Intro To Transmedia (Uja Fed)

Cause Marketing Session

Wiener Center

Introduction to Transmedia Tools and Strategies

Aharon HorwitzPresenTense Group

Wiener Educational Center, UJA Federation New York


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Noise: Key Characteristic of the Digital Age

The Quickie Website


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•Jonnie wakes up in the morning and reviews RSS on a iPhone

•On the way to school, Jonnie twitters breakfast plans which automatically crosspost on Facebook

•At school, Jonnie invites friends to lunch through planypus

•During class, Jonnie opens a Google Doc to collaborate on notes

•Also during class, Jonnie opens an IM session to pass notes and skims Facebook, including 30 cause invitations (he responds to one with a micropayment)

•Afterschool, Jonnie goes to a MeetUp at a friend’s house and plays Wii

•In the evening, Jonnie meets the parents and downloads their favorite show, liveblogging the experience

Just How Noisy? Meet Jonnie

WHOIS SEARCH


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The Digital Age’s Human Effects

•Human Beings are constantly exposed to the wider world beyond their immediate social sphere

•Ubiquity of media leads to hypercompetition for the individual’s most precious resource: time

•To compete in the Attention Economy, organizations must make the case for their relevance

•The case for relevance lies in the story and organization tells about itself and the world it would like to come


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Narrative Defines Experience

Registrar

“We inhabit a nomos - a normative universe. We constantly create and maintain a world of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful, of valid and void...[And yet] No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning. For every constitution there is an epic, for each Decalogue a scripture.”

– Robert Cover, Nomos and Narrative


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The Digital Ages Effect on Narrative

Basic Site Tools 2

•The inherent property of a story is that it is told

•The Digital Age creates multiple channels of possible experience

•Transmedia narratives are, at their most basic, stories told across multiple media, which depend on multiliteracy: the ability to process and aggregate multimodal representations

•Individuals who make up communities seek to connect according to their individual wants, needs and level of social comfort


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Example: Heroes


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Heroes ExtensionsRecaps & Web Extras

•Clips With two-minute summaries of every episode, plus season walk-throughs, featured clips, and video dossiers on each character, there's no excuse for falling behind. •Behind the Scenes These mini documentaries introduce the composers, set designers, stunt coordinator, et al. •Global News Interactive Mock news reports provide clues to the show's mysteries. •Two-Screen Episodes While you watch the television broadcast, follow a barrage of polls, quizzes, and other real-time pop-ups on the Web site. •Video Commentary Within 24 hours of an episode's TV broadcast, NBC posts a Web version with video commentary from writers, producers, and cast members.

- source: “The Wide, Wide World of Heroes” by Ellen Gibson in FastCompany (April 15, 2008 )


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Fan-Generated Content • Wiki Open-source explanations to all things Heroes. Did you know that the license-plate

number of Hiro's father (played by George Takei from the original Star Trek) is NCC-1701, the same as the registration number of the Starship Enterprise?

• Fan Site Named "Ninth Wonders," after Isaac's comic book on the show, the Heroes fan site lets obsessed fans post short videos describing their theories, upload their own Heroes artwork, and exchange messages with the cast and crew.

Alternate Reality • Blogs and MySpace Characters Hana and Hiro maintain blogs, while three others have

official MySpace pages. Claire, a cheerleader, has more than 11,000 MySpace friends. • Vote Petrelli A bogus congressional campaign site for the character Nathan Petrelli,

VotePetrelli.com [2], includes downloadable posters and other propaganda. • Corinthian Casino & Hotel The Web site for the show's Vegas casino (corinthianlasve-

gas.com [3]) gives such straight descriptions that you might be fooled into booking a room -- until Hana hacks in with one of her secret messages (e.g., "I have something to show you").

• Primatech Paper On the show, Mr. Bennett's company may be a front for a covert organization, but the illusion of legitimacy extends to the Web site primatechpaper.com [4] and a real phone number viewers can call to apply for a job.

• Corporate Spying When Cisco Systems wanted to promote its new Web-based video surveillance, it sponsored a site that enabled visitors to spy inside the fictional Primatech Paper facility using a mock Cisco security-cam interface.

• Yamagato Fellowship This site (yamagatofellowship.org [5]) tells the tales of historical heroes, with a five-part documentary devoted to Takezo Kensei, a mythological samurai whose sword Hiro tries to steal on the show.

• Activating Evolution Dr. Suresh's novel about genetic mutation is the bible of freakishness on the show. A fake PR site for the book (activatingevolution.org [6]) allows you to read an excerpt, participate in a dream study, and listen to interviews with geneticists.


More Heroes Extensions…


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Video Games • For Gaming Systems NBC signed a deal with Ubisoft last summer for a superhero title for PCs and

game consoles. In stores by the end of the year. • Online Play In Suresh's Loft, you wander the rooms looking for clues. In Claire's Game, you navigate a

fiery train wreck to save a dying man. Isaac's Loft is a 360-degree interactive room; clicking on paintings reveals key plot points on the show.

• Online Comics • Interactive Novel A full-length Web-only graphic novel about secondary characters includes a Flash-

animated version. • Weekly Comics After each new TV episode airs, nbc.com/heroes [1] adds an online comic-book

chapter that provides back-story and fills gaps in that week's plot. Sponsored by Nissan. Mobile • Mobile Game Designed by Gameloft, Heroes: The Official Mobile Game has 11 levels you can download

to your phone. The goal is to save the world, of course, but it also helps obsessed fans unlock spoilers. • Text Updates If you text Hana's name to the number on her blog, she replies with clues that lead to

other Heroes Web sites. Viewers who "apply" for jobs at Primatech Paper receive texts regarding "next steps" from a company rep.

• Trivia Contest You know Hiro is lying when he talks about: a) thin sumo wrestlers, b) angry samurais, or c) ancient swords. Fans earn the chance to win $1,000 each week by completing weekly quizzes (either online or via text message). Also sponsored by Sprint.

• Create Your Hero Sponsored by Sprint, this application lets fans create their own Heroes characters and compete to have them featured in an online comic.

Print • Novel Charlie, the Texas waitress with the Kodak memory, appeared in only two episodes, but she left

a major imprint on Hiro, who failed to save her life. A novel called Saving Charlie delivers "the untold story of Hiro and Charlie."

• Graphic Novel Wildstorm, a DC Comics subsidiary, compiled the first 34 weekly online comics into a $29.99 hard-cover graphic novel (Heroes, Volume One). After two months, it was in its second printing.

• Magazine The bimonthly Heroes: The Official Magazine sells for $6.99 and features cast interviews, quizzes, foldout posters -- and plenty of advertising.


Even More Heroes Extensions…


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What can orgs learn from Heroes?

•Passive interaction is in low demand

•Activity increases demand, providing incentives for virality

•Narratives should seed and permit extensions

•Brand (or for a nonprofit, mission) as a platform

•Digital access points lead to physical interaction

•Communities own their slice of the brand


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Cloudstorm: Tell us of your quest

•If your venture could boil down its reason for existence into one desired future state, what would it be?

•A quest has two main temporal elements:

•The imperfect present

•The liberated future

•Remember: To compete in the Attention Economy, ventures must make the case for their quest’s relevance

•The case for relevance lies in the story the venture tells about itself and the world it would like to come


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Who will lead the charge?

•What do you require from your hero?

•Where are you searching for a champion?

•What are the qualities of the champion you believe can fulfill your quest?


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•How does your story become repeated and grown?

•How can others join into your quest?

•Can others tell your story?

Spreading the story

Entertainment & Humor

Intro To Transmedia (Uja Fed)