Tracking Transmedia

By Sam Ford:

 

"Transmedia storytelling has become a common phrase in many media industries circles. But what does it look like for B2B?

 

.... the Annenberg Innovation Lab at theUniversity of Southern California recently launched a new initiative called theTransmedia Branding Research Group.

 

"The Lab has decided to make transmedia storytelling for business-to-business brands one of their primary areas of focus, an endeavor in which I look forward to participating. As that effort gets underway, here are my initial thoughts about what "transmedia storytelling" in the B2B world really means. In short, I think B2B transmedia storytelling can be most powerful when it:

Is built on real-life relationships. Hill Holliday's once suggested that the difference between B2B brands and B2C brands is that B2C brands typically have to use their storytelling to create the illusion of "brand personality" or of a relationship between the product/company behind the product and the customer. Meanwhile, the vast majority of B2B customer relationships are built on direct interaction between human beings at each company. The concept of "transmedia," then, should often be focused on extending these relationships which already exist into new realms...."

 

Jacki Morie, a virtual world designer in telehealth care, thinks they can. Morie is a Senior Scientist and Project Director for the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (USC ICT).

Photo credit: Wikipedia Never an outlet to shy away from controversy or a juicy political scandal, Gawker may have finally outdone itself....

 

"...The story started on Thursday night, when Gawker posted a piece by John Cook detailing how the site came to be offered a video of what was claimed to be Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. Cook journeyed to TO, met with some shady characters and saw the video footage with his own eyes. The video’s owners – Somali drug dealers - had already shopped it to Canadian media outlets, but had deemed one’s offer of $40K to be too low. No, they wanted six figures for what could be the nail in the coffin of Ford’s strange and embattledpolitical career. So, what does any enterprising news outlet do in the year 2013? They start a crowdfunding campaign to ask site readers to donate the $200K it would take to pay the ransom on the video and vow to post it on their site once they presumably hand over a bag of unmarked loonies and toonies to the men who claim to supply the most powerful mayor in Canada with drugs...."

"Big data has enabled many firsts. It was used to develop the atomic bomb that ended WWII. It was used to put a man on the moon. And now it is used every day in every way through the devices we carry around in our pockets--our mobile phones....

 

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY.

The dataset you want is a global one, but the most valuable individual queries are typically the hyperlocal ones. Design and build your platform solution for the broadest possible footprint, and then slice and dice it as necessary to create value. For example, the Weather Company uses its global weather data to create localized, sales-driven analytics on segments such as retail. Data says a high-temperature forecast of 60-degree weather prompts sales of shorts in Chicago, but the same encourages sales of jackets in Phoenix. This helps shape more effective messaging on our properties for both the consumer and the advertiser...."

 

A Reddit user mapped the connections between the network's niche communities. The result looks like a galaxy.

"A look at the storytelling journey and digital marketing for transmedia and web series success story The Lizzie Bennet Diaries....

 

The Story is the Thing

Lizzie Bennet co-creators Hank Green and Bernie Su recognized from the beginning Pride and Prejudice was their “greatest weapon,” a fantastic tried and true story (as Hank’s wife had pointed out). The book was first published on January 28, 1813, but has been retold and reimagined  in plays, movies, television shows and multiple other creative works. This romantic comedy of errors has also often found significant commercial success.  I could not help doing a little keyword research and noted that “pride and prejudice” is still searched over 200,000 times a month on Google. This enduring story clearly has much resonance, which the LBD team handled beautifully, transitioning it to a modern setting and narrative with great writing and pitch perfect casting (especially for Lizzie, Jane and Lydia)...."

 

Yahoo announced on Thursday it will be integrating content from Twitter directly into the news stream on Yahoo.com.

"Will you stay up and marathon them till morning, or parcel them out slowly over time?

 

You stay up until midnight (or even later in other time zones!) and mainline all of the new episodes until the next morning.

How to Prepare: Be sure to rest up the day before, since you wouldn't want to nod off that night and miss Kristen Wiig's cameo, would you? (At least you won't have to call in sick on Monday, since May 27 is Memorial Day.) And just remember: If you absolutely, positively need to take bathroom breaks or a quick catnap in order to continue … you are a lousy quitter and you should just burn yourself alive.

Drawbacks: You've waited years and years for these new episodes of Arrested Development, and now you're going to watch them bleary-eyed at 4:47 in the morning? This is perhaps not the best way to consume what could be the most important television you watch in your entire life...."

The Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning actor will play Braff's father in the independent film

"The increasing merger of TV and Internet is expanding the universe of viewers outside the realm of the old cable boxes gathering dust in warehouses...

 

Television, no matter where you watch, is inherently social.

“Another way of thinking of connected TV which could take us into a more interesting space is simply we are connecting audiences who are watching TV,” Jeremy Toeman, CEO for Dijit Media, a venture-funded startup focusing on discovery and analytics in the TV industry...."

 

"More like, "some touching." A new interactive visualization of Arrested Development’s recurring jokes is rather hands-on, so try not to leave any blue fingerprints behind...."

 

and the interactive is here...

 

http://recurringdevelopments.com/

CROWDFUNDING

The Cosmonaut has been one of the most successful projects in the world in the use of crowdfunding, having raised more than €400.000 and becoming a project with more than 4,500 producers.

machinima -- one of the largest channels on the world's largest video platform, youtube -- is now available without a computer, by way of xbox live.

Residents in the Boston area will have the chance to see a pretty unique art installation this weekend. On Sunday evening, hundreds of LED-enabled umbrellas will light up Cambridge thanks to a  to a collaboration between MIT and a Connecticut-based dance group known as Pilobolus. The event is called UP: The Umbrella Project and was first performed up in Camden, Maine last October. Over 300 members of the MIT student body, faculty, and staff will participate; each gets an umbrella lined with red, green, and blue LED lights plus a controller to let them change the lighting as they see fit, and all of the movements will be broadcast onto a large inflatable screen so that the performers can see their movements..."

Disruption. Headhunters. Execution. Yes, the cutthroat nature of modern corporations could rival any of the hand-severing antics of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

[PLEASE REFER TO THE SPEAKER'S NOTES IN THE SLIDES or TRANSCRIPT in the SLIDESHARE VIEWER!] How & why to take a Transmedia approach to creating and nurturing en

"Part 2 of a look at the storytelling journey and digital marketing for transmedia and web series success story The Lizzie Bennet Diaries...

 

Transmedia Lessons Learned

Speaking with Jay Bushman he had three very clear lessons learned from this amazing transmedia success story:

There is no such thing as digital marketing. He explained this means every piece of content they put out was considered part of the story. The social media and other online assets were not siloed into a separate marketing department, they are as much a part of the LBD storyworld as the core vlog series.The transmedia team needs to be in the writers room. An extension of the philosophy above, for a multiplatform story to work, the transmedia content producers need to be as deeply embedded in the creative process as possible. Major plot points unfolded in the social media storylines and synergy and knowledge exchange needed to happen between all the storytellers involved.Interactivity does not mean surrendering the storytelling to the audience. If the audience had its way Lydia would never have fallen for Wickham and a big part of the drama, conflict and character growth of LBD would not have happened. Jay feels the audience still wants to be taken on a journey that transports them somewhere else. Interactivity can happen by creating spaces where the audience can play and interact with characters but the story is still protected and guided by the creative team...."read more!  

Google CEO Larry Page delivered a highly unusual appearance on Wednesday during the company's I/O conference in which he delivered an impassioned speech.

In a deal that would vault Yahoo into the premiere league of social media, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is said to be closing in on a $1 billion acquisition deal with David Karp, the...