TLP TransMedia Strategies for Broadcast News Outlets

THE NEWS ABOUT THE NEWS.  “Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40 percent who said the same a year ago. Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source —55 percent of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35 percent of those age 65 and older.” (Source:  Recent Neilsen Report.)

Click Box Below for 2011 PDF from TLP.

TLP TransMedia Overview for 2011- How Can Brands Benefit?

Click Above to Download PDF

1)  What is a Transmedia Narrative?

2)  What are some recent examples?

3)  What makes TransMedia Stories  interesting to an audience?

4)  What does it mean for your Brand and how is it Monetized?

5)  How Is A TransMedia Strategy Initiated?

TLP Recommends “Finding the GAP” and “Disruptive Change” in TransMedia Strategies

Observations and insights are not the same thing.  In TransMedia, this is very important.

Observations mean raw data.  It’s a gradual accumulation of research information … that one  consciously and carefully records— exactly the way we saw or heard it … no interpretation added.

By contrast, insights are the sudden realizations.  We know them as “Aha!” moments!  They happen when we interpret the observations and discover unexpected patterns.

It’s all in the patterns … that reveal gaps between where people are now … and where they’d ideally like to be.  It’s the same with Brands.  It’s a place between now … their current reality and their desires for change in the market circumstances.  It’s described as a rift between the way something is now … and the way people assume it should be.

And whenever and wherever there is tension (observation), there is a GAP.  In TransMedia we call that an OPPORTUNITY … and for it to be highly effective … it must be DISRUPTIVE IN THE MARKETPLACE served by a Brand.

APPMARKET.TV reports:  Transmedia has been a buzz word for a while, but today it’s rapidly rising up the radar, with content creators increasingly interested in finding innovative ways to create stories that arc over various platforms, providing consumers with multiple entry points. A new trend reportfrom JWT, the world’s best-known marketing communications brand, explores why this trend is bubbling up right now, how it’s significant for marketers and where it’s going.

Understanding what transmedia means and how to develop relevant experiences that give audiences multiple entry points will be increasingly important for marketers as transmedia transitions into the status quo. The report, “Transmedia Rising,” provides an introduction to transmedia fundamentals: It includes a half-dozen case studies, insights from transmedia experts, a guide to finding more information (from events to podcasts to books and video clips) and a timeline charting some of transmedia’s milestones, from Disney to The Matrix and beyond.

“This is an era characterized by social media, multiple screens and empowered consumers, and transmedia leverages all of that while using age-old storytelling and marketing techniques,” says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT. “For marketers, transmedia presents new opportunities for capturing consumers’ time and attention-with the potential to enhance brand mythology and create more brand evangelists.”

Take the following example.  A secretary picks up a SmartPhone and dials an important number.  If she dialed the number and it was for her work does anyone really care?  But if the secretary decides to scroll through the recent calls placed on the phone by her boss … takes a look at the photos stored on the phone, watches a few videos, updates her FaceBook posts and shoots out a few Twitters … Well … then if her boss finds out she’s looking though his contact list and finds a few work colleague female names that should not be there … and then the boss finds out.  What do you think?  Would she still have a job?  The tension builds … and when disruption is thought about today in the TransMedia marketplace … Brands are seeking differentiation and ways to step out of the massive “clutter” in advertising  …

To do that … NOTHING IS BETTER THAN A GOOD DISRUPTIVE INFLUENCE.

Tension like this story about the secretary is the focus and at the bulls eye of each compelling story that captures an audience’s attention.  It is not surprising that TransMedia pitches must include this type of analysis for them to be effective.  Often and sadly they do not.

Consider the dull stories that broadcast :30 second spots continue to deliver to a bored audience.   A man meets a woman and they live happily ever after.  Where is the tension in that?  Or in the 1960′s style of advertising, a product like washing detergent meets a consumer with “big hair” who smiles and  lives happily ever after.

Really?

It’s not believable and it’s not emotional.   And where this is no emotion?  No sale… It’s a fairly simple formula.  So if a Brand intends to capture an audience’s attention or interest, it needs a major element of tension that throws status quo out the window.

Back to the secretary’s story … assume the secretary picks up the phone … scrolls through the pictures … finds one of herself … clicks on it and sees an invitation from her boss to go out to a swank restaurant that very evening.  As she and the audience realize he (the boss) left the phone there for her to find it and he then walks into the room and they embrace.

A title rolls up and says [_____] SmartPhones work in unexpected ways.  The tension is resolved and the audience buys into the solution.

A presentation without tension presented and tension resolved is lifeless … emotionless.  It’s not effective storytelling which good TransMedia StoryWorld building requires today.

TransMedia storytelling IS THE NEW MEDIUM.  It constructs a story and serves it across different platforms.  It invites audience participation and collaboration and is simultaneously linear, nonlinear and multi-dimensional.   Both individual and collaborative, TransMedia gives the audience what they want and WHEN THEY WANT IT.

TransMedia storytelling is not the simply taking content and ‘repurposing’ it for different media.   TransMedia builds a story universe (what researchers and creators call a narrative).   TransMedia invites the audience into a StoryWrold. The storytellers capitalize on the characteristics of each medium of delivery—traditional and new—to created, re-create and contribute to a distinct part of the narrative which is satisfying as a standalone experience. And at the same time, each part as well adds a meaningful and unique contribution to the overall story experience – individual and collective. TransMedia storytelling boasts and uses multiple points of entry making the StoryWorld accessible to different types of consumers, audiences and media-users. TransMedia, at the end of the day,  relies on the audience for interactivity and response to calls to action treating them with respect at all times.  TransMedia does not “sell” them, but instead invites them to become co-participants to join, expand upon and even change the narrative.

TLP Following 2011 Video Trends for TransMedia Packaging

Online Viewing Stats:

comScore Video Metrix data shows that 174 million US internet users watched online video content in March 2011 for an average of 14.8 hours (888 minutes) per viewer. The total US internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.  Unique viewers were up 2.5% from 169.65 million in February 2011 and down about 3% from 180.2 million in March 2010. Viewing sessions were up 15% from about 5 billion the prior month, and average time per user was up about 9% from 816.4 minutes.

Mobile Video Popularity Jumps 41%

In Q4 2010, 301 million Americans used a mobile phone; of those mobile subscribers, 24.7 million watched video on a mobile phone. This marks a 41% increase from roughly 17.5 million mobile video viewers in Q4 2009.

Nielsen analysis indicates the growing popularity of mobile video is due, in part, to the rapid adoption of media-friendly mobile devices, including smartphones, which make up 30% of the marketplace.

Demographic Stats:

Almost eight in 10 (77.9%) US online video viewers are white, according to [pdf] data collected in November 2010 by The Nielsen Company. Hispanics represent the second-largest ethnic market for online video consumption, representing 12.1% of online video viewers.

Teens Consume Most Mobile Video

Younger consumers ages 12-17 are the heaviest mobile video viewers, watching an average of seven hours and 13 minutes of mobile video a month during Q4 2010. Mobile subscribers on average watched four hours and 20 minutes of mobile video a month in Q4 2010.

Middle class households with children younger than 18 earning $50,000 to $74,999 annually also use the internet at a disproportionately high rate. These households constitute 11% of the internet universe, a 37.5% larger figure than the 8% of the total US population they represent. Interestingly, lower class households with children younger than 18 earning less than $50,000 annually use the internet at a 33% higher rate than their share of US population (16% compared to 12%), meaning they are more likely to be online than middle class households.

Other Findings

• Almost three-fourths of Americans older than age 18 were married in 1960, but only 52% are today.
• Hispanics represent the fastest-growing segment of the multi-cultural nation, growing 40% in the past 10 years and numbering 50 million people.
• Households with children younger than age 18 will be predominantly multi-cultural by 2020 (Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American); 40% already are multi-cultural today due in large part to immigration.
• High income families view less TV but spend more time viewing with kids, using time-shifted media four times more often than low income households.

TLP Adds FusionTalk Video Emails to Interactive Slate of TransMedia Tools

For years TransMedia companies have searched for a suitable and attractive interface for the delivery of video email messages.  A GetResponse “2010 Email Marketing Trends” survey was conducted online from January 27 to February 5, 2010.   When a group of small to medium size business marketing companies were  asked if they used video email in 2009 and plan to use it in 2010, only a combined 15.7% of respondents said they used it last year.  However, more than 80% of respondents plan to use video email this year, with 11.9% saying they used it last year and will increase usage this year.

Video Emails Seen as Conversion Tool
Almost 66% of respondents said video email can result in significant or moderate increases in conversion rates.  Click Through Rates  (CTR’s) in response to a call to action is the coveted goal of email campaigns.  In TransMedia Campaigns, Brands want to be assured a video email spend will also return interactive results with metrics and usable data points.  TLP has chosen FusionTalk as its preferred Video Email interface, where we use and manage  it to design a customized video email campaign as part of a suite of TransMedia tools designed to get Click Through Rates and response to a Brand’s call to action.

In a TransMedia World … The Mobile Ad Market is Exploding – Up 36%

Rhythm NewMedia releases metrics every quarter to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your mobile video ad campaigns and to learn best practices. Data points are based on ads served across iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android and other devices in the US market.  In Q1, Rhythm served over 728 million average monthly content views in the US, up 36% Q/Q. The data points cover ad campaigns from over 70 Fortune 500 brands in Q1 2011.

Key findings for Q1 2011 include:

1. Huge growth in mobile video advertising: 200+ brands in 2010, 70+ in Q1 2011, 36% quarter over quarter growth from Q4 to Q1
2. Combine video ad units for maximum effectiveness: Each video ad unit provides marketers with a different, effective approach to deliver their brand message
3. In-Stream Video ads outperform all other video units: High average completion rate of 87%
4. In-Stream Video advertising performs best with greater reach: 22% higher clickthrough rates on run of network, broad reach, campaigns due to in-stream video advertising’s immersive and brand building nature that captivates all targets
5. Interactive Pre-Roll is more effective between screens: Video completion rates average 36% between screens vs. 23% at app launch
6. Entertainment, Telecom, CPG top categories: Brands in those three categories ran the most campaigns this quarter

Mobile video ad impressions averaged 728 million a month in the first quarter of 2011, up 36% from the prior quarter, according to new data from mobile video ad network Rhythm NewMedia. More than 70 marketers ran campaigns during the quarter, about the same as in the fourth quarter.

Rhythm data is based on ads served across the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android and other mobile devices in the U.S. HBO, Kraft, Disney and Marriott, among other brands, use the company’s network to run pre-roll, tap-to-play and in-stream video ads on the apps and mobile sites of various publishers, including CBS, Fox, NBC, Discovery and AP.

Among the three ad types, the in-stream unit, which plays as a commercial break during full episodes or before video clips, had the highest completion rate: 87%. The pre-roll, which automatically plays when an app is launched or between game levels, had a 27% completion rate, and the tap-to-play ads, requiring a user to tap on a display ad to run, a 21% rate. (Unlike most pre-roll ads on the PC-based Web, viewers can skip the Rhythm pre-roll ads, contributing to the lower completion rate.)

When it comes to click-throughs, the tap ads, which may appear when a user is browsing photos, articles or playing a game, had the highest rate, at 7.2%, compared to 4.5% for pre-roll, and 1.3% for in-stream.

Rhythm suggests advertisers can increase the effectiveness of ad units, depending on how they are used. For instance, in-stream ads perform best in run-of-network campaigns, where the click rate increases to 1.4% from 1.1% on targeted sites or a single site. For pre-rolls, completion rates increase from 23% to 36% when run in between screens instead of at launch.

TransMedia + Social Media + An Entertainment Property = Audience Engagement

In the new film Source Code, there’s an interactive digital StoryWorld developed in the film’s marketing campaign.  It’s a successful technique which TV serials, webisodes, mobisodes and bonus content promotions could easily integrate.

It”s a first for Summit Entertainment.  That’s the studio producing the thriller, Source Code (Jake Gyllenhaal) which has  a social media game called Source Code Mission that can be activated by Microsoft Tag technology within the movie poster.  That bit of code, which any smartphone can read, will lead to a game that takes 10 to 20 minutes and is based on the movie’s plot.  It features Gyllenhaal returning to the scene of a bombing of a Chicago commuter train and trying to change the outcome.

The use of social media games to spur interest in entertainment properties is growing rapidly.  In January, Starz launched the series Spartacus:  Gods of the Arena with a Facebook game and an iPad app.  In that same month, the CW also publicized the new season of Gossip Girl with a Facebook game. More recently, Paramount Pictures promoted the animated Johnny Depp movie Rango with a tie-in with Zynga’s FrontierVille game.

TransMedia companies worldwide are jumping into this highly creative and profitable arena integrating TV series, webisodes, mobisodes with social media and digital interactivity.  It is a Wild West environment when brands request it. And they are …

Brand integrations into these TransMedia projects with 360 degree multiplatform distribution and syndication are the new media and the medium.

What is TransMedia Syndication and Distribution? Fiction Without Limits …

TransMedia stories, at a most basic level, are stories told across multiple media platforms.  At the present time, the most significant stories tend to flow across multiple media platforms which give rise to new revenue models where broadcast and narrowcast models converge in a new integrated business plan.  Cross-platform integrations give rise to new Story Worlds.

TransMedia storytelling is not just a symbolic exercise:   Transmedia storytelling –> More $$$$$$

How does TransMedia connect with a shared story world environment?  What are the economic opportunities for content creators, producers, distributors, and syndicators in 2011?  For those with a creative mind, the answers are now seemingly limitless.  Can TV content libraries be re-purposed and inserted into a larger story or narrative which takes that broadcast serial content, dramatic or news content into the fabric of a much larger and new Story Narrative?  The answer is yes and we call it TransMedia, particularly when it involves multiple integrated screens from digital signage, mobile devices with ARG (augmented reality), web site embeds and Connected TVs .  An re-mixing which observes intellectual property rights is permitted … in fact it’s advisable in this brave new frontier of TransMedia:

It is sometimes called a shared “Story World”  approach where transmedia strategies explore new creative and economic opportunities for monetizing every new view of the shared and new content.   When audiences are invited to contribute to an entertainment experience in a variety of ways, multiple opportunities for Anchor Sponsor and advertiser engagement arise that cannot be found in a tradition Broadcast environment.

Such a new Story World often begins with a single story and a single property.  It could be a novel, a graphic novel, a movie, a TV serial, dramatic or news program.  And it may begin as a serialized narrative:  say, a TV show, a comic series, or a movie or documentary property.  It may also represent only art forms (i.e., images, photographs, etc.), role-playing or alternate reality gaming properties, or an animated cartoon series.  Irrespective of the mediums involved (i.e. and the medium is the message)  or the source content (new or re-purposed), a shared Story World narrative is not the same as a single work.  As its label describes, it is an entire is a world a new universe of story based economic opportunities diversified and strong enough to support multiple new monetized, creative works but flexible enough to encourage and support audience participation.

Documentary + Game = Independent TransMedia Project called “The Great Work” — a project consulted on by Lance Weiler

“The Greak Work” is a documentary by two Swedish filmmakers, Oskar Östergren & Fredrik Oskarsson (details at the end) about 30-year-old Christer Böke from Malmö, Sweden. He has taken one year off from his well-paid job as an IT-salesman to become a full-time Alchemist.  The film concerns mankind’s eternal ambition of wealth and immortality and one mans dedicated struggle to solve “The secret of all secrets”. This struggle is known at The Great Work.

What’s particularly interesting about this project is that the filmmakers have teamed up with an independent game designer, Niflas, to create a game to complement the movie.

The Great Work was screened on SVT (Swedish Television) as a 58 minute version, winter 2011.

Lance Weiler is considered to an early adopter and cutting edge developer in the world of TransMedia.

THE EVOLUTION OF STORYTELLING.  Technology is impacting the art and craft of storytelling. As the industry shifts and audiences move from passive to active collaborators, how does the art of storytelling change? How does one develop stories and characters that can travel across screens and devices? What will emerge as new formats and how will they be funded and distributed? Lance Weiler, director of The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma, details the story architecture that he employs to build story worlds around his film, TV and gaming projects.

Early this year production company Vectorform says it went down the transmedia rabbit-hole with award winning writer/director Lance Weiler.  They popped up at the Sundance Film Festival–where they helped unleash Pandemic 1.0, a fictional story of a viral outbreak that took the festival by storm.  Spanning film, mobile, online, real world and more, Pandemic 1.0 was a digital virus that spread— or receded–based on player interaction. Vectorform created a mobile experience featuring Near Field Communication (NFC) integration for 50 Nexus S devices, and a Microsoft Surface dashboard for Mission Control.

The Witness – The first movie in the outernet

In Augmented Reality Film, Your Smartphone Solves the Crime.  In “The Witness,” viewers become participants in a clever fusion of filmmaking and augmented reality.  Why does Europe get all the cool stuff?  Here in America, all we get from SyFy are bad monster-movie mashups; but in Germany, SyFy (or rather, its parentborg, NBC Universal) mounts innovative original fare like “The Witness,” which blends gritty drama with immersive augmented reality. Forget the internet — they’re dubbing this “the first movie in the outernet.”  “The Witness” works like a smartphone-centered fusion of a traditional thriller and an interactive ARG:  German viewers applied to participate online, and the “winners” got to enter a real-life version of the movie in which they play a role, using their phones to watch snippets of the film that play out like a virtual layer over the physical scene they’re standing in. For example, when the “film” begins in a Berlin hotel at the scene of a kidnapping, the player/viewer is literally standing in the same room where the scene took place, holding their phone up over it like a window to watch how it plays out — and then interact with it like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, as The Visual News explains…. You can either choose to solve the crime and save the day, or (intentionally or not) end up a red stain on the concrete.

The Truth About Marika as a Cross-Media Production – Extraordinary Results

The Truth About Marika (Swedish title: Sanningen om Marika), is a cross-media production by Sveriges Television (SVT) and The company P. It is an alternate reality game and a TV-series first aired in Sweden during the autumn of 2007. The Truth About Marika was marketed as a “participation drama” and had a high amount of viewer participation.  The viewers of the TV-series were invited by a young woman to participate in the search for her lost friend and the search took place online and all over Sweden.  The Truth About Marika took place on television, national radio, the internet, mobile phones and in the streets. Each week the theories of the search for Marika were discussed in a live TV-debate.  The events depicted on the television show was partially altered by the actions of participating viewers.

Collapsus is the future of storytelling – It is the Definition of TransMedia

Collapsus is a project that combines animation, interactive fiction, and documentary film.  This story follows how the impending energy crisis affects ten young people, while international powers battle with political dissension and a fearful population during transition from Fossil fuel to alternative fuels.  Set in the near future, Collapsus was initialized to raise awareness of the global issue of peak oil.  Collapsus was developed by SubmarineChannel, with the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO, who produced the associated Energy Transition documentary the project is based on. Collapsus is directed by Tommy Pallotta, who produced A Scanner Darkly (film) and Waking Life.

TLP Completes “Connected TV” White Paper – Latin TV Market Focus

Managed TV versus Over the top video

The impact of connected TVs on the TV industry (RequestPDF – contact button)

What You Need To Know: A Sixty Second Version

UNIVISION STATEMENT AT YOUTUBE:  You’ve probably read the headlines: “New census milestone: Hispanics reach 50 million”; “U.S. Hispanic population tops 50 million” and one of our favorites “Los USA — Latino Populations Grow Faster with Wider Spread.” The U.S. Census numbers have confirmed that the Hispanic population has reached an important milestone, the 50 million mark. We are waking up to a new reality, a new face of America. The New American Reality video speaks to the unique experience of being Latino in America today.  Univision is proud to Inform, Entertain and Empower the Hispanic community. To learn more about how we reach the Hispanic consumer. 

March 18, 2010. Cable TV Is Doomed. “The death of cable television would probably still be inevitable without the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband plan, which aims to expand broadband Internet access to 90% of Americans and dramatically increase access speeds. …We’re already familiar with two business models for web TV: Hulu’s ad-supported programming and iTunes’ micro-payment system of about $2 per ad-free show. Both of these are preferable to cable not only because they’re more cost-effective but because they allow the viewer a greater degree of control. You only pay for what you watch, whereas with cable you pay primarily for things you’ll never watch. Americans watch on average 5 hours of TV a day, so a cable subscriber with 100 channels is only consuming 0.2% of the programming he or she is charged for. With the average cable bill swelling to $64 a month in 2009 from $47.50 a month in 2004, ditching cable for web-based TV is an increasingly attractive option.

It is well known the broadcast television industry faces an unprecedented crisis amid a global economic downturn. News and industry experts have reported a dramatic fall in TV advertising spends, in many countries up to 50%. … and earnings drops to levels of 1995. There has been a multiplication of channels, brand confusion, and an ongoing fragmentation of audiences … An increasing number of bankruptcies of networks and production companies populate the news channels. This trouble in the global broadcast industry is well known by now.

An average of 179 Million Americans watched online video each month in 2010. Engagement levels also rose, with viewers watching online videos more frequently88.6 million people watched online video on an average day in December 2010 (up 32 percent from December 2009), while viewing sessions totaled 5.8 billion for the month (up 13 percent). The average American spent more than 14 hours watching online video in December, a 12-percent increase from last year, and streamed a record 201 videos, an 8-percent increase.

In February 2008 the average Hispanic-American over the age of 11 spent more time online than watching television, according to the Terra Networks-sponsored “Hispanic Syndicated Study,” conducted by comScore Media Metrix. In general, online Hispanics—independent of their language preferences and acculturation levels—are heavily engaged in technology,” wrote the report’s authors.  Every day, more than half (56%) of Hispanic-Americans surveyed said they spent at least an hour online, which was slightly more than the 50% who spent an hour or more watching TV. On a weekly basis, Terra reported that more Hispanic-American Internet users spent 13 or more hours online (30%) than watched TV for the same amount of time (23%).

Telemundo Internacional chooses TVU for live Internet broadcasts for its blockbuster Telenovela series “Decisiones” Mountain View - August 15, 2008 – Telemundo Internacional, an NBC Universal division deemed the preeminent leader in Latin American television worldwide, and TVU Networks, a global live Internet TV service with a user base of 18 million viewers in 200 countries, jointly announced today the addition of a Telemundo channel dedicated to its chart-topping series “Decisiones” that will be available worldwide excluding Mexico and the US.

October 14, 2010 Article:  TV revenue growth in Latin America set to explode “TV revenue in Latin America will be worth $18.5 billion in 2015 – up more than 50% on the 2009 total, according to a new research report from Informa Telecoms & Media. Latin American economies are showing signs of long-term strength, signalling big growth for television services in the next five years. “Greater economic resilience is now allowing the Latin TV sector to enjoy stable growth – putting it in its best position for decades,” said analyst Adam Thomas. In other words, with more disposable income floating around, subscribers are more likely to pour it into living-room entertainment. The growth will be so significant as to reduce the North American market’s dominance in pay-TV uptake over the next five years: Informa is forecasting that pay TV subscription numbers are anticipated to reach 57.3 million by the end of 2015 in the CALA region, up 57% from 36.6 million in 2009. In contrast, the U.S. in 2009 had 96 million digital households – almost 80% of the pan-continental total. By 2015 its statistical dominance will decline to accounting for 63% of the Americas total. Informa is expecting consistent growth in digital TV too, with the Latin region forecast to almost quadruple in size from 15.9 million digital TV households at the end of 2009 to 57.1 million by 2015. Brazil and Mexico combined to account for 51% of digital subscribers at the end of last year, their combined regional share will edge up to 54% during the forecast period.

The Legacy Productions Branding “Lovemarks” for Reality TV Series: JOBz

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi turned the advertising agency around with the concept and implementation of Lovemarks branding strategies for Fortune 500 clients.    A few years ago, Saatchi & Saatchi looked closely at the question:   What makes some brands inspirational, while others struggle?  And they came up with the answer: Lovemarks:  the future beyond brands

The Legacy Productions has implemented specific Lovemarks of:

Aspiration, Perseverance, Endurance, and Overcoming

… into the JOBz reality TV series’ brand image.  These Lovemarks are found throughout the JOBz’ webpage, print literature, key artwork, and other graphics in the show Media Kit.  http://www.jobztv.com

Here are some of the JOBz show posters: