Keith Arem's graphic novel Ascend, for which a game is currently in development
it's now been over two years since Faris bought transmedia planning to our attention in his post of the same name on TIGS. the theory has been well expounded in the period since then; with a post by Jason Oke at Leo Burnett Toronto which explored the TP concept within the context of a single ad quickly kicking things off.
I'm sure that the idea of TP has cropped up in most media, comms and ad agencies by now... it certainly has in Mediation's. but we've yet to see - as far as I can make out - a significant campaign emerge based on TP principles. the same is actually true of the entertainment industry; in an interview with Games TM magazine(edition 75), Henry Jenkins - the Godfather of TP - concedes that truly persuasive examples have yet to arrive.
they're doing better than us though. transmedia planning should be everywhere by now. the theory is familiar and is not only relatively unchallenged, but is offers the very solution to some of the biggest marketing challenges of the moment. of its many advantages, the primary benefit has to be the extent to which it pays back on the time taken to consume it. Jenkins goes on to observe that "regardless of the commercial motives behind it, transmedia entertainment done well also provides rewards for fans".
so why is getting the theory working in practice so difficult? here's some starters for ten...
firstly, the financial investment required. the reason the best examples of TM largely remain in the entertainment arena (the Matrix, Cloverfield, Heroes, Lost etc) because it takes a significant chunk of investment to develop and then create the content often required. the commercial models for Fox or Paramount are set up to do this, the commercial models for marketeers often aren't.
but this is a bit of a cop out. for the cost of making three 30 second ads you can certainly afford to make an episodic drama for online distribution. and no it doesn't matter if it's not going to go on broadcast TV because those people who consume AV content online are exactly those people most likely to 'get' transmedia narratives... this means of course that the media budgeting has to evolve just as much as the production pot.
no, the real issues in making TP happen lie much closer to home than 'we don't have the budget' territory. they are twofold, the first of which is we're bound to the conventions of the media spaces we use. in the Games TM article mentioned above, Keith Arem discusses the TM principles behind his graphic novel Ascend (the image above). he observes that:
"if a project requires a 30-minute budget introduction, games can do that, but the medium could just as easily offer six high-budget five-hour episodes to revolutionise the story. film and television are still limited by rigid series structures and minimum lengths".
advertisers on those channels are bound by those same conventions; conventions we as an industry - planners, buyers and media-owners (and indeed Ofcom) alike need to start challenging. it's the limitations of the spot model that in many cases is preventing transmedia's breakthrough into broadcast channels; and as long as transmedia only exists online, it's unlikely to capture the imagination of marketeers or the budgets of FDs.
but the final barrier to making TM happen in brand comms is the closet to home of all. Jenkins notes that TM experiences can "be a source of ... frustration [for consumers] if it's inconsistent, undermines the coherence of the work, or promises insights it never delivers". Arem's solution is simple: "have a good team of like-minded individuals around you ... my philosophy for all of our projects is to have a core team to supervise all creative and technical aspects of the production. the main focus of that team is to keep the story and assets consistent, and integrate them with the entire franchise".
I think you know where I'm going with this. agency structures are lucky if they can do this internally let alone with other agencies, resulting in the presention of a joined up and unified transmedia solution to a client. not only might different creative agencies have to work to one vision, but that vision has to be molded by the space planned by its media agency, and of course vice versa.
the reality is that as long as the conversation with a client only gets as far as "how big is the pack shot?", both agencies and clients will be bound to a dynamic that not only acts as a barrier to transmedia planning, but actively works against it emerging into the mainstream where it so surely deserves to belong.
click the above picture or here to see some brilliantly creative use of YouTube for Wii's 'WarioLand Shake It' game. very smart breaking of the conventions of the YouTube infrastructure to bring to life the nature of the game...
in fact it says much about just how used we've come to the left-hand-screen-surrounded-by-other-clickables format that when it starts to fall apart it is really rather unnerving. and the fact that you can still click on the components of the page once it's been destroyed is just genius.
lovely lovely stuff. thanks to Daryl at Vizeum for the heads up.
you are officially invited to create and explore the world in 2019. but be warned, it's not going to be pretty. the Institute For The Future has developed Superstruct, an ARG that aims - with a massive number of players' help - to chronicle the dark future they predict for us, then help them fix it.
"With Superstruct IFTF introduces a revolutionary new forecasting tool:
Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Games (MMFGs). MMFGs are
collaborative, open source simulations of a possible future. Each MMFG
focuses on a unique set of “future parameters,” which we cull from
IFTF’s forecast research. These parameters define a future scenario: a
specific combination of transformative events, technologies,
discoveries and social phenomenon that are likely to develop in the
next 10 to 25 years. We then open up the future to the public, so that
players can document their personal reactions to the scenario." [source]
its a fascinating concept. taking the ARG to the next level and using Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds to capture and identify our most likely (and most successful) responses to multiple 21st Century threats. you can join the simulation and watch videos outlining the 'superthreats' we face on the Superstruct website.
brands could learn a lot from this endeavour. at it's most basic, the IFTF - thru Superstruct - is encouraging a community of people to engage with an idea. that isn't a million miles from what most advertisers want people to do - only they generally use advertising to convey the idea. and are then a bit vague about how people can get involved; other than buy stuff of course.
but if a brand really wanted to break the mold. if a marketing team really wanted to explore and communicate something in which they believed by creating a platform thru which a community of people could genuinely engage with the idea, the brand and each other... they could. think how much more powerful M&S's Plan A campaign would have been if they had engaged with a massive community of people to explore ways to make sure we didn't have to resort to plan b. think how much more traction you could get by using media to communicate the project and report its progress.
the risks are huge. you have to be radically transparent; but most brands have to be radically transparent already. if you get it wrong no one will care; but if you get it wrong now people can filter your messages out. you have to be hyper-creative; but creativity has never been more important. you have to rely on people pro-actively and constructively contributing to the platform; but people demonstrate time and time again that this is something they're increasingly comfortable doing.
and if the risks are huge, the rewards are greater. get it right and you not only engage an audience in something your brand stands for, but your brand may even make a bit of a difference... as well as creating affinity and customer value - and therefore revenues - on the way...
so I'm addicted already. only an hour playing with Spore's Creature Creator and I sense the precious few hours I had remaining this summer evaporating. its a beautiful bit of software, allowing you to create and then test out creatures in a habitat - their mating calls, dances, moods and attacks.
its round one of Will Wright's Spore, due for release in September. the game will see you navigate a species from single cell being to galactic conquest... and EA have pulled a blinder... one of the key elements is the Creature Creator, software that's integral to the game as it allows you to design the species you'll be taking care of - and EA have given it away for free.
a whole couple of months ahead of the game's release a key component of it free to download from the game's site... a million creatures have already been created (a video of my own little contribution - furdock - is above and a little pic below). the creativity you're afforded is staggering, and the hardest part is coming up with a name for your little fellas...
its one thing to play the neat trick of getting millions of people addicted to a core element of your game before its even released. but it's quite another to make sharing those creations so simple and intuitive. if this nugget is anything to go by, Spore will be a genuine milestone; not just for gaming, but for the whole of popular culture.
I've wanted to get my teeth into planning a good Alternative Reality Game (ARG) for a while now, so I was interested to see this come my way courtesy of Stew Gurney. it's an ARG based around the upcoming Olympics in Beijing. what strikes me is how slick this is... very high quality audio-video content and great design of the navigation of the evidence. the whole site can be viewed here.
it will be interesting to see where this one goes... ARGs as a concept, have struggled from a perception of being too niche - capitalising on the Olympics could be a sound strategy to breaking into the mainstream (it would seem that the nature of the interface has been designed with entry-level in mind)...
also I'm clueless as to which brand this is for, or whether it's for the Olympics itself... but I'm not sure this entirely matters! half the fun will be finding out...
Daniel Terdiman has written a great summary of the initial box of evidence which he received here... let the AR Game begin!
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Update: Thanks for Stephen Bedggood for the heads up that this ARG is for McDonalds... great effort on their part... smart and unexpected. it will be interesting to see how and if this translates to any in-restaurant activity come August
it one of the great wonders of the modern media world; why mainstream use of mobile phones for broadcast media consumption has never really been adopted - despite some very good reasons...
one; the mobile is ubiquitous. there were well over two billion of them in the world by 2005 (source) and in the UK we have more mobile phones than people (source).
"a cellular phone is distinctly personal ... this personal association creates a very powerful attachment ... one very close to addiction ... European cellular phone companies have coined a name for the new concept, called "reachability" ... on the fixed line phones you call a place, on a cellular phone you call a person ... reachability is the human need to feel connected ... a passive continuous connectedness in case the important call arrives or event happens ... reachability is the single most addictive aspect of a cellular phone"
three; it's already a device we use (in albeit for some a limited capacity) for interaction with other (mainstream) media, as anyone who's ever voted on a Simon Cowell show can testify. whilst out on Friday night a friend sent a facebook message via his mobile - essentially disintermediating the phone network in the process.
four; unlike the internet, we're willing to pay for stuff on our mobile phones. a report cited by Dr Jaques Bughin in an essay for IDS' volume 'New Language for the New Medium of Television' (see here for details) found that mobile users would be willing to pay between 5 to 10 euros a month (and up to 15 euros for month).
five; mobile phones have won every battle they've taken on. in 2001 global sales for camera phones numbered less than 2 million, with digital camera sales well over ten times that amount. by 2002 camera phones were up to 18 million worldwide, 84 million by 2003. and by 2004 digital phones outsold digital cameras by 4-1. the rest is history. a similar stories can be told for PDAs vs smart phones, and many more people play games on mobile phones than any other platform (source: Ahonen + Moore p49, 55, 68).
but for a combination of reasons - including-but-not-limited-to - lack of a standardised revenue model, downloading capacity and hardware and software limitations, media consumption on the mobile phone just hasn't happened.
then last week the omnipresent Google - the highest-profile member of the Open Handset Alliance made an announcement.
the Android platform is (arguably) Google's answer to the i-phone. but it is not - repeat - not, a phone. its software. software that is open to be developed by anyone - including advertisers and brands - who'd like to develop some. the opportunities for brands are multiple and varied - TV access, gaming, retailing (eBay phone application to track your auctions anyone), or bespoke applications that allow consumers integrate and interest with broadcast advertising campaigns... in real time, whereever they are?!
Google have even put $10m up for grabs to those that develop the best applications. as Google point out, the vast majority of stuff that will work on phones isn't out there yet. what's new news is that creating that stuff just got a lot more accessible... does it represent a watershed? very possibly.
the mobile phone's waited longer than it would have liked to become a mainstream media device, and now with Google's backing, that ambition could soon - finally - become a reality.
it's not something you have to answer right away because some clever people have designed a game that will tell you. the game is a Passive Multiplayer Online Game (as opposed to a MMOG) and once you've signed up it will use your internet browsing habits to define what kind of internet user you are. plus you get points, cool stuff, and can play additional games.
there's a neat video that explains the concept here. the Game has been developed by Duncan Gough, and I was pointed in it's direction by the lovely Tom at 3rd Sense. you can sign up for the game here. do it. just be careful which websites you visit!
...who has become Second Life's first virtual millionaire. how? by developing - according to the wiki entry - an "online business that engages in development, brokerage and arbitrage of virtual land, items and currencies"
no, I'm not quite sure what it all means either. but with Linden dollars able to be swapped for real world money, I'm pretty sure it does mean that I'd better get my virtual entrepreneurial head on, and fast! Anshe Chung, we salute you.
enjoy the ride
from scarcity to abundance; more stuff in more places; and rapidly evolving media business and consumption patterns. how much fun is this?
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