Adbeast, a digital media-based common operating platform for the advertising industry, had its ‘coming out party’ at the recent Bessie Awards in Toronto.

In development for a year, adbeast is the brainchild of former TBWAChiat Day CEO Steve Hancock and his partner, former Spy Films executive William Cranor. The new company’s management team also includes Saman Farazdaghi (technology), Louis Fishauf (design/brand identity) and Gord Schofield (finance).

According to the partners, adbeast’s purpose is simple: ‘To provide a default, collaborative online system and platform that will transform the way the advertising industry manages and produces advertising materials.’

The system is an online studio allowing secure archiving, cataloguing and distribution of digital files. Project and pitch rooms, and an online reel editing and compilation system are also important components of adbeast.

‘It would be better for everybody if there was a common standard to work on,’ says Hancock, adbeast’s CEO. ‘Just like the 3/4-inch was the common standard, the mission is to become that standard, with a lot more functionality and utility.’

Cranor explains adbeast’s battle plan: ‘Starting in Canada, we have the opportunity to really test this thing right through. We want to get up to 30 clients by the fall, and then prepare for a U.S. rollout in the new year.’

Adbeast clients include Spy, Radke Films, Third Floor Editing and Sesler & Company. On the agency side, clients include Bensimon Byrne D’Arcy and Lanyon Phillips Communications in Vancouver.

‘Our challenge right now is keeping up with the demand for it,’ Hancock says. Apparently, as new people get on the system they are creating new uses for it. ‘So we’re not going to move to the U.S. until we’re comfortable with that,’ he adds.

Cranor believes adbeast can also be helpful in familiarizing the industry with the Internet and preparing it for a future of online, interactive advertising. ‘It will start to make the chasm smaller,’ he says.

The colossal task of digitizing gigantic agency archives, currently stored on 3/4-inch tapes, is another challenge for adbeast. ‘We have an 80:20 rule,’ says Cranor. ‘We say, ‘Let’s start with the 20% you’re using on an everyday basis. Over the coming months, we will be able to combine point-to-point fiber transfers and remote bureaus and be able to digest those archives right from the site that’s providing it.’ ‘

Adds Hancock: ‘We’re saying, ‘Let’s get some of your core work into the archive and then every new commercial, as it’s finished, automatically put that into the system.’ ‘ *

-www.adbeast.com