Audiences no longer think in silos – the recent 2Screen evening demonstrated the power of creating compelling behaviour drivers and experiences across multiple platforms. Power to the Pixel’s recent centrepiece event, the Cross-Media Forum in London, brought together leading thinkers and pioneers from across the media industries who are instrumental in changing the way stories are conceived and are reaching audiences.

Below, PttP’s CEO Liz Rosenthal and COO Tishna Molla picks out some themes that are emerging from their work and, for anyone interested in new tools for storytellers, links to deeper thinking from the Pixel Report.

Story experience

“The best storytelling devices are, and have always been, rooted in human behaviours and desires,” says Mike Monello, Founder of Campfire and Co-Creator of The Blair Witch Project. His keys to creating a successful story experience are;

• Communal experience
• Making it tangible
• Fostering discovery
• Making it personal
• Building a world larger than your characters

Story = brand

Whilst marketers have long been used to advertising products across multiple platforms, do they really understand how to keep audiences engaged? How do you begin to find your audience, let alone engage them? How do you decide which platforms to use to tell your story, let alone work out how to use them? Director Jon M Chu, is an expert in how to not only reach, but to sustain an audience. He conceived The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (The LXD) – “a living, breathing comic book” – first and foremost as a brand, enabling connections with different audiences across multiple platforms.

Power lies with the audience

With the impact of new technologies has come a shift in authorship and access. Audiences have moved from passive viewer to active collaborator, stakeholder, co-creator, marketer, distributor, even financier. There’s a new breed of storyteller emerging, one that understands the new technologies, tools and services that are changing the way that stories are told, how and where audiences can interact with them and, as a result, the whole business of storytelling.

Lance Weiler (@lanceweiler), US filmmaker and story architect, grew his audience for Head Trauma - a fusion of feature film, live performance, mobile interaction, online gaming and remix – by allowing the audience to discover and expand elements of the story, moving them from one platform to the next in the process. Audience numbers grew in direct correlation to the number of access points made available to them.

Finnish director, Timo Vuorensola is an expert at collaborating and engaging with his audience throughout the development, production and distribution of his films. Crowd Controls is one great example of a tool that he uses to harness the power of the audience.

With technology advancing so rapidly, the possibilities for storytelling and audience interaction seem limitless or intimidating, depending on your point of view. No-one has all the answers anymore (if they ever did) which makes it essential now, more than ever, to share information and foster new networks, collaborations and partnerships. Which is what we do @powertothepixel.

http://www.iamironman2.com/home/

In the last of our blog posts with Dan Light we’ve saved the trickiest questions for last. What, if any, are the roles for brands in these transmedia extensions of the narrative? Can it ever get deeper than product placement and, if so, can brands ever make a legitimate contribution to the storytelling experience?

In the past decade we’ve seen that the music industry had to get screwed before it would change, the newspaper industry is struggling and the film industry is being forced to reinvent itself. Can entertainment industries transform themselves? Where do you see the film industry going?

I think the film industry is going to polarise. I think you’re going to have your Avatars – they will be big 3D events that will be 15-year projects and will command bigger and bigger sums of money.

At the other end will be the classic independent films, built around a good story but also written from the ground up, with a view to all the ways in which that story can be told, developed and audiences be found.

So brands need to find new ways to engage audiences and clearly sponsorship of this kind of content is a legitimate path, albeit it represents a fairly transactional relationship with the producer. Is this how you see the role of brands developing?

I always thought CASTAWAY was a reasonably good example, with the FedEx brand being woven into the very fabric of the film.  I’m sure some people hate it, but I’d rather that than a film where there are ten different consumer electronic products brandished in clear view at some point in proceedings.

Tom Hanks, Castaway

So your view is proper integration into the story, as opposed to product placement?

I think it’s about getting a brand involved early enough to figure out a way to work it in there which isn’t contrived.  Like [Mother Vision's] SOMERSTOWN and Eurostar, where the brand provides a discreet, credible backdrop to the film.  I registered the branding whilst I was watching it, but I only found that afterwards that they’d been involved in helping fund the film, which communicated something positive to me about their brand.  If there are independent films being made that are as good as SOMERS TOWN and it’s happening because a brand like Eurostar can find a way in and is prepared to get involved, then that’s great.

Versus say, Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ video, which seems completed prostituted with product placement. There is a point where she has Diet Coke cans in her hair, then she pulls out a branded phone on virgin mobile… I could go on and on…

But from what I understand about that video, it’s almost post-modern, and self-referential.  It’s saying ‘I’m prostituting myself by doing this, and I’m going to make as much money as possible by doing it. I don’t have a problem with that, and I don’t care if you do.’

The past few years we’ve seen a lot of brands putting themselves in social environments online and hoping consumers will share and talk about their product or service, without creating anything truly participative to fuel the conversation. How do you tackle this when you create and distribute film content online?

A great example of this is the IRON MAN 2 interactive trailer.  That was embedded on a lot of major film blogs when it broke, then picked up by a lot of the second tier blogs.  It ended up with thousands of embeds and three quarters of a million impressions in less than a week.

Hold that up against the paid media equivalent, a standard MPU, which is only on the page because someone’s been paid to put it there.  The interactive trailer is there because someone has chosen to put there.   You’re not having to pay for any of the impressions it generates, once you have created something cool.

Yes, though we find the fact there’s a cost involved in seeding the content is often left out of the equation.

There is if you want to break big like that and it’s easier when you’re talking IRON MAN, where there’s so much existing interest.  But also, I think the timing there was spot on.  People had seen the trailer, and this was exactly the time to reveal a bit more of the film, ahead of the impending media blitz.

Do you think that it was down to the huge draw of the content, or because it was so shareable?
Both really.  The wrapper that was used for that had been developed over a number of years, with Facebook and Twitter functionality displayed at the top level.  They represent a huge proportion of the market when it comes to shareable content.  There are probably thirty other social networks integrated into that wrapper, but none of them are at anything like the same level as Twitter or Facebook.  But you need to create content that people will feel a proactive urge to share.  That’s not especially difficult with something like IRON MAN, but it might be much tougher with a less glamorous brand or property.

This was the last installment of our interview with the wonderful Dan Light; look out in the coming months for big news regarding his next projects. Dan is @danlight on Twitter, and scribes a rather excellent blog over at daniellight.co.uk.

Last time we left off talking to Dan about the role of transmedia in extending the relationship between entertainment properties and audiences. As expected we soon moved onto Dan’s favourite topic, creating transmedia content for today’s multimedia world. This was just after Dan managed to pour an entire cup of fresh coffee all over himself.

In marketing, we’re often looking for case studies demonstrating the ROI delivered by transmedia. Do you ever get asked questions like that, or has the question already been answered based on your previous work?

In terms of pure marketing ROI, I think there are questions to be asked.  The videos we created for WATCHMEN, or for the IRON MAN 2 Stark Expo films, that’s true transmedia, extending into nuanced corners of the broader universe, but they were also very accessible.

The WATCHMEN videos generated over a million views on YouTube, and maybe the same again through other channels.  For content with little or no paid media support, that’s a very solid return, especially when you factor in the number of tweets and blog posts they solicited.  Not to mention the fact that they also doubled up as DVD extras.

It’s also important to try and understand that engagement qualitatively, as well as quantitatively.  If somebody is sufficiently excited by what they’ve seen to share it online, it’s reasonable to think that their advocacy and enthusiasm will extend offline as well.  And offline word of mouth still counts for a lot.

Perhaps we’re not your average filmgoer, but we’re certainly starting to feel if there isn’t an experience around the film, we feel disappointed.

Yeah, and it’s because there are more and more people like you that we get to do this kind of work.  We can do things that the film-maker might love to do with the whole film, but couldn’t because it would disenfranchise a large proportion of the cinema-going audience.  Personally I’d love to see the whole of WATCHMEN in the style of NBS Nightly News, but only a handful of people would watch three hours of that. But for Dan (Skinner, director of the WATCHMEN videos) it was a chance to experiment in a way most directors probably dream of.

These transmedia extensions of the narrative; how important is the timing of their release to the overall story arc?

Timing is everything.  The kind of transmedia extensions we’re talking about may be the first thing anybody sees of a film, it’s important that they reach the audience while there’s still something to be discovered about the film – even with IRON MAN 2, where you know roughly what’s coming, there’s still plenty to speculate about.

The reality is that it’s not always possible to achieve that, so you just have to get things done as early in the process as possible. The bigger studios still aren’t naturally geared for that, it needs everybody involved studio- and agency-side to be fighting for it.

It’s happening more and more though.  One of my favourite recent examples of this kind of thing is an 80s-style commercial that turned up for Lots o’ Huggin Bear, one of the characters in the new Toy Story movie.

That’s a genius idea. Manufacture a back story that backs up the fictional popularity of the toys in the film.

Yeah, you’ve created a character that isn’t already known vs, say, Mr Potato Head, so you reverse engineer its history.  It’s just really smart, right?  And that was out well ahead of the movie being released.

So, from the studio’s perspective, what do you think might motivate them to do this? You were saying there’s still some hesitancy here?

The studio needs to feel comfortable that if this is going to be the first glimpse everyone gets of their multi-million dollar film, it’s going to be a good one!  They are rightly cautious about it.  And even once they’re convinced there are still big challenges to overcome.  Some films aren’t finished until shortly before they’re released, so trying to get finished assets is actually quite difficult!

It helps if you’ve got a director at the centre of it, one that understands what you’re trying to do.  If you can work with them to make the marketing campaign an integrated part of their creative vision then you’re really in business.

Is that what happened with Snyder on Watchmen?

Snyder is a great example of that, a director with an understanding of the wider opportunity and process. We were able to take him through our ideas in person, really early in the process.  Also, WATCHMEN fans cross some really interesting demographics.  It’s not the same audience as IRON MAN at any stretch, it’s a smaller audience but I think the fanaticism of your average WATCHMEN fan runs deeper in terms of their attachment to the material.

We knew we had to get that audience buying in from the start. I think that worked, and grew into huge amount of hype around the film.  The film itself didn’t turn out to be the experience that mainstream audiences were looking for, but I think our strategy worked, it gave it its best chance, and it succeeded partly because Snyder was behind everything that was going on.

He reviewed and fed back on everything we created. For each of the four New Frontiersman videos we got script feedback, feedback on the casting, feedback on the final pieces.  All of which showed a real understanding of the pressures we were under. There was a real understanding there.  That’s the kind of filmmaker engagement you really hope for, but it’s rare. Most filmmakers, understandably, are still primarily focused on their film.

Do you think the future is transmedia entertainment experiences? Will film makers drive this?

I think there will still be some people still focused purely on making a film.  I have a couple of scripts I’m trying to develop at the moment.  One of them would be pure transmedia and another is just a straight-up film. The latter is fact rather than fiction, there are no transmedia extensions that I can see or immediately feel compelled to explore – it’s just a straight story, about the unsolved murder of a silent movie director.

Whereas the other idea, LOCH GHOON, is absolutely teeming with possibilities.   Beyond the transmedia potential, it’s just great to start playing around with things from day one, blogging about it, teasing out possible locations, growing an audience organically.  It also opens up all sorts of possibilities in terms of the opportunities to crowd-source ideas, and maybe even crowd-fund the project.

It’s an interesting time for filmmakers.  There are more and more ways to realise and distribute a film for yourself, more ways to monetise it, but first you have to fund it.  These alternate story-telling models may offer some valuable ways of raising and making money.

Check back tomorrow part III of our interview with Dan Light where we’ll be talking about the potential role for brands in transmedia projects.

Iron Man 2 transmedia marketing

Dan Light’s profile description on Twitter (@danlight) reads: “Interactive marketer (and maker) of movies”. Although the bio may be short, his experience certainly is not. Dan has recently left Picture Production Company (PPC), where he led an award-winning interactive team producing some of the most innovative online marketing campaigns of recent times. In previous Labs posts we looked in more depth at the work they produced for Watchmen last year here and for Iron Man 2 here.

Working primarily on blockbuster movie releases, PPC Interactive has produced a variety of transmedia marketing materials serving to promote and extend the narrative of the story beyond traditional media. Those who know Dan will know he can talk for Earth about any topic he’s passionate about. We’ve split the interview up across 3 different blog posts which we will publish across three consecutive days. We spoke to Dan about his thoughts on engaging online communities, his extensive knowledge of transmedia entertainment, and the potential role for brands in this space.

Engaging online communities in 2010

Transmedia. It’s becoming a buzzword of 2010 and was certainly one of the most talked about topics at SXSW back in March. Your last piece of work at PPC was for the latest Iron Man film – what role can transmedia marketing play for an entertainment property?

DL: Like film itself, it’s about guiding people through an experience, and a sequence of emotions.  With a movie like Iron Man it starts with intrigue, which is a really powerful motivator for people ready to take a flight of fancy.  Film is also about escapism, especially a movie like Iron Man – part of that is not knowing what’s next.

It’s worth saying up front that when we’re talking about transmedia as marketing, it’s not suitable for all films, probably not for the majority of films, but that there are those where there’s an opportunity for a film maker and their marketing team to do something a bit different.

The communities that exist around films; are you focused primarily upon creating a deeper experience for them individually, or do you view them as a means to propagate content amongst and beyond their network?

DL: Both really. By its nature online marketing has become a process of exploitation – in a non-sinister sense of the term.  It’s about getting that core group to germinate these seeds of intrigue into wider awareness, so that they continue to permeate through other communities.  That said, it’s always hard to be certain how much wider it does permeate out.  It’s a mistake to assume that by reaching that audience you’re going to reach the popcorn moviegoer.

What a good transmedia campaign does achieve is that it anchors core fans in your campaign.  At the  same time you need to find ways to make it as accessible as possible to the mainstream, reaching the audience who aren’t living their lives in the Unfiction forum.

One of the best things about The New Frontiersman (the WATCHMEN online campaign) was that it made truly integrated use of YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Friendfeed, all of which made it easier for a wider audience to access the latest content as it went live.  We brought in a consultant on the project, Annie Ok, specifically to help us make sure that we weren’t just paying lip service to social media the way a lot of campaigns still do.

I guess we saw that with the Dark Knight ARG, in that most people didn’t participate, but the ones that did were so engaged they spoke and blogged about it and the story permeated into the wider online community.

DL: But that ARG became the story. That’s the ‘innovation marketing’ approach of saying “we’ll break new ground, maximise the publicity upside, and if it works at a consumer engagement level maybe we’ll do it again.”  And that campaign was truly ground-breaking.

Image: The Dark Knight ARG

Why do you think film makers are engaging people much, much earlier in the process – in some cases before the film is even made? Is it simply about extending the relationship with the audience? Can you imagine a point in the future where that’s a paid-for experience?

DL: I think a lot of time where that kind of thing is happening its originating from the film-maker.  If you look at the stuff that happens on [J.J.] Abrams titles, it originates from Abrams and his team.  He’s a film-maker who understands that there are new ways to tell stories, and is experimenting accordingly.  Making it part of the marketing campaign is a good way to legitimise it, given that the models aren’t in place yet to monetise it in its own right.

That’s got to be the long game though.  I mean, if people are prepared to spend thirty pounds on a computer game for 30 hours of immersive entertainment, maybe there is an audience that will pay three, four, five times the price of a cinema ticket to invest the same time in a good ARG.

So there might be an end game here – a core audience who are more valuable per capita, in the sense that they are prepared to pay. They’re actually paying for a deeper transmedia experience beyond the cost of a movie ticket?

DL: The issue at the moment is people don’t expect to have to pay for that experience, in fact people don’t really expect to pay for anything film-related until the films are released. I think that will change.

< * SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ‘THE GAME’ * >

DL: For me the ultimate ARG is THE GAME. It’s that logical continuation of an ARG to the point where something hugely elaborate has been created around one person.  He picks up the bill at the end and it’s about an inch thick – of course it is, but one day people may pay that kind of money, if the experience is absorbing enough.

</ * SPOILER ALERT * >

Dan was talking with Ben Shaw and Mel Exon. Check back tomorrow for part II of our interview with Dan Light where we’ll be talking about transmedia and what’s required to get engaging transmedia content made.

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.