore and George
W. Bush, "Mutha Fofathers," headlined by Revolutionary lyrical
gangstas Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and
"24K," a character that you can control the dance movements
of to a techno soundtrack. The lines in "Capitol Ill"
and "Mutha Fofathers" are pretty clever-- much more so than
the previously-created content on the site. The little interactivity
in those shorts also adds some value to the cartoons.
It seems, however, that the company may be doing better overall with
its advertising wing-- JibJab Interactive Marketing. With a
distinguished roster of top-level digital clients, such as Yahoo!,
SciFi.com, Shockwave, and others, and with the talents in animation
and interactivity that JibJab's artists possess, it may play more
to the company's strengths to create contract-based content, rather
than original shorts. JibJab's original content has gotten better,
but it still lags behind some of the more inventive and snappy material
out there, such as Thugs on Film, Choose Your Own Nightmare, Stain
Boy, and other recent digital ventures. Web advertising
is a volatile market, that's for sure-- but the digital media market
is no more stable, and JibJab may fare better by playing to its strengths.
Overall, the site is a mixed bag, but getting better-- and if it continues
to stick to its recent creative and business successes, it should
continue to improve.