Billy Parks
As leader of Fullscreen’s Strategic Content Group, Parks focuses on building entertainment franchises for audiences and brands. One shining moment for Parks was the creation of “SnapperHero,” the first original scripted series for Snapchat. It was short listed for a Canned Branded Content Lion to boot. “If a platform like Snapchat can grow to approximately 200 million users in four years, the sky is the limit,” he says. “We can’t be afraid of the change. Instead we have to evolve and become more nimble and future-focused in identifying patterns.”
What does the multiscreen experience look like in 3 years?
WHO KNOWS! If a platform like Snapchat can grow to approximately 200MM users in four years, the sky is the limit. We can’t be afraid of the change. Instead we have to evolve and become more nimble and future-focused in identifying patterns. For one thing, we know that the growth of social platforms has transformed our friends into our entertainment, and increasingly we see consumers demanding that entertainment engage in authentic relationships that look a lot like friendship.
How do you keep yourself and your team engaged and informed on the changing multiscreen universe?
The great thing about our team is that we have a lot of really smart people who are looking at these issues from different perspectives like consumer insights, social engagement and trends, to name a few. We are all passionate about different aspects of multiverse storytelling and share our insights with each other so that we can be fueled by different pools of information. That said, we tend to always come back to how the consumer is really behaving in these spaces, what they want, and how can we give it to them.
To what degree will measurement factor into multiscreen monetization in 2016?
Every single concept we create has measurement at its core. Period. We are always using measurement to optimize in real time. But as we all know, measurement in multiverse isn’t perfect, and we need to continue to evolve multiverse measurement approaches. As more youth evade the reach of traditional broadcast TV and more digital video programming hits viewers, people want to know—and must know—how we are impacting the audience.
What are your 3 go-to apps?
Instagram, Snapchat and Waze
If you had to spend a month in the virtual reality, what would your environment be?
At the Buffalo Trace Distillery.