A perfect storm: the social web, storytellers and brands
13th July 10
Posted in Brands, storytelling
Entertainment brands.. showing us how transmedia is done
Last week was Pixel Lab, Power to the Pixel‘s (@powertothepixel) cross-media workshop.
I joined a group of tutors and producers, half with film/transmedia projects in development, half not, from around the world for the latter half of their week away in Wales.
By way of introduction, Power to the Pixel are an organisation dedicated to supporting film and the wider media in its transition to a digital age. Ben and I are both lucky to be on their Advisory board.
My brief was to shed some light on brands and cross-platform/transmedia storytelling, which, if I am honest, initially felt a little awkward. Brands and agencies may be embracing cross-platform creativity and integration per se, but true transmedia… not so much. The likes of Campfire with their Frenzied Waters work for the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week last year, Audi Art of the Heist and – back in the day – Beta 7 for Sega; as well as Ivan Askwith at Big Spaceship (who was generous and interested enough to chew the fat with me late one evening) are two, honourable exceptions.
With this in mind, my presentation focused primarily on what brands and their agencies are learning about integration, interaction and new partnerships in the hypersocial environment we find ourselves in. I also attempted to explain why brands may be reticent about taking a step further into building deep, immersive, narrative worlds. Along the way, telling the story of a (failed) BBH Labs joint venture and what we took from it… and finally, ending with a proposal.
That proposal was simply this: that producers should look beyond viewing brands as “promoters” (cf the current raft of Toy Story 3 and The A-Team tie-ups) and consider them as partners instead. Develop stories together that add value to the overarching narrative (think Jeep for Lost Experience) AND stay open-minded to the idea of engaging audiences through collective creativity. I summed up this approach via an adaptation of Chris Anderson’s “3-Party” model:
Adapted from Chris Anderson's Three-Party Market (Free, 2009)
As always, we’d love to hear what you think. The presentation is best viewed on slideshare, below.
A Perfect Storm The Social Web, Storytelling And Brands 08 07
Can we imagine deeper partnerships with producers that go beyond straightforward product placement or promotional work?
Is there an opportunity for non-entertainment brands to break properly into transmedia? What examples of best practice are out there?
Most of the videos to accompany the presentation are also saved on slideshare, but I’ve included them here too. Note the clip from Talladega Nights (you need only watch the first 30 seconds), which at once epitomises the best and worst of all things product placement-related. Enjoy.
http://www.vimeo.com/8254341
http://www.vimeo.com/11158156
Thanks again to Liz Rosenthal, Tishna Molla, founder and producer of Power to the Pixel respectively, for inviting me along to such an extraordinary workshop; Josh Klein and Patti Greaney for endorsing the value of sharing our Crowd Creates / Roo’d experience; Dan Light (@danlight) for walking me through the intricacies of Iron Man 2 and once again to the generous and smart Ivan Askwith (@Ivanovitch) for the time spent sharing his wisdom.
Great post and presentation Mel. Telling great stories is a tough nut (telling mediocre stories is pretty easy, on the other hand). As I’m looking at your presentation, the last slides of trying and failing often jump out at me.
Maybe rather than trying to create great opuses, or the next American novel or film, we should be trying to tell short stories or anecdotes that tie to one another. It certainly raises the chances of success and reduces risk.
To that end, General Motors did an interesting spin on product placement on Medium last year, where the SUV actually played a critical role in the story. Unfortunately, GM never took that role or story and extended it anywhere else.
Lots to think about though. Thanks.
You raise a really smart (and reasonable!) point. Brands are culturally used to developing fairly short form content, perhaps we should accept we should build from – or even be content – with that. Converse is a good example.
Hey Mel,
I really like the presentation – the work Power to the Pixel do is good and wanted to tell you about some work we’ve done.
Grey London, Wildfire, VML London have just done a crowd-sourced documentary called Live Every Litre. It was to launch the CR-Z and was a 35 day road trip round Europe.
Honda and Nokia partnered with Claudio Von Planta and Future Shorts to make it. The campaign blended PR, social media, web, mobile, film etc.
I think the success of the project lied in understanding that the goal posts are ever evolving i.e. alot of the decisions are based on what the audience wants. Also the campaign lasted a long period of time and had time to build up with a core community.
There were things that didn’t work but you are right – we need to fail in order to succeed.
Keep up the good work!
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I had spent a good deal of my own time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly.
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