Down The Rabbit Hole

When Mister Three Sixty first wrote about transmedia storytelling here, he didn’t realise what a rabbit hole he’d fallen into. Once in the hole, you find more and more people are talking and writing on the subject. Rather fewer of them are actually doing anything about it.

So here are some of the best examples of the thing in action;

• Star Wars – original movies and franchise, prequel movies, Clone wars animation, comic books, toys and on and on.
• Heroes – TV show, with weekly online comic (sponsored by Nissan), graphic novel , fictional website for Primatech, a front company in the series (sponsored by Cisco), ‘create your hero’ mobile phone competition (sponsored by Sprint), weekly online and mobile trivia games, blogs written by characters and on and on.

Entertainment properties do it well because media businesses own a range of platforms and have the impetus to extend their IP as widely as possible. Unfortunately this model isn’t exactly replicated in the marketing world.

Some good brand examples;

• Coca-Cola’s ‘Happiness Factory’ –a fictional world behind the original ad spot.
• Audi’s  ‘The Art of the H3ist’ – Alternate Reality Game meets Advertising.

Mister Three Sixty is still working out a practical framework for marrying business strategy with transmedia story development, but this chart from Gary Hayes seems like a promising startpoint. Thanks to Robbie and Sven for some good thinking and ideas – they really helped Mister Three Sixty’s journey.

Brand Narratives: What’s the story?

Stories are how we first learn about learn about the World. MRI research shows that as we read stories, our brains appear to simulate the scenes, actions and feelings we’re reading about.  So stories can build empathy between the storyteller and reader/listener.  This suggests that the power of narrative should be fairly interesting to anyone involved in communicating for brands right?

Mister Three Sixty has been doing a lot of reading recently on the theme of Transmedia Narratives. “Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience” (Henry Jenkins, MIT).

The Matrix is a classic example where key bits of information are conveyed through three live action films, a series of animated shorts, two collections of comic book stories, and several video games. Others working this vein include Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and JJ Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield).

This isn’t necessarily a new idea  (Faris has covered it in detail before) but it feels like an idea that is about to get much, much bigger. Transmedia narratives offer the opportunity to combine three interesting trends;

1. The idea that brands should be telling stories,
2. The layering of a brand’s messages accross different channels and platforms, allowing each to play to their strengths,
3. Our desire to retell, repurpose and remix stories themselves.

Mister Three Sixty thinks this will have a big knock-on effect for communications planning and creative development. Will the classically reductive approach to Creative Brief writing do the job when what may be needed are long-lasting and expansive mythologies.

Mister Three Sixty asked NYC-based Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, whether in his experience, it is possible to develop narratives from scratch for brands, rather than just exploiting entertainment content. “It is indeed possible for us to develop worlds without relying on pre-existing IP. In fact, we would prefer doing so, as it would allow us to infuse a persistent narrative with sensitivities to the strengths and weaknesses of an array of platforms from the very start.

Often we are forced to contend with the inherent limits of the properties we are given to work with, because they were created with linear narrative (a single movie or videogame) or interruptive narrative (a TV commercial) in mind.

On the other hand, when Mattel gave us Hot Wheels and told us the only requirement was that all 35 cars featured in their 35th anniversary celebration needed to be included, we were unleashed to create a fabulously successful series of IP’s for them, each piece of which was especially designed for the platform at hand”.

Mister Three Sixty thinks there is an interesting debate to be had here. Some questions for you:

• Do you think existing agency structures and skillsets are able to really build proper narratives and tell stories, as opposed to providing mere glimpses of stories e.g. condensed into a 30 second spot?
• Or will traditional agency structures be replaced by new types of agencies, able to develop a brand World replete with characters, story, backstory and chronology?
• Can any brand recount an engaging narrative over several years or is the idea of a transmedia narrative best suited to entertainment properties?
• Is this already being done right now, or are existing approaches more about layering and repetition across multiple channels rather than the telling a story?
• Who is best placed to write and develop the narrative and the world that supports it? PR agencies, film marketing companies, ad agencies, production companies, DM copywriters, digital design companies?

There’s more, so much more Mister Three Sixty could cover; the power of Archetypal characters, or the seven main universal plots…  but these can be the subject of another post.

Would really love to hear your thoughts…