New JibJab Spot, Ads Courtesy of MSN

JibJab’s got a new animation out tomorrow, on Bush’s bad year. It’ll run on JibJab.com and MSN Video, with monetization coming from video pre-rolls with adjacent Flash units.

I spoke to Greg Spiridellis, one of the creators, and he said there’s no product placement. I was curious about that, since the studio (Or is it an agency?) has done commercial work for Budweiser, making animated spots in the style (and with the cache) of earlier JibJab movies. The JibJab thing has gotten a bit tired for some people, but the approach is interesting in light of today’s merging of entertainment and advertising. Of course, film directors have done ads on the side for decades, but these have always suppressed the creators’ identities. JibJab’s Budweiser spots exploit them.

“It’s a tricky thing to do well,” he said of product placement. “There are interesting opportunities, as long as it doesn’t degrade the integrity of the content. It’s a brave new world, trying to find the balance. When we do ad work, the creative is as challenging, if not more so, than when we’re doing original work. We’re trying to balance that, and trying to make ads that we’d want to watch.”