QR Code Music TransMedia Promotion – Jimmy Fallon Plugs Odd Future – 480,000 hits

OVER 480,000 HITS AS OF MAY 28, 2011.  In February 2011, Host Jimmy Fallon started a new trend by offering up a QR code instead of holding up the cover of a record album or CD.  Tyler, The Creator and Hodgy Beats of Odd Future was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and prior to the set, Fallon held up an LP-size QR code which, when viewed with the proper app, pointed viewers to the oddfuture.com website.  when they go there it features a video of Tyler The Creator’s “Yonkers.”  Fallon has been a pioneer among his fellow talk show hosts in the use of Twitter and he has enthusiastically disemminated clips of his show online to reach a digital savvy audience and has picked up on Internet memes like “Double Rainbow,” which he performed as Neil Young.

Contact TLP by clicking on the banner to the right and ask us for a free initial consultation how QR Codes can be used to enhance your entertainment properties.

Lifetime Brands Adding QR Codes to Product Line – TLP Integrating Lifetime Brands into Two TransMedia Projects

Farberware®, KitchenAid®, Pfaltzgraff®, Mikasa®, Cuisinart®, Calvin Klein®, CasaModa®, Gorham®, International® Silver, Kirk Stieff®, Nautica®, Pedrini®, Sabatier®, TowleTM Silversmiths, Tuttle®, Wallace® and Vasconia®

Lifetime Brands Strengthens Social Media Capabilities with QR Initiative

Lifetime is launching a series of videos linked to Quick Response codes on product packaging.

Lifetime Brands Achieves $50,000 Lift in Weekly Revenue

Lifetime Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCUT), North America’s leading resource for nationally branded kitchenware, tabletop and home décor products, has strengthened its social media and video production capabilities, adding a social media specialist and videographer to its marketing communications team. As part of this commitment, Lifetime is launching a series of videos linked to Quick Response (QR) codes on product packaging. These small square bar codes provide additional product information when scanned by smartphones.

According to Dan Siegel, Executive Vice President, Lifetime Brands, Inc., “Part of our strategy for success is to anticipate where the consumer will be, rather than to look at where she has been. This includes relating to consumers through such avenues as social media, video and QR codes. Social networks have created a more informed consumer, and we embrace interacting with and educating consumers through these platforms. Adding QR codes to our packaging is an evolutionary step that allows us to add rich video content about our products at the point of sale.”

TLP UPDATE:  TLP has two cooking tv series which are in the latter stages of TransMedia development.  Lifetime’s announcement about using QR Codes  fits perfectly with the TransMedia strategies being developed for both cooking shows as broadcast episodes, webisodes, cooking tutorials, eBook cook book and celebrity chef interviews.  QR Codes provide highly interactive capabilities between the cooking shows, the viewers, Lifetime brands, the food products and the drink  menu utilized in both series.  As an example, TLP is also in discussion with wine social media sites such as www.adegga.com. 

In the case of these Portuguese wineries they are directing wine consumers to Adegga, an online community of wine lovers that dubs itself as a “social wine discovery” service.  This is how it works.  You scan the QR Code on the wine label and you will be taken to a special page on adegga.com dedicated to that particular wine. You will be able to read other people’s comments about it, check wine prices, read comments from the winemaker and much more. Adegga is undertaking a very ambitious project attempting to catalog all the wine of the world with something called an AVIN, which will be a unique wine identifier (similar to ISBN numbers for books).

Heather Schall, Senior Vice President Marketing Communications, Lifetime Brands, Inc., added “Lifetime Brands has a strong roster of highly recognized brands and innovative products that many consumers across America use daily for food preparation, dining and entertaining. Our new videos will better educate consumers about our brands and demonstrate the key features and benefits that make our products unique.”

Lifetime Brands is releasing videos in the coming weeks for Mikasa®, Design for Living Stackable Water Bottles and Misto®, The Gourmet Olive Oil Sprayer, with more videos to be released this summer on http://www.lifetimebrands.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

About Lifetime Brands, Inc.
Lifetime Brands is North America’s leading resource for nationally branded kitchenware, tabletop and home décor products. The Company markets its products under many of the industry’s best known brands, including Farberware®, KitchenAid®, Pfaltzgraff®, Mikasa®, Cuisinart®, Calvin Klein®, CasaModa®, Gorham®, International® Silver, Kirk Stieff®, Nautica®, Pedrini®, Sabatier®, TowleTM Silversmiths, Tuttle®, Wallace® and Vasconia®. Lifetime’s products are distributed through most major retailers in North America.

Innovative Use of QR Codes – Music Album Promotions on Side of Buildings

Here’s the innovative and interactive deal:

• 4 weeks
• 4 challenges 11 pairs of tickets
• 1 unreleased live track
• and an exclusive grand prize

Play Photobooth this week and you could win a pair of tickets to these sold-out Death Cab for Cutie shows, plus a meet & greet with the band:

June 7: El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles
June 9: Fillmore, San Francisco

Play along every week and you could win a Codes And Keys Limited Edition Poster Series Set – 11 limited edition posters, each inspired by a different song on the album and designed by Christopher Paul.

RedLaser, a leading barcode and QR code scanning mobile app, is bringing a brand new mobile experience to Sasquatch! Music Festival this weekend by launching a new sister app, RedLaser LIVE. The company is also offering Sasquatch! attendees the chance to win free merchandise and entry into exclusive acoustic performances – all through QR code contests. The new app, RedLaser LIVE, is a first-of-its kind geo-location tool, designed to help festival-goers keep tabs on friends, campsites, cars and more. The app, available for free on iPhone®, will also share the locations of special promotions throughout the festival, such as discounts at food stands and t-shirt giveaways at the RedLaser booth onsite.

Making a splash at Sasquatch is RedLaser’s latest example of the increased importance that their mobile technology plays in the music industry. This month, RedLaser designed a game with Sasquatch! headliner, Death Cab for Cutie, called Four Codes and Keys. The game incorporates Death Cab for Cutie-related clues that help fans unlock QR codes that are the “keys” to win prizes.

In February, RedLaser partnered with hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco to help him creatively launch his critically acclaimed album, “Lasers.” RedLaser worked with Lupe to project a QR code on the sides of buildings in New York and Hollywood, and activated his online fan-base by urging them to go out, scan and pre-order the album. Twenty five percent of his pre-order sales came from scanning his RedLaser QR code.

TLP Now Developing “Walker” as a TransMedia Entertainment Property

The Walker Blog Website Can Be Found Here

Walker YouTube Site,    Walker Facebook Site

One of the many planned Walker website portals under development for the TransMedia project states:

“WALKER  is a new “Social Benefit” TransMedia Entertainment Property being produced by The Legacy Productions.  We invite you to become a part of the experience in this rapidly expanding new genre of entertainment which combines narrative, significant social and environmental causes, with mobile interactivity and  commerce. YOU , our audience is given the opportunity to affect real world changes:  from the environment – to education – to health -  to the economy … all  by applying their unique abilities, talents, networks and passion as an active part of the story.  …

Walker Reaches to the 18-34 Year Old Demographic …

In the fictional TransMedia StoryWorld, WALKER is a solo journalist … a SOJO.  He’s alone in the world investigating stories which have global impacts environmentally, socially and economically.  Many of the hidden puppetmasters WALKER want to “silence” him AND ANYONE WHO HELPS HIM.  WALKER is  not good for business … their business.   WALKER develops and encourages a global movement for change driven by a series of webisode stories he begins and posts on-line.  Blog entries provide further backstory.   Fiction and reality ae blurred.  The audience becomes a part of the story and a participant in.   Clues are provided integrating augmented reality, SmartPhone capabilities and QR Codes.  The audience participants have the ability to become a SOJO with WALKER and impact the outcome of this story … and the dialogue on the stories:  Climate Hacking, NanoTech and Water Wars.

The WALKER story will be played out OVER ONE YEAR on disclosed and secret websites discovered by the participants as well as in graphic novels, on mobile devices, and at live meet-up events in Boston, Los Angeles, and London, and other cities world-wide.

ONE LONE SOJO   NOW   BECOMES MANY …

WALKER is patterned after other game-changing entertainment properties – blending narrative with mythology that blurs the lines between fiction and reality.  WALKER compels the audience to become a part of the story with real world outcomes that actually mean something…

JOIN WALKER.  Become a SOJO.

The World … Your World … Our world Depends on it!

The Walker Characters are Lifted from the fictional Walker Graphic Novel and immersed into real-life issues confronting all readers world-wide.  Fiction and Reality are Blurred …

The Walker story is fictional and lifted from a graphic novel entitled “Climate Hacking.”

The website goes on to say:

“NOTICE:  (May 13, 2011)  As Walker moves from BETA testing to LIVE interactivity we will inform you here.  You will soon begin to see the bumper stickers (see example below, i.e. a spin-off from the 1950′s “Kilroy Was Here” phenomena) but with new QR Codes technologies utilized, so that Walker solo journalists (SOJOs) and Walker augmented/alternate reality game players can receive coded communications from Walker which include private communication, locations for clues, as well as  news gathering assignments for the Climate Hacking, NanoTiO2 and Water Waters productions (as Walker webisodes, mini-docs, and interstitials).  Please check back frequently as more news will be announced.  When Walker is LIVE and not in BETA,  the QR Codes on this blog and everywhere will change … taking the Walker SOJOs to other web sites, secret web sites, flash mobs and live event locations with new instructions which further the Walker ARG game.  Those sites may include Craigslist and other forums adding to the tension of the game and its context in contributing to the on-going dialogues about Climate Hacking, Water Wars and Nano technologies.  Stay tuned …”

QR Code Usage up 4,549% in 1st QTR 2011 – TLP integrates QR Codes in TransMedia Strategies

Mobile bar code scanning has increased by 4,549 percent in the first quarter of 2011 on a year-over-year basis, according to a Mobio Identity Systems study.

Report May 2011:  “The Naked Facts: Whiplash Edition QR Barcode Scanning in Q1-2011“  READ FULL REPORT HERE.

With the increase in smartphone purchases for both iPhone and Android devices, which have a pre-installed QR reader, there is growing awareness among consumers of QR codes compared to a year ago.

QR barcodes go mainstream
Women also show a higher interest in using QR codes, accounting for 68 percent of users.

These numbers have big implications for advertisers.

“QR barcodes are no longer just a way to speak to early adopters, or the geek crowd,” Mr. Binns said. “QR codes have gone mainstream and are being used heavily by women who are head decision makers and purchasers in households.”

Mobio offers target rich environments where advertisers use multiple barcodes tied to different outcomes or campaigns to engage their consumers multiple times.

The vast majority of mobile bar code scans are centered on providing more information about a product or service, with 89 percent of scans falling into this category.

In terms of the type of media scanned, social media accounts for 70 percent of scans, TV 22 percent, the physical world four percent, online three percent and print one percent.  The iPhone is the most popular scanning device, followed by the iPod Touch and then, Android.  The report also shows that consumers are not just trying QR codes once and forgetting about them, but are becoming repeat users of the technology.

In fact, repeat scanners account for 62 percent of the market.

For marketers, this means QR codes can provide a way to have an ongoing conversation with consumers.

“QR isn’t a one-off medium anymore,” Mr. Binns said. “Marketers can change their QR codes in ads each day, week or month, and have an ongoing dialogue with their consumer.”

The State of TransMedia According to JWT – In 2011 Brands Buy In …

JWT recently released a significant report for 2011 entitled:  “TransMedia Rising.”  In it the giant advertising firms quotes:  “What we need to do is figure out the story behind the brand, the place it wants to occupy in the consumer’s mind, deconstruct it, make it relevant and reassemble it for the relevant audiences, on the appropriate channels. Then, through social media, let the experience and associations grow organically.”  —DEAN BAKER, managing director, JWT Entertainment.

Enter the Age of the QR Code.  It is a technology that is a dream for brand integrations if their content can incorporate it to engage their audience/viewer/customer … because now they are one and the same.

This QR Code can be read by online readers and by cell phones with any number of free apps that can be downloaded from the Internet.  This particular QR Code will take you to The Legacy Productions’ main website.  To see how easy this is online, right click the QR Code … and click view image.  Then copy the URL.  Then  go here and insert it in the first line and click SUBMIT QUERY.   With cell phones it is much easier.  You simply snap a picture of the QR Code and then hit submit.  Done.

As this video clearly demonstrates, brands are using QR codes in many unique ways to engage their audience/viewer/customer.

18% Click Through Rates?  Consider the possibilities QR Codes present to TransMedia Campaigns using it.

Augmented Reality Applications with QR Codes

The Threshold – A Successful CISCO TransMedia Multi-Layer ARG Project

2011 Update:

CISCO, No Mimes and JUXT Team up again in an amazing TransMedia Project spanning 5 Continents and 2 weeks of Alternate Reality Game Immersion.  It’s called “The Hunt.”

Here is a Webisode segment provided as a featurette to the participants to help solve a mystery and engage them in activities.  You will notice the male character takes out an iPhone in real time and indicates feedback from people watching the story unfold.  CISCO branding and products are seamlessly integrated into the storyline of this segment.

In this follow-up segment it ends with a call to action from the viewer audience to help solve the dilemma in the storyline.

IN 2009 CISCO, Juxt and No Mimes collaborated and produced “The Threshold.”  It has set a new bar for TransMedia excellence.

The Threshold An Alternate Reality Game

In 2009, Cisco turned to JUXT Interactive and George P. Johnson to help make their annual Global Sales Meeting a virtual event. The Global Sales Experience was created to help inform and motivate 19,000 Cisco sales people from around the globe.

Knowing that our audience was 89% male — most of them highly competitive and highly social — made our solution fairly obvious. We turned the whole event into a worldwide competition. And to anchor that competition, we built a deeply immersive Alternate Reality Game (ARG) titled The Threshold. Collaborating with the ARG visionary Steve Peters and his talented team at No Mimes Media, JUXT worked to create an experience that would blow the Cisco sales force away. Bringing these two talented teams together did not disappoint. The fruit of this unique marriage was hours of entertainment, challenge and collaboration for our audience, many of whom devoted most of their waking hours to the experience.

To help build anticipation for GSX, The Threshold was treated like a summer blockbuster film, with Cisco offices displaying digital posters resembling movie billboards. The highlight of a pre-launch email campaign featured a gripping trailer video that raised buzz in Cisco hallways around the world.

The Threshold officially launched three weeks prior to the event, and players quickly found themselves immersed in its story, and emotionally invested in its characters. Cisco Sales teams demonstrated both genius and tenacity as they worked day and night to follow the ever-evolving storyline and unlock the game’s mysteries.

As The Threshold unfolded over 4 intense weeks, players exchanged phone calls and emails with fictional characters, scoured every corner of the GSX platform for clues, and uncovered secret videos, including recorded Webex sessions. Cisco’s CEO John Chambers even made cameo appearances, while Executive Vice president Rob Lloyd released crucial clues in his live opening session.

In the end, The Threshold proved to be a runaway success, doubling our expected participation numbers. The revolutionary ARG captivated 13,000 of the event’s 19,000 attendees, and for many of them, playtime exceeded several hours a day. Numerous unsolicited forum threads championed The Threshold for promoting collaboration and learning, and for bringing the company one step closer to its vision of ONE Cisco.

Anatomy of a Highly Successful TransMedia StoryWorld – “Conspiracy for Good”

What makes a successful cross-platform or transmedia project? Are there key ingredients? What’s the secret sauce?

THE AUTHORS REPORT:  “With the Conspiracy For Good, our definition of a successful transmedia project is one that utilizes technology to deliver story content and engage an audience in original and novel ways.  We intentionally created a story that lived all around consumers all the time, and incentivized the audience to move from one device to another in pursuit of the story, solutions to problems, and answers to mysteries.

A transmedia story is the opposite of traditional television, which lives in one place at one time, such as NBC on Monday nights at 8pm, and you sit on your couch and let the story come at you. After our writers created the Conspiracy For Good narrative, we then chopped it into 1,000 pieces and distributed those pieces across many platforms, such as characters’ Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, text messages, and updates on various websites, some of which were hard to find.  The audience then went and found the pieces.  So, when a cell phone buzzed in the pocket of one of our audience members in the middle of the day, they got to live in the story again for a few minutes and went to a particular website to learn something new about a character or a development, much like you do with your friends in your regular, everyday life.  We even distributed songs that had hidden clues. When a participant found a clue on a character’s Facebook page, for example, they were often motivated to search deeper and crowdsource, with other participants, solutions to the character¹s journey.

The Conspiracy For Good actually had a character who traveled from Zambia all the way to London and she often ran into obstacles along the way. Her dream was to build a library for school kids in Zambia, and our audience actually helped the character fund and built a real library there. The audience communicated with her and used Nokia’s Ovi Maps to guide her through northern Africa and Europe. We actually had an actor (songwriter/poet Nadirah X) and a camera crew on the road for months of travel, being guided by fans.”

“So, to the many writers and producers involved in the Conspiracy For Good, the challenge was to create a puzzle with 1,000 pieces. Everyday the audience received one or two puzzle pieces from different sources (mobile device, song, etc). Over time, the fans begin to see the bigger story that emerged as they put the pieces together, and it soon became obvious that some very big actions were about to go down in London at a particular time and place. The Conspiracy For Good really pushed the limits of transmedia storytelling‹and also old-fashion street theater – and our audience loved it.

What are the most exciting emerging technologies that filmmakers should be aware of?

It’s incredible how new technologies have democratized filmmaking. You can make a great piece of art with a cell phone camera. I know because some of our fans did just that. We used a lot of mobile technology and mobile applications because we were aligned with Nokia on the CFG pilot. The future is clearly in social media and crowdsourced experiences, and also GPS technologies. The funnest part of our 4 month long event was the scavenger hunt in the streets of London that used image recognition software and location-based gaming to uncover mysteries, move through the streets guided by your cell phones, and find underground concerts.

What can filmmakers do to encourage real engagement and participation from “the people formerly known as the audience”?

When people come across an experience that they love, they want to share it with their friends. Art is powerful when it expresses an emotion, it taps into something that bypasses our intellect and makes us feel rather than think. That is moving. And when we experience that, we want to share it with others. This is true when you hear a great song or see a video or read a poem or play a game. Transmedia is best when you tap into this.”

“A story is more powerful if the storytellers create a story architecture that invites and even necessitates that you invite your friends to participate with you. If the story involves doing real good in the real world, then it is even more exciting to invite your friends to join your cause. The Conspiracy For Good wants to inspire you to invite your friends to experience new art and music and story, and by doing so also support a real world cause. So, I would have to say that transmedia storytelling is most effective when you interact with others and actually share and create art with them. The best example of this that I’ve seen recently is this pretty incredible Johnny Cash video that needs actual fans to sketch every single frame in the video.”

TransMedia Strategies with Multi-Screen Delivery – Now In High Demand in 2011

SOURCE HEADLINE (May 4, 2011):  The explosion in syndicated content, easily embeddable code, and the torrents of clips coming to the Web are paying off in streaming media pretty much everywhere. According to the third annual survey of web media companies by D S Simon, 85% of them now carry video, representing an increase of a third from last year. Television media was already at peak penetration, with 96% of venues carrying clips, but the 2011 Web Influencers Study found that virtually every other category of news, especially newspapers and radio, now make video de rigueur.  According to Doug Simon of D S Simon, the meaning here is clear. “The big news is that online media has now officially become a video programming network.” All of which goes to show how much users bring an expectation of streaming media experiences to a site. In order to feed the need for full motion, 84% of site users says they use third party providers along with in-house media. While traditionally non-video media are embracing the trend, it doesn’t mean that all of them are going full-bore into production. Understandably, 93% of radio stations say they rely in some measure on external sources of media, with 86% of newspapers and 80% of web media. TV entities tend to rely much more on their own assets, but still 63% user third parties.  We have said it before in these pages; video is the new text, and the Web is a primary accelerant of that trend.”

Almost every Pay TV operator has a multi-screen strategy now and many are involved in laboratory or field trials, while some plan full scale launches this year. A number of big players, such as Orange in Europe and PCCW in Hong Kong, already have well
established mobile TV services with varying levels of interaction between these and their fixed broadcast packages. The ultimate
destiny is a coherent, unified and yet flexible multi-screen service, providing customers choices over delivery, device and
method of payment, ideally served over a common infrastructure.

To Read full Report (Click Box Above)

The end game for the whole digital entertainment industry is a multi-screen world where there is no distinction made at a business level on the basis of the target platform, with all devices served via a common headend and network infrastructure. This may not be as distant as some commentators think, and so operators need to be considering now how to migrate and scale their business accordingly. Scaling will have to occur across four dimensions: delivery infrastructure, the pay business model, revenue security and content rights.

Today’s market is bourgeoning with “smart devices,” from tablets to TVs to any device that can connect you to the Internet. The industry has gone through many iterations of the smart TV and we’ve seen fluctuation in consumer adoption. In a survey conducted by RedShift Research in the UK in 20101, connectivity ranked third in importance, after resolution and screen size, in consumers considerations when purchasing a new TV set. Yet, with the turn of the year, we’re seeing increased growth and adoption of connected TV sets. According to In-Stat, Web-Enabled CE Devices will reach one billion by 2015.
Consumers are starting to understand the value that connected “Smart” devices bring to the entertainment experience. However, as we step into this new world of connected everything, we need to be cognizant of how we can continue to make the entertainment experience enjoyable for consumers. TVs are entertainment devices that should allow consumers to lean back and enjoy. The most important technology a TV can have is the ability to access a wide variety of entertainment choices and help the viewer choose the content that is best for them or their family. …

The next generation of connected TVs will bring with it aggregation of content, personalization and recommendations technology.  Along with these services, it will offer a greater way for TV manufacturers and service providers to monetize their offering – advertising capabilities outside of the traditional 30 second spot. It will use metadata pervasively to search for and connect consumers to content. It will have a lot to offer the consumer in their search for what to watch.

READ REST OF ARTICLE HERE…

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 …