New episodes of their adventures and challenges will air daily on 711RoadTrip.com, while 7-Eleven and partners, including Dr. Pepper, [image-nocss] Planter's, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer and Nestl a Pure Life, will promote the show through their own websites.
"The show provides a great opportunity to use the enthusiasm around auto racing and reality TV to reach fans and appeal to new customers on the web," said Rita Bargerhuff, 7-Eleven's chief marketing officer. "We knew the best way to get our point across would be through video. We've had great success with social media, so a web series made perfect sense. Blip.tv truly understands the distributed web and they've been invaluable throughout the development of this program."
Customers and racing fans can follow each team's progress, daily challenge competitions, and the comedic drama of a cross-country road trip not only on 711roadtrip.com, but also through 7-Eleven's presence on Facebook and Twitter. Viewers will also be able to keep track of each team as all tweets will be geo-tagged and shared on an interactive map at 711RoadTrip.com.
Blip.tv will distribute the show to partner sites and platforms including iTunes, Yahoo! and AOL Video, TiVo, Sony Bravia, Verizon FiOS and the Roku Digital Video Player. The show's final challenge will take place at Indy, where drivers Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick from Andretti Autosport will announce the winners.
"7-Eleven is a brand that understands where its customers live and how to connect with them in an impactful way," said Evan Gotlib, blip.tv's vice president of advertising sales. "We have always been and will continue to remain focused on supporting and promoting quality, original web shows, and 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally is an exciting addition to the blip.tv lineup."
San Francisco's Happy Little Guillotine (HLG) Films is working with blip.tv and 7-Eleven to produce, film and edit all of the episodes airing on 7-Eleven Road Trip Rally. "It's incredibly energizing to work with companies like 7-Eleven and blip.tv on this project," said Yuri Baranovsky, one of the founders of HLG Films. "We're independent show creators at HLG, first and foremost, and both companies allowed us to impart our expertise and our vision while working to create a great series. To me, this is the future of media; it's branded content with purpose and high entertainment value that will really draw in viewers."
More than 44,000 independent show creators (from scripted sitcoms and dramas to news magazines and how-to shows) visit the blip.tv show creator dashboard every day to review their statistics, engage with their communities of viewers, tweak settings and release new episodes. Together these shows serve more than 85 million video views a month; 85% of those video views are paired with targeted, direct-sold advertising from brands like PepsiCo, Chevrolet, Samsung, AT&T, Samsung and Scion.
Blip.tv said that its mission is to change media by making independent show production sustainable, scalable and profitable. The company works with more than 50,000 independently produced web showsranging from sitcoms to dramas to how-to shows and moreand provides them the services of scale they need to be successful and sustainable. Blip.tv hosts and syndicates shows to iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo, AOL Video, Verizon FiOS, TiVo, Sony Bravia, The Roku Digital Video Player, Facebook and elsewhere. Blip.tv splits all advertising revenue with show creators 50/50.
Dallas-based 7 Eleven operates, franchises or licenses approximately 8,200 7-Eleven stores in North America.
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