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 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.
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.
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.
The Power of Belief – Thoughts are Things
…”Thoughts are Things,” and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.
…when a man really desires a thing so deeply that he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of the wheel in order to get it, he is sure to win.
…opportunity…often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat…this is why so many fail to recognize the opportunity.
..an intangible impulse of thought can be transmuted into material rewards by the application of known principles.
A Child making a Difference for 5 Minutes at the UN …
Quotes from Experts on Social Media
The Importance of Social Media – Quotes from the Experts
MORE ON USE OF LOVEMARKS IN A WEBSITE OR BLOG CAMPAIGN …
Check Out The Legacy Productions” “One Brick at a Time Campaign” By Clicking the Box Below
Naked Pizza Twittering
Naked Pizza, a New Orleans Pizzeria that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media. In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.”
Credit: Naked Pizza Graphic
Using the Twitter platform, they are able to tell exactly how much in sales can be attributed to the Twitter action. Are they on to something? Perhaps! Clearly. Naked Pizza had a 15% increase in their business sales for the day.
In 140-characters or less, Twitter is starting to show some signs of profit for some for-profit businesses.
MORE ON USE OF LOVEMARKS IN A WEBSITE OR BLOG CAMPAIGN …
Check Out The Legacy Productions” “One Brick at a Time Campaign” By Clicking the Box Below
Jordan’s Become Legendary Campaign – What’s the Lovemark Here?
In January 2008, the “Become Legendary” Campaign was launched. From the Press Release: “BECOME LEGENDARY” is intended to inspire consumers to exceed expectations, challenge conventional views of sportsmanship and explain that greatness is attainable. Using evocative imagery, the ad campaign animates the Jordan Brand core truths – Authentic, Uncompromised, Earned, and Aspirational – which speak directly to the brand pillars derived by Michael Jordan’s personal values and philosophy for success. We think Jordan Brand, a division of NIKE, Inc., did something exceptional with this Campaign.
Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi introduced the concept of Lovemarks into the world of integrated brands in 2004. Roberts is considered the guru of Lovemarks and speaks about the Blacks rugby team of New Zealand in this short clip “Nothing is Impossible.” It’s clear there is a real connection between the Become Legendary Campaign and it’s message, its Lovemarks and Roberts’ description of the Blacks and “Nothing is Impossible.” This is pull marketing and inbound marketing at its finest hour …
MORE ON USE OF LOVEMARKS IN A WEBSITE OR BLOG CAMPAIGN …
Check Out The Legacy Productions” “One Brick at a Time Campaign” By Clicking the Box Below
About the Legacy – Monetizing Every View
Overview of TLP TransMedia Brand Integration, Video Syndication, & Consulting Services (For Short PDF, Click Box Above. For Detailed PDF Click Box Below)
OUR LOGLINE: A Great Story means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this, creating this, defining this … is a lonely task at times. It begins with talent. TLP recognizes we are born with the creative power to put things together in a way no one has ever dreamed. It’s what we do. Then we bring to the work a vision that’s driven by fresh insights into human nature and society. We couple it with an in-depth knowledge of characters, locations, plots and sub-plots within a new StoryWorld … which asks the audience to immerse themselves into the story … live the story, dream, the story … and… We integrate digital technologies and interactivity within that StoryWorld and create results which all Brands desire.
The Legacy Productions is in a Collaborative Team relationship with CampaignTouch, TVNOW.me, VFXDirect, Let’s Go Hollywood, Inc., M2 Productions, Alphabird, Kontera and others. TLP with its Strategic Affiliates offers:
Projects In TransMedia Development or Packaging:
* PoliticalQRCodes(tm)
* ConnectedTV Politics(tm)
* Walker (TransMedia Cross-Platform)
* JobzTV.com (reality TV, digital signage)
* TheLoveKitchenTV (reality TV, digital signage)
* MissionCoffeeCan.com (reality TV, digital signage)
* Health Industry Media (Narrowcast TV, digital signage)
-Packaging of 4 Screen TransMedia deployment of TV Content with cross-promotions, IAB standard video ad units (pre-roll, post-roll, SMS text, interactive, metrics, geo-targeting) – “monetizing every view”
-Offering PaaS with TVU Networks and Media Signage systems to provide clients with latest in cross-platform delivery of content in TransMedia integrations;
-Packaging of TransMedia entertainment products (reality TV series, series, films, interstitials, brand integrated webisodes, mobisodes) with Sponsors, structure, strategic affiliation partners, brand integration and product placement strategies, on-line and narrow cast distribution, on-line distribution and monetization strategies, guaranteed syndication and audiences;
-HD Video production from creative through post for broadcast commercials, web-videos, trade show videos, profiles, real property profiles and presentations
-3D Animation and visualizations for Architectural Renderings, Architectural and Real Estate Fly-throughs, Product and Video Gaming;
-Motion tracking and green screen and white cyc – 3 wall studio facilities 60 minutes from Boston;
-Inbound Marketing and Viral Marketing Services;
-Integrated Social Media Campaign Creations;
-Creation – Film and TV Productions;
-Creator, Director, Preditor, Writer Reality TV;
-High-Concept Ad Creation.
We deliver on-line and off-line cutting edge, media-rich video content to the corporate, creative and broadcast markets worldwide. Our services cover all aspects of high definition video, content, TV, broadcast, animation, motion graphics, streaming and delivery.
The Legacy Productions’ mantra is: Believe in your dreams … reach for the stars … go beyond the ordinary …
