Transmedia storytelling, and the multi-dimensional brand
August 29th, 2009In his book Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins explores the idea and concept of transmedia storytelling through the project known as The Matrix.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7236030@N03/2106087852
As Jenkins explains,
A transmedia story unfolds across multiple platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the idea form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best – so that a story might be introduced into a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as an amusement park attraction.
The consequences of such transmedia manifestations is; the creation of deeper context, and a more sustained form of emotional and intellectual engagement that translates into commercial success. What the Wachowski brothers recognised, was that we experience the world as a blended reality, and that blended reality also embraced a more participatory culture. The success of The Matrix was premised upon the idea of co-creation and collective intelligence. “Echo replies to echo, everything reverberates’” said Braque.
The filmmakers plant clues that won’t make sense until we play the computer game. They draw on the back story revealed through a series of animated shorts, which need to be downloaded off the web of watched off a separate DVD. Fans raced, dazed and confused, from the theatres to plug into Internet discussion lists, where every detail would be dissected and every possible interpretation debated.
The Matrix comic
The Matrix online
Would not such insight inspire brands and businesses to understand how to truly engage their; customers, audiences, stakeholders? The Matrix is a…. Film? A comic? An online game? A…. Brand? And what do great brands do? They tell great stories, and they deliver great customer experience and engagement.
You can live a life or you can live a FantaLife
A few years ago, SMLXL was commissioned by The Coca Cola Company to globally look at their brand Fanta. How would SMLXL re-energise Fanta? How could we use the idea of Engagement and not use just traditional practices of brand communications. Our view was that Fanta had to have a point of view on life for young people. So we created FantaLife: an advanced living course for young people to get more out of life.
You can live a life or you can live a Fanta Life
Which we thought was far more engaging, than the tempting colourful sensations of life. I had not read Henry’s book then, but based on the communications work I had undertaken, and our research of how companies, brands and organisations are able to engage their audiences creating great experiences for them. We could prove such an approach enabled those companies to be highly profitable. This seemed to us @ SMLXL, rather obvious.
Fanta Life Challenge: What are you doing with you life?
From live events, to mobile communications, a TV series, to what we described as Fanta Beach: we created a world in which young people could have a great deal of fun. The premise and promise of Engagement is about deep context achieved through co-creation, collaboration and Transmedia storytelling. It has by default socialbility woven into the entire fabric of the marketing communications. But its not social media. This is something that Ridley Scott has also understood: Crowdsourcing Blade Runner in a read-write participatory culture
Check out the Purefold project with RSA films
Fanta paid us handsomely for the work, then they made a couple of TV spots and some billboards and ran them internationally. I was somewhat bemused, and I still am, that companies on one level compete so aggressively, and must by law maximise shareholder value, are unable to innovate to do so. And, in so doing they hurt themselves. Social media now becomes another silo of the marketing silo bucket and the cycle continues. OK Fanta is an orange drink that Coke bought off the Germans after the Second World War – but in my view one we were proposing to imbue the brand with real meaning, based upon our deep insight of how young people want to engage, want to co-create, what to explore the world in a more existentialist way. TV ads, on their own, will not crack that code.
Fanta beach: a transmedia story
Brands need to be multi-dimensional – like Apple, or The Matrix to survive the participatory culture of the multi-dimensional universe. SMLXL has developed a Masterclass on Engagement – do get in touch if you would like to know how to truly engage your customers in; the physical, the mobile, as well as the virtual life.
In the meantime, Fanta Life is still there waiting to be executed! But perhaps Coke doesn’t want to be as famous as the Matrix?
The Matrix was first released on March 31, 1999. It earned $171 million in North America and over £250 million in the UK and $463 million worldwide,[10] and later became the first DVD to sell more than three million copies in the U.S.[11] The Ultimate Matrix Collection was released on HD DVD on May 22, 2007[12] and on Blu-ray on October 14, 2008.[13] The movie is also scheduled to be released stand alone in a 10th anniversary edition on Blu-ray in the Digibook format on March 31, 2009, 10 years to the day after the movie was released theatrically.[14]
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Loading ...Posted in: Advertising, Convergence, Culture, Economics, Engagement Marketing, Engagement Mobile, Engagement Organisations, Film, Gaming, Generation C, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Participation, Strategy, Trends, Uncategorized, Virtual Worlds, Web/Tech
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5 Responses to “Transmedia storytelling, and the multi-dimensional brand”
By Geoffrey Long on Aug 30, 2009
Hey Alan – could you drill down a little more into the story behind Fanta Beach? What you describe above sounds like a great example of increased engagement through transmedia branding, but I’d like to hear some more about the actual story being told. Thanks!
By Alan Moore on Aug 31, 2009
Dear Geoffrey,
I read your post which makes some interesting assumptions about the FantaLife project.
May I suggest that it might have been better to pose those questions to me before making your assumptions.
You write,
“The trouble is, Moore makes the all-too-common mistake of blurring transmedia storytelling with transmedia branding. A transmedia branding campaign can be considered a type of transmedia storytelling insofar as it attempts to convey the message of the brand across multiple media forms – but I question whether or not this can still be considered “storytelling” in a traditional sense.”
And I am afraid, that I have not made the all to common mistake.
But if you want to chat some more about it, I would be happy to walk you through the project.
The point, I would have thought you should understand better than anyone, is that by exploring a story, through multimedia platforms – that story becomes richer and enriched. And that by enabling people to participate in the co-creation of that storytelling also creates deeper context.
The fact that this is associated to a brand, does not make any difference.
And if I remember correctly, Henry did tend to agree with me when I presented @ MIT.
All good things
Alan
By Geoffrey Long on Aug 31, 2009
Hey Alan –
This is why I asked the question in my comment above. The points you make above are correct – exploring a story through multiple platforms does indeed increase engagement, as does the extended invitation for audiences to participate in that extension, and that it is certainly possible for such a story to be crafted around a brand. You’re definitely firing on all cylinders when it comes to multiplatform engagement and the benefits it offers over ‘traditional’ marketing, but my point is that transmedia storytelling and transmedia branding – or, as Faris Yacob calls it, transmedia planning – aren’t necessarily the same thing.
As Henry points out in his two-post series “How Transmedia Storytelling Begat Transmedia Planning” (http://henryjenkins.org/2006/12/how_transmedia_storytelling_be.html and http://henryjenkins.org/2006/12/how_transmedia_storytelling_be_1.html), it is entirely possible to tell a transmedia story through transmedia planning, as is the case in BMW’s THE HIRE. That said, if you go back and reread the post above, there’s no mention of the story being told in FantaLife, only a description of the advantages being offered by transmedia storytelling and then a description of the transmedia work your group did for Fanta. That’s what led me to think that you were erroneously conflating transmedia storytelling with transmedia planning – without clarifying what transmedia story is being told in FantaLife, this post does indeed blur transmedia storytelling with transmedia planning. I definitely apologize if my assumption that you yourself similarly blur the two was incorrect, but I hope you can see how the post above led me to make that assumption.
I’d still very much love to hear about the transmedia story that you were planning to tell in FantaLife, as I suggested in the second half of the post you quoted from my blog (which was less a post than an extended comment on a del.icio.us link, hence the lack of commenting option there):
“Is the Coke polar bear a character in a transmedia story? Does a transmedia brand have to have a plot to be considered a story, or is a recurring character (or world) sufficient? To my mind, transmedia branding certainly CAN incorporate transmedia storytelling, but not all transmedia branding is inherently transmedia storytelling. I’d love to see Moore drill down into the actual *story* behind SMLXL’s Fanta Beach project.”
Would you consider making a follow-up post that describes how you built a transmedia story around the Fanta brand, or is that information to be found elsewhere? I’m currently researching the use of location-based storytelling and augmented reality systems as components in transmedia storytelling/planning, so your suggested inclusion of “events”, “cool beaches” and “urban beaches” seems loaded to the gills with potential. Alternatively, would you consider another post talking about how storytelling in transmedia branding differs from traditional storytelling? I’ve also been looking at transmedia storytelling in video games like WORLD OF WARCRAFT, which downplays the ‘plot’ in traditional storytelling in favor of extensive world-building – a factor which might have also come up in your FantaLife campaign. Either one would prove extremely compelling!
Best,
Geoffrey