Interview with Dan Light, Part III: The role for brands in transmedia « BBH Labs

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Excerpt:

"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."

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Interview with Dan Light, Part II: the intricacies of creating transmedia content « BBH Labs

Excerpt:

"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."

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Interview with Dan Light, Part I: engaging online communities « BBH Labs

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Excerpt:

"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."

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