As we saw in Episode 3, there are several ways to track audience data.  You can find out, on a very granular level, who they are, where they like to play, and other important metrics that are required to make great content and distribute it strategically across the web.  In Episode 4 we find out why it’s so important to utilize this data and help you create a loyal bond with your audience.  We’ll also look at why it’s imperative to come from an authentic place when creating interesting and relevant storylines for your content.  Remember: the consumer bullshit meter is very sensitive!

Episode 4 features: Jason Feinberg, Suzanne Diamond, Timothy Golden and Zach Jordan

Transmedia Storytelling Explained

The story of traditional branding and marketing, set against the backdrop of this nerve racking, yet exciting paradigm shift, makes yet another exciting plot twist. “360 storytelling”, “Multi-platform storytelling”, or Transmedia storytelling, as it was coined many years ago by the great MIT/USC professor Henry Jenkins, is moving away from the fringe and into the limelight. While the nomenclature continues to evolve, the idea remains consistent: Great Story + Strategic Distribution = Loyal Participants.

Some of us have been reared on this type of storytelling, while others are realizing its power through sheer necessity. Right now there is more content being produced and distributed every single minute, from every part of the globe, and across multiple platforms, than at any time in history.  How does a brand or entertainment property reach out and retain peoples’ attention and create loyalty?

In traditional branding, (1) determining the customers’ journey and (2) identifying the number of touch points where your brand will intersect with peoples’ lives, were important first steps in successfully managing a brand’s message. We’ve moved beyond the need for a great idea and unrelenting brand messaging and into a new era where:

• a compelling story is the only way to guide customers through this new crowded landscape and

• a strategic and relevant distribution strategy is the only way to encourage engagement and ultimately create loyal participants.

When people watch their favorite TV shows, it’s very common for them to be engaged with another activity – they’re online or using their mobile phone to supplement their involvement with the story. This is yet another reason why it’s so crucial to have a strong narrative that holds on all organic platforms. There are simply too many entry and exit points for the audience these days to approach things any other way. Rest assured, this type of storytelling is here to stay. Coupled with emerging social media and mobile technologies, Transmedia storytelling techniques will become the spine of every successful branding campaign in the very near future.

Transmedia Storytelling Is Gaining Popularity

The born digital generation is accelerating the popularity of this storytelling trend in marketing because this demographic expects their branding and entertainment to be completely:

(1) on demand

(2) on their terms

(3) authentic

Transmedia has been popular in filmmaking and TV for awhile and it is quickly gaining popularity in other forms of branding and media. “The Lord of the Rings” franchise and MTV’s “Valemont”, are prime examples of large scale Transmedia projects. For example, the “Valemont” fan can watch the show and, to get their complete “Valemont” fix, can use their mobile phones or log onto the website for extra pieces of story and content. This evolution in storytelling creates the need to carry a narrative across multiple platforms and technologies, and sets the stage for an engaged group of people to interact, share clues and ultimately become communities of loyal participants.

If your story lives with them, they live your story. Later this week In Part II, we’ll take a deeper look behind the technology that is bringing this new paradigm to life and make some predictions about the future of Transmedia storytelling in marketing and entertainment.

Photo by: Sabellachan

The brand police are knocking at the door.  You can run but you can’t hide!

In today’s Ad Age, Jack Neff writes about Good Guide, a consumer brand rating site that has already put their scale of 1-10 on over 75,000 products.  While consumer watchdogs have been around a long, long time, this more recent entry highlights a rising note that we have mentioned in prior posts—in the digital age of massive choice, one of the biggest consumer demands will be authenticity.  GoodGuide highlights the fact that the engaged consumer will not tolerate the brand that mouths claims that are not demonstrably accurate.

Utilizing their academic backgrounds, UC Berkeley professor, Dara O’Rourke,  and his colleagues use the power of various databases, consumer input and the want / need for a reinvigorated policing source, Good Guide seems to have most of the modern marketing maxims in play.   They are delivering objective information on the authenticity of consumer brands—proving their own authenticity (the lack of ads helps).  They are creating a genuine partnership between their site, the brands, and the consumer by both utilizing consumer input and informing brands, very transparently, about how they can improve their scores and, thus, their standing with the public.  They are also delivering all of this in the mandatory personal way.  Within brand conglomerates, divisions can work on their own ratings.  For the consumer, O’Rourke says they will soon allow users to create their own personalized scales based upon how each of them weigh the various indicia of “good”.

It all seems to be working.  Awareness of the site is rising. Brands are actively engaging.  Aileen Zerrudo, the Director of Communications for Clorox notes that they are genuinely listening to what the consumer is saying via GoodGuide.  Moreover, the company claims that click to conversion rates from the site to Amazon.com are 5-10 times higher than most retailers’ traditional returns.   A well-known brand actually wanting to listen, improve and increase market share?  I’m betting that the smart brand begins to actively seek out these kinds of relationships.

So how does a brand fare well with GoodGuide and, presumably, turn the maybe consumer into a loyal participant?  According to GoodGuide: (1) Change Ingredients to meet the desire for natural; (2) Quality Management (avoid recall disasters); (3) Internal Policies matter (fair labor, CSR, etc.); (4) Green and Responsible (a clean record and sustainable production); and (5) Be Transparent (if you hide data, we will find it).

So let’s say a brand follows the rules and carries the day with a “10″.  Now they just need to pat themselves on the back and incorporate how they got there into every aspect of their marketing.  By following the same rules in their marketing (being authentic, delivering personal value, being transparent, and actually caring enough to engage), brands will ride the wave instead of ending up in the trough.  Tout your score (in the right manner of course—sorry nitpickers) and score big with the public.  In the end, quality and authenticity need to become key elements of a brand’s story.  Deliver that story to the audience on their terms and you end up with quality, loyal, and passionate participants.

In today’s WSJ online, Elizabeth Holmes, writes about how teen retailers like Aeropostale are starting to do a deep bow towards those with the purse strings.  They are adding chairs for Mom so she can more comfortably survive the teen shopping frenzy.  They are creating personal shopping programs, available at mom-friendly times.  Wow.  They understand that their consumer needs to (a) get to the store and (b) have money before they can make a purchase.  Hope springs eternal.

Now, all we have to do is broaden this marketing epiphany and start to apply this power-of-the-purse recognition to all aspects of branding and marketing.  Moms and Dads are as much part of the fragmented digital space as anyone.  They too have a ton of choices.  They too don’t want to be “sold”.  They too exist on line and in self-selected pods on the social networks and passion sites.  As I have noted in the past, Moms buy jeans, TVs, skateboards, cars, and the offerings under virtually every vertical.

If Mom is more likely to embrace Aeropostale thanks to a place to sit, imagine what would happen if they installed a Man Cave. A back room, flat screen, BIG chairs, etc.  I can see it now.  Saturday morning, I wake up, have my coffee and excitedly wake up my girls and say “Hey kids!  Let’s go to Abercrombie!”  I’d be loyal to that brand.

You can produce a strip, prime time chat show, even with a high cost talent like Leno, for a fraction of the investment required for an hour drama or half hour sitcom. Period.  On the “Zucker is wise” front, you have lower cost, less risk of audience rejection of 95% of your original offerings (if they like Leno, they will just keep coming back and NBC can pre-book that), and you get to plant your flag in the “new”  10pm slot with a tried and true brand while others must follow.  If broadcast does become the repository for reality and event TV, NBC might reap the rewards of being first to embrace.

On the other side, you give up the major windfall that the occasional hit narrative delivers here and abroad for years and years to come in syndication. NO one will argue that chat is evergreen (though original reality formats may be).  I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how the move toward inexpensive programming will balance out against the loss of the annuity of a “Friends” or “Seinfeld”.  Part of the answer may be a top to bottom embrace of the need for reinvention of the overall approach to broadcast, cable, and digital and who becomes who in the content zoo.  I’m betting on NBC.

If the Leno project works, NBC owns 10pm and has the luxury of exporting the model and success to 8-10 pm.  NBC reinvents broadcast prime time.  Where do the dramas and quality narrative go?  NBC’s cable unit.  Their cable outlets have been their success story for years and, under Jeff Gaspin, have become quality content profit centers.  There is no reason why FX should own the quality ribbon. Of course, that move will necessitate lower production budgets and the current scripted programming sources will go kicking and screaming.  As Zucker mentioned however, lower cost doesn’t have to mean lower quality.  Examples of budget and content bravery abound.  Lower budgets, lower risk, even bigger windfalls when they find a hit—and the ability to genuinely brand their cable channels.

And what about digital?  NBC is banking on Hulu.  Fine for now.  But if they genuinely want to be the Mother of Reinvention, they must actively pursue a custom strategy for serving the digital landscape.  Yes, they will offer their shows on line.  Fine.  But for a growing and evolving digital generation it won’t be enough to shoehorn “TV” into the content offerings.  The audience will increasingly demand customized, personal, quality content that is crafted for who they are, where they consume, how they consume and what they wish to consume.  They won’t be sold, won’t be washed over with message, and won’t engage unless you invite them in.  No one has the answers yet. But if NBC wants to genuinely lead the way and reap the rewards of audience loyalty, THIS is where the tough work needs to be done.  What does the online user between 7 and 11pm want?  Has anyone really bothered to find out?  That answer will be the linchpin to success.

NBC will figure out the new world of  broadcast, it will build on its cable success and we’ll see if it can address digital.   If they bother with all three prongs, they will clean everyone’s clock by being the content source that creates the 360 degree, on demand, content and distribution plan that is the future.

In today’s Brandweek.com, T. L. Stanley, confirms our suspicions, and notes that brands are dipping a bit more than a toe into these waters and reaping the rewards.  Stanley outlines the key elements that make brand integration a genuine tool as opposed to the hail Mary of yesteryear.

This time around, content and brands are on more equal footing.  It’s no longer the juvenile business built around the “wow, I can put stuff into stuff on line and….”  These days, brands are (1) looking to get involved during the nascent stages of content development; (2) willing to accept less overt, less “salesy” integration; and (3) partnering with content producers who are willing to find ways to use integration organically with story and format.

Those three key elements make me hopeful for a true creative partnership between companies like mine and brands across virtually every vertical.  We would add a few more arguments to the mix as well as some wishes and warnings to keep this momentum going toward an effective brand / entertainment marriage.

When you look at the cost basis for digital branded entertainment, you can’t beat the potential ROI in terms awareness and even conversion.  But that is just the tip of the “why integrate” pyramid.  The opportunities and results also depend upon how well we can collectively  exploit the public’s increasing willingness to accept branding in content.  They have a specific set of demands that we need to deliver upon in everything we produce and distribute:

(1) make it engaging, entertaining, informative and great or shut up;

(2) make it authentic and honest (as opposed to a sore thumb interrupting my content);

(3) make it an invitation to connect with versus “buy” your brand; and

(4) earn my attention by delivering something of personal value (entertaining and something I care about).

If we develop and produce content that fits this bill, there will be no need to have another branded content nuclear winter.  Instead, our business with the brands will grow, develop, evolve and prosper.  The seedlings are all here, right now.  Creatives have a better understanding of how to pick and choose content that is customized for a given brand.  Brands are rightfully demanding to be involved early on.  Creatives’ fear that brands will “ruin” the content is not proving to be rational.  It behooves the brands to have their say while letting the producers produce (ahh, if only televison were like that).  All of this means that our ability to work with brands on more than just the on-the-nose, fact-based product content is here and, hopefully, here to stay.

Consumers are more willing to embrace longer form web series covering every genre.  New narrative series, including our —here comes the shamless plug—–”Operation Midnight Climax”, a dramatic series about a true-life black ops, mind control CIA experiment, are getting a lot of attention.  “In the Motherhood” and “Haute and Bothered”, for example, have been seen millions of times.  Perhaps we aren’t far away from brands thinking of shows like this, as a go-to branding device as opposed to an experiment?

What happens next depends upon both sides of the equation.  Brands need to step up, spend on digital content, stop retreating to the more traditional media, and deliver quality content to the consumer “on their terms”.  We producers need to do our part to make sure brands and consumers have a positive experience so that we don’t have to wait another 6 or 7 years to have at it again. If we all stick to the rules of engagement outlined above, I think we might just turn this into a business.

In an interesting article in AdAge by Emily Bryson York, the author profiles Starbucks’ CEO, Howard Schultz’s epiphany that one of the reasons  earnings are down 69% is that the biggest coffee brand in America has allowed “others” to brand his product an indulgence and a disposable luxury.

He’s right.   There is a public perception that the $4.00 cup of coffee is the ultimate extravagance and that our collective, mass attendance at the Temple of Starbucks trough over the past years a hindsight harbinger of the economic apocalypse.  That’s just my dramatic way of saying that we always wondered if coffee was worth it, but we were all so flush that we didn’t care.  Now, I gather, we care.

Schultz and BBDO are on a warpath with this perception, noting that most of their products are in the $2-3 range.  That’s nice, but is that really the message that will bring the crowds back?

Starbucks did allow its competitors, the pundits and every hack comic in America to define their brand as expensive nonsense.  Ugh.  It’s amazing how a steep decline can make a brand wake up, smell the coffee, and take control of its own brand message.  The brand is trying to right the ship, but perhaps a bit late and without the right tac.  Starbucks has been getting more into the traditional TV spot.  I’m not so sure that this is the right approach.

Sure they might generate some general value awareness, but will they be reaching the customers who were their business in any meaningful way?  The better approach will be a genuinely targeted campaign that aggressively courts the consumer, engages them on a personal level, delivers perceived as well as tangible value (discounts, clubs, etc.?) and does so where these folks exist (arguably online, on mobile etc.).  If they can turn around a good number of their formerly caffeine addled fans and turn them into localized brand ambassadors they will certainly get a better, more ROI based return than a panic rush to TV in an attempt to message to the masses.  BBDO is a really smart firm and I am guessing they have things like this cooking.  It will be interesting to see what they do, what the analytic results are and, if my hunch is right,  what those results might do for getting brands to think about the power of the new “on their terms” approach to marketing and branding.

The boomers buy everything from surfboards to jeans to TVs to, well, you name it.  Interestingly, a recent eMarketer article discussed the “graying of the Internet” and the fact that while the Internet is considered the province of the young, when it comes to ecommerce, the Boomers are the ones searching, spending and connecting with brands.

As more and more of this empirical proof comes in about the brand bonanza called the Boomers, let’s hope brands begin to actively reach out.  Moreover, let’s hope they reach out in a customized fashion so that their respective brand messages get to the Boomer crowd on their terms.  We’ve seen some smart moves and successes in this space.  Here’s hoping for more and that the “old folks” are no longer the marketing bastard stepchild.