TLP in Spec Development on Reality Webisode Series Integrating GigWalk

Gigwalk is a TransMedia dream.  It poses opportunities for numerous StoryWorlds and Brand Integrations.  That’s why TLP decided to develop a reality webisode series integrating this unique technology into a “stream of consciousness” StoryWorld inside a webisode reality series which integrates select National Brands.  Stay tuned for updates on the integrated webisode series, graphic novel, and gaming extensions.  The name of the series will be announced soon.

Background.  SOURCE:  “Gigwalk plans to launch Wednesday after being in private beta for six months with $1.7 million in seed funding from a handful of tech-industry heavyweights. Gigwalk connects businesses to a mobile workforce community known as Gigwalkers, who complete a variety of tasks using an iPhone to verify street names, product positions in a store or more. It gives brands insight into how their products are positioned. Ariel Seidman, CEO and co-founder at Gigwalk and a former Yahoo mobile executive, calls the service the “first on-demand mobile workforce.”

While navigation tech company TomTom participated in the test phase, other businesses, such as marketers, can tap into the technology and workforce to verify product placement and positioning of products in stores. TomTom used Gigwalk to verify real-world map data attributes. The Gigwalk community delivered up-to-date geo-tagged photographic evidence that gave TomTom an accurate means to update its database.”

THE GEOTAGGING AT POINTS OF SALE IS WHAT MAKES THE TLP REALITY WEBISODE SERIES SO INTRIGUING FOR BRAND INTEGRATIONS INTO THE STORYLINE.  WE’RE BUILDING A STORYWORLD OUT OF THE BRAND EXPERIENCE.

“Verizon or AT&T, for example, could post a gig on the Gigwalk network asking consumer reporters who have signed up for the task to visit one of their nearby stores to check where the Motorola phones get positioned on the store floor. “Do the sales reps push people into Motorola devices or iPhones?” Seidman said.Gigwalk is live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Miami, with more to come later this year. Companies can tap into a pool of Gigwalkers, who earn as much as $1,600 monthly. Gigs can range between $3 and $90, depending on the task and timing.  Seidman admits that one of the biggest issues the company faces as it expands worldwide is finding qualified Gigwalkers to do the job. “The guys who work in the Geek Squad and Apple’s Genius bar make good Gigwalkers,” he said.  AdMob investor Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal, Mint.com investor Jeff Clavier at SoftTech VC, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman of Greylock Discovery Fund put money into the pot. LiveOps co-founder Bill Trenchard of founder Collective and Alex Llyod of Accelerator Ventures, also participated in the round.”

stay tuned …

TransMedia Workshop in LA – In Attendance April 25

The global demand for producers familiar with the process of developing transmedia content (across several mediums like games, mobile, television and film) for studios and networks is on the rise.  This 4-hour event at the Beverly Hills Hotel was the first of its kind and unique in the world, delivering practical, how-to TransMedia training led by leading cross-platform producer and strategist Jeff Gomez.  He taught his signature TransMedia development process to business executives, content producers, marketers and creators which has been used for such blockbusters as Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron Legacy, James Cameron’s Avatar, Microsoft’s Halo, Hasbro’s Transformers, Mattel’s Hot Wheels and Coca-Cola’s Happiness Factory.

An excerpt of a former magazine interviews on the Success of TransMedia and Increase in Industry Demand for TransMedia Producers tells the story for 2011 to Brands and Content Outlets.  That story is TransMedia is overturning the entertainment industry and providing many new opportunities to Brands which adopt TransMedia.

Forbes:  What exactly is “transmedia”?
Gomez:  It is the art of conveying a rich message, theme or storyline to a mass audience using multiple media platforms, such as ads, books, videogames, comics and movies. Each part of the story is unique and plays to the strengths of each medium, and the audience is often invited to participate and somehow interact with the narrative. We first saw the term used in this way by M.I.T. professor Henry Jenkins in his book Convergence Culture, published in 2006.  In today’s interconnected world, young adults, teens and even kids have become so comfortable with media technology that they flow from one platform to the next. The problem is that their content is not flowing with them. As a discipline, transmedia provides us with a foundation for the development, production and rollout of entertainment properties or consumer brands across multiple media platforms. …

Transmedia creates the flow. Instead of repeating the plots over and over again for each medium,
creators can continue and expanded their storylines, generating dazzling mythologies and complex
narratives.

Forbes:  Companies have been talking about embedding products and messages into entertainment for years.  How do you distinguish transmedia from branded entertainment?
Gomez: I think it’s important to point out that transmedia storytelling is not branded entertainment. Branded entertainment drives product awareness by tacking the brand onto something else, like product placement in a TV show. On the other hand, transmedia builds brand mythology, placing the brand front and center and building narrative around it. Think of the various tie-ins we saw around The Matrix franchise several years ago. Branded entertainment comes and goes in a flash, but transmedia storylines are timeless because they are built on a foundation of classic narrative structure. They’re good stories. Finally, the owner of the brand pays for branded content, but transmedia entertainment is designed to generate revenue because, ideally, it’s content that the audience wants and will buy. You’re giving fans more of what they want from your story: more character background, more story mythology, more opportunities to interact with the story’s creators and with one another. When people hear that Samuel L. Jackson will be playing Nick Fury in the next nine Marvel super hero movies, it helps tie that whole universe together. It’s a richer and deeper entertainment experience for the fan.  The storylines of major films like The Dark Knight, Wolverine and Watchmen are being supplemented by direct-to-DVD animation releases, each of which are selling quite well. The Watchmen videogame serves as a prequel to the movie and contains important story developments that fans want to know about. New stories set in the same world are alluring, as opposed to repurposed content, so the products
become more attractive and, in many cases, more lucrative.
Forbes:  Transmedia is often used to promote TV shows and movies, entertainment properties that already have a story built into them, but how does it work for marketers?
Gomez:   Procter & Gamble (nyse: PG – news – people) has used transmedia to extend the narrative of a soap opera, which is an ad vehicle for the company. In 2007, the packaged-goods giant commissioned Guiding Light: Jonathan’s Story, a novel published by Simon & Schuster that revealed the adventures of a major character that had been mysteriously absent from the daytime drama. The book, hyped in ads on the soap and in a blog bylined by one of the novel’s protagonists, was a media sensation and became a New York Times best-seller. We’re also seeing transmedia elements in the marketing of consumer products and advertising. With “The King” campaign from Burger King (nyse: BKC – news – people), for example, audiences have been engaged with this bizarre character, watching the commercials, purchasing and playing the videogames. In 2002, my company Starlight Runner was tasked to create a storyline around 35 die-cast metal Hot Wheels cars for Mattel (nyse: MAT – news – people) for the line’s 35th anniversary.  We worked with the company to understand the essence of the brand and watched how kids played with the toys.  Then we invented an elaborate racing universe and driver characters that, over the next three years, came to life in five computer-animated movies, a videogame, a comic book series, new play sets and an elaborate Web site.  Sales across the entire line increased dramatically.

TransMedia in Hispanic Television – Univision and Buick

It’s an Ad Within an Ad Within a TV Show for Univision Novela

AdAge Reports:  “In Bid to Sell Buicks With Intrigue and Plot, Network and GM Roll Out Character-Driven Spot.”

The article reports:  “As head of Hispanic ad agency Publicidad Arismendi, Eva Rodriguez won General Motors’ Buick account and created the car brand’s first Spanish-language commercial, which ran on Univision last week. But Eva isn’t real. She’s the heroine of Univision’s 8 p.m. telenovela “Eva Luna,” and part of her role is to take the product integration common in novelas to a new level.

In typical novela fashion, Eva starts out as a humble but beautiful apple-picker in Southern California and finds success and riches after falling in love with a man — Arismendi’s creative director, Daniel Villanueva — and being mentored by the agency’s founder, Julio Arismendi as she nurses him through a long illness. Eva rises to the top of the agency through a combination of hard work, her love of advertising, and the tutelage of Julio, who also leaves her a majority stake in the Los Angeles-based Hispanic ad agency after he fakes his own death when his evil wife Marcela poisons him.

Was this Buick spot, ‘Noses,’ created by Publicidad Arismendi?  For General Motors, the relationship with Univision and the “Eva Luna” novela goes way beyond traditional product integration, although there is plenty of that as different characters zip around in Chevy Cruzes and Traverses. In addition, Buick sponsors, among other things, the online replays of “Eva Luna” episodes on Univision’s novela site.

Not only is the novela set in an ad agency, the plot includes the fictional Publicidad Arismendi’s quest for the Buick account, Eva’s successful pitch for the business, and the shooting of the real commercial, essentially relaunching Buick in the U.S. Hispanic market with the brand’s first Spanish-language spot.

“We knew Buick didn’t have any commercial creative so integrating the car into the storyline wasn’t going to be enough,” said Lia Silkworth, senior VP-media director at Tapestry, part of Starcom MediaVest Group.

General Motors’ media deal with Univision built in the cost of producing the commercial, and the filming of the spot was done at the same time as the scene of Eva directing the commercial. During the two-day shoot at an upscale Miami shopping mall, the “Eva Luna” cast and crew spent about an hour filming Eva, dressed in a white trenchcoat and very high heels, hopping behind cameras, scrutinizing storyboards and giving directions.”