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.

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?

The Love Kitchen – TransMedia 4 Screen Syndication Strategy

TLP is assisting TheLoveKitchen with TransMedia, 4 Screen Packaging of the reality show which is now in development.  Synopsis from Show Website.  “The Love KitchenTM is a new seductive dating and upscale cooking show combing sex appeal and food.  TLK unmasks the true personalities of the contestants by turning up the temperature on their first date.  Forget the bedroom. Ever wonder what your date is like…in the kitchen?  Our show uniquely pairs couples together in the kitchen, to see if they can stand the heat – and one another.  “True personalities come out the first date,” says Hang Holyda, the Executive Producer.   She should know.  With a Masters in Psychology, she’’s been studying this a long time – and now she’’s created a show that puts it all into practice.   You can learn a lot about a person during stressful situations.  The kitchen is the perfect place to learn the truth about your potential love interest.  “When stressed, it’s really difficult to contain one’s personality.  Cooking can be stressful, or it can be sensual. The best experience involves a little of both. “  TLK is a cross between ‘The Iron Chef’ and ‘The Dating Game.”  Cross-platformed Webisodes and Episodes offer delicious recipes to help viewers brush up on their culinary skills in a fun and competitive social setting.  Each show involves two contestants competing to win over the main date with their culinary skills and charm by cooking one at a time in front of the date.  In the end, the date chooses the winner as their future dating partner.”

And sometimes the kitchen experience is a total failure where the winning male or female would rather just go home.

Its light and full of surprises mixing secret ingredients, exotic dishes, challenging recipes and impossible situations to determine who makes the grade.”

The proposed Show Hosts are Maikka Weston and Scott Rose.  The show is owned by Success Productions: