Pamela Rutledge's workshop at Planning-ness 2011

1. Transmedia Storytelling:
Stories For The Brain and
Design For The Bottom Line
Dr. Pamela Rutledge
May 20, 2011
Slide 1. Introduction
I’m going to give you some ideas and approaches to transmedia communication and transmedia
storytelling that I think will help you kick ass—although I can’t do much about clients who aren’t
smart enough to listen.
Let me give you a little background.
I started my career fresh out of college as a hippie graphic and communications designer but
quickly became distracted by the idea that while I was in charge of many things, I wasn’t in charge
of how the end-user perceived the information. I thought that learning about marketing probably
had all the answers. I got an MBA and marketing wasn’t that helpful. I was, however, intrigued by
how decisions and behaviors in an organization, like who steals pencils and whose is allocated the
cost for them influences the way employees perceive the organization, their job, and their
willingness to expend effort. So, I thought, wow, this perception thing is really amazing and I
decided to learn the psychology behind the perception, motivation, and engagement, so I earned
a PhD in psychology but I came full circle and brought the psychology back to the media where I
started. One of the best things about this is that my daughter Liz is getting her MFA in design and
technology at Parsons in NY and was shocked that I knew stuff that was useful.
So I am a psychologist. I love technology. I love visual design. My expertise is applying psychology
to technology, design, and messaging rather than crazy people—although I’ve done that too—
and that makes me very well equipped for you guys today. Because crazy people are really good
at thinking outside the box.
I am a co-founder of A Think Lab, a consulting and advisory firm that applies psychology and
neuroscience to strategies for emerging technologies and transmedia storytelling. I am also
Director of the Media Psychology Research Center, a nonprofit that does research and assessment
for media use and development. I teach a bunch of stuff having to do with media psychology
applied to marketing, social media, emerging technologies, and transmedia storytelling at UCLA
and UC Irvine Extensions and Fielding Graduate University.
Slide 2. Write your story
Before we get started, I’d like you to take a sheet of paper write the story of your company,
organization, or cause. It can be yours or something you are working on. We’ll take about two
minutes
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2. Slide 3. Write story of story
Now, put take a clean sheet of paper, and take another two minutes to write the story about why
you wrote that story. Why did you choose it? What does it mean? How do you feel about it?
When did it happen?
Slide 4. Agenda
Okay, so we’re here to talk about communicating in a transmedia world, more specifically about TS
and to try and figure out how to use it.
• Brains need stories
• Stories become shared experiences
• Stories hold universal truths
• Relationships trump products in the new brand-consumer ecosystem
• Look at the world through transmedia vision
As strategists, marketers, and communicators, you no doubt have heard all the buzz about
transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is a hot right now. So hot, in fact, that the Producers
Guild of America expanded the “Code of Credits” to include ‘Transmedia Producer’ so they could
get paid.
In spite of that, there seems to be somewhere between contention and confusion about what
Transmedia Storytelling is. Today, I’d like to start by defining transmedia storytelling so we’re all on
the same page.
Slide 5. Jenkins
There are some emerging names in the Transmedia Storytelling space making headlines. There are
some academics like Henry Jenkins, a professor at USC who wrote Convergence Culture, and on
the commercial side, some media producers, like Jeff Gomez at Starlight Runner.
Henry Jenkins is credited with the prevailing definition from an article he wrote for Wired in 2003. He
says:
Transmedia Storytelling is a story that unfolds across different media platforms, where each platform
adds something unique and valuable. Users can join the story at different places, can participate,
contribute content, and each piece motivates the user to seek out the others.
Now that we’ve said that, let’s approach it from a different perspective.
Slide 6. Term
Let’s look at the term: Transmedia Storytelling.
Which one is the noun? And what’s transmedia? Transmedia is an adjective. It is modifying
‘storytelling’, meaning that transmedia storytelling is a type of storytelling the same way that a
green frog is different from a red frog.
What does that tell us about how to get under the hood? It tells us that whatever is going on,
transmedia storytelling starts with the story—otherwise we’d have nothing to modify, transmedia or
otherwise.
Slide 7. Wheelbarrow
So while I agree with Jenkins’ attributes as being part of transmedia storytelling, for me, his definition
is the transmedia part. Transmedia is the development and execution of assets, packaging and
distribution strategy. It’s the wheelbarrow and which direction you push. Those are important, for
sure, because otherwise you don’t go anywhere. But the point of any communication is the
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3. content, not the vehicle, so we have to start with story. When the Internet exploded, everyone
went around saying “content is king.” In Transmedia Storytelling, saying that is a massive
understatement, because at the end of the day, it’s not about the media.
Slide 8. Mantra for Transmedia Storytelling
It’s not about the tools
Slide 9. Campfire
Using story in marketing and branding isn’t a new concept. I’ll talk about why story is a particularly
powerful form of communication, especially in this media environment in a minute. But before we
go there, let’s get clear what we mean by story. What is a story? Through out some words--
What do stories contain?
• Human experience
• Feelings
• Emotions
• Truths
• Resolution
• Memories
• Expectations
• Time
We have this big world of story and so let’s look at some of the key pieces that will be most useful to
you. I’m not going to go into the details of narrative structure here. But I’m more concerned with
giving you an understanding of how the psychological dynamics of story work so that you know an
effective one when you see it.
Slide 10. Big Four
Here are the four most important components of story.
• Connecting—Social connection and information transfer
• Bodily Experience – Perception
• Meaning – Cognition
• Feeling – Emotion
Slide 11. Gesture
The Gesture Game
Every story starts with a bodily experience. From bodily experience, you get an image that creates
a story because even gestures have meaning. We just saw that, right? Even something as simple
as a ‘gesture story’ brings us closer together because it’s shared experience. Stories express truths.
They touch the core of our humanity physically and psychologically. Everyone in this room
experienced a gesture—their own or mimicking someone else’s. When we hear that story from
someone, we are inside that bodily experience, and it becomes our own experience and memory.
At the same time, it is forever linked by context to that other person. We are connected to that
story and, through that story experience, to that person.
The feelings in a story start as a bodily experience either in the present or from the past. So feeling
is experience. We give experience meaning through story. When you share feeling, you share
experience and meaning. That is power of story. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Hemingway, Nike,
or the Red Cross.
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4. Slide 12. Tom’s ROI,
Let’s look at a case study. This is a privately-held shoe company that has been in business for 5
years. It began with one person and a group of interns, and sold 10,000 pairs of shoes in its first year
of operations. By April of 2010, this company had sold over 600,000 pairs of shoes and has grown to
over 90 employees with operations in over five countries worldwide. Boasting 10% annual growth
year over year, a presence in major chains across America, this company is a growing force in the
footwear apparel business.
Slide 13. Foot
Now I’m going to tell you a story. In 2006, 29 year old Blake Mycoskie traveled to Argentina to learn
how to play polo after series of successful entrepreneurial endeavors, such as affordable laundry
service for college students.
Poor villages ringed the polo field in Argentina and Blake noticed that most children were shoeless.
Sitting in cafes in town, he began to notice how many children in the area were shoeless. Day after
day, he would watch kids walking barefoot, cuts and infections plaguing their feet. He learned
that these children were not in school because shoes were required for attendance and their
families couldn’t afford them. Blake he also noticed many older Argentinians wearing a very simple
shoe. This, Blake learned, was the Alpargatas – the traditional shoe worn by Argentinean farmers.
An idea took hold of him then that he couldn’t shake. With the help of a local shoemaker, Blake
learned how to make the Alpargatas. He returned to his apartment in Venice California with 200
pairs of shoes in his duffel bag and the intention of founding a shoe company with a new business
model. This is TOMS shoes. It has a One for One business model; product is prices so that for every
pair of shoes TOMS sells, one pair is donated to a child in need in Argentina. One for One. Today,
TOMS shoes can be found in Nordstrom’s, Barneys, Whole Foods, and a host of other locations.
TOMS gives shoes to children in over 10 countries. Blake always thinks of TOMS as a Movement, not
a business. Buy the shoes, and join the Movement of TOMS to become part of global giving.
Slide 14. Two slides
Close your eyes for just a moment and picture the two slides. What is the feeling in your body? Is
there a taste, color, smell to it? Is there a word?;
Brand, and brand story – whether you are a for-profit, a non-profit, or a political entity including a
candidate—is based on what we experience about it.
Slide 15. Tools
As you saw in the TOMS example, storytelling is a very powerful and effective method of
engagement. Now we’re going to talk about the psychology and brain science of story that
makes that happen. All day long you make decisions on development, design, distribution,
communication, and content. Psychology and neuroscience are tools that you can use that are
fundamental to the choices you make no matter what medium you choose, or whether you are
developing a transmedia campaign for a brand, cause or organization or creating internal
communications..
Slide 16. Things to Remember About the Brain
• Complex system
• Three parts: thinking, feeling, and instinct
• 5 Senses deliver most info
• Filter, sort & store using stories
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5. Slide 17. Descartes
Descartes was wrong. The brain and the body are not separate. They are a dynamically inter-
connected complex system. They influence one another. What we experience in the body,
influences our mind. How and what we think, manifests in the body.
Slide 18. Brain
When people ‘work,’ their brains use glucose and they get tired, causing cognitive deficiencies
that can lead to “rationalizing” thinking that follows irrational behavior. Because our consciousness
is the thinking part, we think we’re in control.
Rather than one, tidy integrated organ, the brain has three main parts: the Neocortex or conscious
thinking brain, the emotional mammalian brain, and the instinctual lizard brain. You only need to
remember the Lizard. He’s the most important for communication because he’s standing in charge
of all the emotions that are standing between you and the client or customer decision.
Slide 19. Sensory input
Story is the basis of all human communication. There’s information everywhere; we are bombarded
all day long through all of our senses. Most of what we experience comes to us from sensory input
that is collected and processed by the lizard; it filters what gets sent up to central command
Slide 20. Decision Tree
The lizard is also notoriously self-focused. His primary concern is “Is it about me?” If not, he really
doesn’t care and that message won’t get in.
Slide 21. Box
It’s the job of the thinking brain to fit the pieces together into a story and figure out what goes with
what, so we can make sense out of it. We are not aware of the information filtered out, because
we didn’t “see” or “hear” it.
We are very good, however, at explaining whatever we are feeling so it makes sense. By linking
new information to old experiences and information, we use stories to understand how things work,
why things happen, to make decisions, to justify decisions, to persuade ourselves and others, to
understand our place in society, to learn and pass on social norms, to form identity, and to share
experience and emotion and to entertain.
Slide 22. iPad
The human brain is a pattern seeking creature. Our brains are hard-wired to turn information into
narrative. They provide the order we need to operate everyday.
Stories can be thought of as a: mental models, schemas, cognitive maps, or narratives. They
shorten mental processing demands because they organize the incoming information into
something quickly absorbable in a holistic way.. But no matter what you call them, they provide
the file cabinets in our brain: context, categories and meaning. That is what enables our brains
filter, process, and store all the stuff around us so we can use it. Because they provide all these
sorting mechanisms, they are highly culturally dependent.
How many of you remember Gilligan’s Island? Or remember when Steve Martin made frequent
appearances on SNL? If I tell you that this guy is a “real Gilligan.” Or that that fellow is a “wild and
crazy guy.”
A good way to test this is to ask anyone to tell you about a big event, such as when John F.
Kennedy died, when Barrack Obama was elected or something even more important, like when
you got your first iPad and they’ll tell you, but not by a date.
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6. They’ll tell you with a story set in the context of that time. They’ll say something like “I was over at
my friend Greg’s house,” or “I was in school and the teacher came in and said the President’s been
shot… “ or “I waited in line, man, for four hours just to get the white one…”
Story not only organizes our own stream of living into meaningful experience, it is how we convey
that experience to others. As soon as humans learned to write and draw, they told stories. Story is
the vehicle we use to tell someone about events, feelings, what we care about, when things
happened; they are how cultures pass on social norms, customs, and beliefs.
For a brand or a cause, stories can tell us how that product or action can not just fit into our own
story—but have meaning there.
Slide 23. Review 2nd Story
So, open your notebooks to the second page, where you wrote why you chose the story you did
about the organization or cause. How did you write it? Is it written as a mini story?
Slide 24. Lizard – Real to Me
Narratives transport us. They can take us to a new place. Mentally and emotionally, we have a
tendency to put ourselves in the role of the protagonist or major characters, of a narrative. To our
lizard brains, imagined experiences and virtual experiences are processed in the same way as real
experience. We step into the narrative, and we identify with the characters and with the conflicts
they have and this identification is becomes increasingly powerful the more a narrative presents a
Universal Truth. When we identify with the protagonist, we make their conflicts our own, and are
“transported” viscerally and experientially into their world. The ability of stories to transport us, gives
us added perspectives, teaches us new approaches to life and gives us new maps for resilience
and survival in the face of struggle. We bring this then bring back into our own lives when we
return—this is a form of embodied cognition—we learn because we are feeling the experience.
Transportation works because of sensory and emotional engagement. This act of transportation is
why we feel cold if we’re watching Dr. Zhivago or can smell the coffee in a Maxwell House
commercial.
Slide 25. Lemon
Let me give you an example: Let’s take a look at this lemon
Slide 26. Anna Nicole
As much as narratives break up our inward, personal experiences, they also allow us to make
meaning of events in our exterior world. Known narratives also become cognitive shorthand. We
often take events and apply a known narrative as a way of quickly understanding something; this is
a useful cognitive tool but sometimes this is accurate. For example, we could look at Anna Nicole
Smith from a number of “known narratives”– to some she might have been a Hooker with a Heart of
Gold. To others, she was a Gold Digger.
Slide 27. Marketing Blender
So now we’re going to bring this back to the Transmedia part. Transmedia Storytelling is about
narrative flourishing in an enabling environment.
As communicators, while things have undergone a tremendous shift with boundaries blending, this
is also a magic moment. We have a proliferation of innovative media technologies, widespread
access to media, increasingly availability and easy to use tools, and a socially networked
environment. Nearly everything is transmedia in the sense that it uses more than one distribution
channel or platform. From the coherence, engagement, and participatory view, very few are
successful. From a marketing and communications standpoint, the existing way of doing business is
pretty much pulverized.
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7. Slide 28. One to Many
We have a huge shift. I’m quite sure you’ve noticed that the communication models have
changed from that of one to many to many to many. The one to many model had implicit
psychological assumptions that were driving a lot of the marketing and research decisions and
questions. These assumptions were that the 1) audiences were largely homogeneous; 2) that
audiences were passive, easily fooled and manipulated participants—possibly even kind of stupid.
Slide 29. Many to Many
The new connectivity and capabilities have created an audience with an entirely different
psychological profile—particularly apparent among those who have grown up with social network
connectivity. It has redefined trust, authenticity, transparency, and shifted the power from single
authority sources to multiple influences and social proof.
Slide 30. Monomedia Vs. Transmedia
It all boils down to respect.
There are a number of distinct differences between monomedia and transmedia communications.
I’m not going to go over them all, but I just want to highlight a couple of things that are
representative of the new audience psychology. They all boil down to relationships and respect:
• Communication is a dialogue
• The audience attention is gained by invitation not interruption
• The audience has choice in engagement—which means you can (and must) deliver more
relevant information—what you might call a value proposition--and engaging material.
• The value proposition may not always be about product features; qualitative attributes of
the company matter too.
• The audience is valued and celebrated as a collaborator, not as a consumer or someone
who is supposed to buy your product and go away quietly—like children, seen but not
heard.
MONOMEDIA TRANSMEDIA
One way messaging Dialogue between consumer and brand
Assumes all people can be reached with one Gives audience choice in engagement path
media channel
Single message or theme is adapted to fit Each media platform expands narrative with unique
different media contribution
Creator controls message Audience collaborates in story development
Profitability limited to ROI of a given platform, no Broadens life cycle and profitability of a campaign beyond
cross media leverage or narrative leverage traditional retail windows because content is monetizable
Audience attention through Interruption Audience attention through invitation
Audience participation enhances brand identity and
creates customer loyalty
Engages the consumer long-term by providing value
beyond the product
Audience is validated and celebrated
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8. Slide 31. Communications shift
There’s a cavernous difference between the rules for engagement in these two models because
there are new expectations about how people interact not just with other people, but with
organizations and brand.
I don’t care if your selling shoes, raising funds for AIDS, or campaigning for a candidate. People
expect some very different things.
• They expect to participate
• They expect to be heard
• They expect to be acknowledged
• They expect engagement
• They expect authenticity and transparency
• They expect it fast
People are ahead of the market---producers are still thinking “brands.” The audience is thinking
“relationship.”
Slide 32. New Psychological Profile
This new psychological profile makes a perfect environment for transmedia storytelling because to
be successful, participation is a key element. It not only leverages and grows your story, it turns
audience into stakeholders. By engaging a participatory audience, you are recruiting advocates
on your behalf, like the TOMS College clubs. A successful transmedia campaign means it is no
longer “your” story, but a larger shared commitment.
A transmedia story unfolds across several platforms—whether it’s Twitter or a video game. Each
platform is chosen for what is does best in terms of supporting the story and reaching the relevant
audience. Each piece is self-contained and satisfying as a standalone media experience but
simultaneously adds unique information to the larger story—maybe it’s backstory, or character
development, or the telling of one of the rising actions. Combine the media experiences–
combining the stories – makes for a much deeper and richer experience and also provides multiple
points of entry for the audience.
Transmedia storytelling stresses the development of the storyworld, which allows you to add much
more depth to the exposition—or basis of the story. The audience participation and collaboration
make important contributions to the content, but also, by participating, the audience themselves
become stakeholders. This is one of the strengths of Transmedia Storytelling—through this
relationship, it extends the shelf life of the campaign and increases the ROI of a brand or cause.
Slide 33. Transmedia vision
So let’s say you have a story and you want to create a distribution strategy. One thing to know is
that everything is transmedia if you communicate in more than one medium. The biggest
difference in how it is meant now is that it is not about repurposing the same message. Each piece
is unique and contributes it’s own value, but at the same time, can stand alone as a single and fully
satisfying piece.
Think about your life. You are in the center of many different stories and experiences. None of
them are exactly the same. They have happened over time. The story of you has unfolded with
different people entering your story and learning something about you and you are both a director
and sometimes participant.
Your third grade teacher is one sub-plot. She knows about you from the perspective of a teacher
trying to figure out how to explain the multiplication tables. You are both a director and sometimes
participant, such as when your teacher assigns homework.
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9. But your best friend knows about you from a bunch of perspectives, at school, at the In N Out
Burger, travel soccer, and in the context of your family, so she has a much richer and more intimate
sense of who you are. She makes an effort to find out about different parts of you because she
finds the main story so incredible. Because she is so involved, she even contributes content to your
story, sometimes influencing the directions you take or the choices you make. Transmedia vision is
standing in the middle of the story and building it out, using the medium that is right for each part.
You don’t wear your tap shoes to school and you don’t wear your Little League outfit to church
(usually).
Slide 34. Three Pigs
Here’s a more concrete example of how to build out a world. If the Three Little Pigs were told as a
transmedia story it might be designed like this:
• The basic story would be told in an anchoring medium, such as a novel, TV show, or film.
We have four main characters—three pigs and the wolf.
• We can make opportunities to get to know the wolf from another angle, using for example,
a companion website to learn more about him, the path that led him to his current
antisocial tendencies, and that could give us a glimpse of his inner genius. It turns out that
Wolf has great quantitative talent and has developed mathematical schematics of the
impact of wind velocity on the materials of straw, sticks and bricks.
• A story website could provide a secondary anchor and portal and there we would also be
able to find maps of the turnip field, apple tree, local market and County Fair and plan
strategic attack and defense positions. For wolf sympathizers, there is a Team Wolf Ning
network, where participants can contribute to plotting strategies for attack and plan
adjustments based on each volley by the pigs. A similar network exists for Team Pigs. A
new game called “Angry Pigs” tossing turnips at wolves is available for download from the
site for Droids and iPhones.
• To get to know the pigs, the first little pig keeps a blog and details the family history, his
paranoid suspicions of a dark figure lurking about his house that led to the pigs’ decision to
live apart rather than together.
• An Anime video takes fans on the first little pig’s visions of a pig super hero saving the world
and avenging evil as personified by wolves. There are pictures and puzzles of Super Pig on
the walls of Pig #1’s house in the main story to give recognition to the people who have
seen the Anime but will not detract from any other viewer experience.
• The second little pig Tweets his chronicle, seeking advice on sustainable building materials
and the relative merits of straw and sticks from other Twitterers, and relaying breaking news
in the heat of the battle:
o @littlepig2 walls of house bowing inward, sticks flying off roof – help!
• The third little pig has a cooking series on YouTube with ways to make Parsley Turnips, Baked
Apples, and Stewed Wolf Surprise. He hides clues for secret ingredients in his dishes in lyrics of
songs and the YouTube trailers and he encourages viewers to send in their stories about
home cooking and wolf encounters to be shared on a website. He publishes a cookbook
with recipes often submitted by fans available for $9.95 on Amazon.com, it contains clues to
the location of the “real” house of stone, and phone numbers with recorded messages of
cooking tips. The YouTube videos are shot on location in the third pig’s house, so if you see
the videos, you can additional glimpse of the house interiors and daily life for Pig #3, as well
as occasional trips to the Local Market and County Fair, where additional characters can
be introduced or where the pigs can link with other story worlds for hard core fans.
• The hypothetical transmedia version of the Three Little Pigs is not the repurposing of the story
across different platforms as in traditional “cross media” advertising. It is the creation of a
holistic narrative that unfolds in different and unique manners across different media. It
allows for a dialogue between creator and participant. Developers can decide if
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10. participant interaction, such as solving the sustainable materials problem, finding the wolf
through clues and maps, or creating another character for the story, could move the story
in different directions than the original version. Participants might introduce a hunter to the
narrative on a fan fiction forum who steps up the stakes for the wolf and alters the time
dimension of the wolf’s schemes. I hear that under development is an educational video
game based on physics concepts and, there is also talk of a Massively Multi-Player Online
Role-Playing Game.
Slide 35. Case Study: Jay-Z
Who knows who Jay-Z is? (responses?) He is a musician and rapper, clothing design company
head, motivational speaker, restauranteur, and if he didn’t have enough claims to fame, he’s also
married to Beyonce. Jay-Z is all of those things— What does this mean about Jay-Z? Jay-Z is a
BRAND.
Jay-Z as a brand has furthered his franchise with very smart use of transmedia. A spectacularly
example in his booked “Decoded” and the “Alternate Reality Game” (ARG) in conjunction with
Microsoft’s Bing search engine that launched the book. “Decoded the ARG” was designed as a
giant scavenger hunt to find the pages of Jay-Z’s book. Clues were in Bing maps that would lead
participants to places such as the bottom of Jay-Z’s Miami hotel pool, on the dinner plates in Jay-Zs
NYC restaurant, behind the mirror in Jay-Zs NYC bar, sewn into a sleeve of a jacket, and wrapped
around and on a 1982 Cadillac Seville parked in front of a Run DMC graffiti mural in Brooklyn.
Jay-Z’s book is called “Decoded.” The companion ARG emphasizes both the explicit and implicit
message that we are decoding Jay-Z’s life. It is a spectacular example because it allows people to
get to know Jay-Z in a participatory and experiential way – we can eat off the his plates, we can
experience his tastes by ordering Jay-Zs favorite meal, we can physically visit his old neighborhood
in Brooklyn and learn his backstory—what was important to him in the past (the Caddy) as well as
where he likes to go today. We can visit the life of Jay-Z through the ARG scavenger hunt, putting
the book together. But if we didn’t play the game, we can still read the book. Neither relies on the
other to understand Jay-Z. If we do both, we get the franchise of Jay-Z – which is another way of
saying his full story.
Slide 36. Traditional ROI
Jay-Z’s ARG and book launch marketing paradigm is not one-to-one marketing effort to sales or
counting clickthroughs, but about feeding the franchise. Jay-Z expanded his market for all his
products and ventures, not just the book sales.
Barrack Obama showed this in his fundraising – he focused on cultivating his franchise through
social media and small donations, whereas Hilary Clinton focused on a traditional one-to-one
action-response with her big ticket dinners for well-heeled and reliable donors.
Slide 37. Ripples
Jay-Z’s book and ARG knocked it out of the park for his franchise. He dramatically expanded his
reach—adding 500,000 Facebook friends, expanding his Twitter base and accessing fans with
different interests and demographics—readers who don’t wear his clothes, or listen to his music, but
have heard him on Oprah’s Masterminds and appreciate him as a motivational speaker. Jay-Z
increased his franchise in both numbers and interest, creating a broader launch platform for any
future projects and in a way that drives fans from one platform and experience to the other. Both
Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga have done the same—built a large base that self-reinforces--through
masterful use of social media distribution and compelling personal stories that are synonymous with
brand. Effective distribution happens through influencers and networks, not traditional channels. It
creates a stronger, more “redundant,” customer base and it creates allegiance to the higher level
story of the brand rather than to a specific product, album or clothing line.
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11. Slide 38. Halo Effect
Because story engages emotionally, it has a halo effect; the unfolding over time and the emotional
engagement create a longer shelf-life and this also extends the franchise ROI. None of this is
directly measurable to, for example, Jay-Z’s book sale promotions.
Slide 39. Three Key words
The key words for transmedia storytelling are: experiential, participatory, and coherent. Jay-Z is a
good example of experiential—we stepped into many aspects of his life.
Slide 40. TOMS
For participatory, let’s look at TOMS again– the story about a young entrepreneur who started a
business to solve a local problem. You can find the story of TOMS through many means: news
stories, web sites, YouTube videos, and word of mouth. Once you know about TOMS, you can
participate in any number of way that don’t have to do with buying shoes but allow me to feel like
you’re working toward a positive social purpose. You can join one of the many Tom’s Campus
Club at a University or start my own. You can throw a Tom’s Shoe Design party—the new version of
Tupperware.
You can raise other’s awareness by joining the “walk barefoot for the day” events. You can share
and connect by uploading photos of me in my TOMS to the “How We Wear Them” page of TOMS
website. You can Twitter with Blake and ask questions like “Is it cool to wear TOMS with socks”? You
can also connect with other TOMS fans can comment on videos fans have made and uploaded
on commercials for TOMS. All of these make you a stakeholder in the TOMS Movement.
Slide 41. TOMS Wrist Band
A final example of how well TOMS does transmedia is this letter and friendship bracelet that was
sent to TOMS customers. This breaks the fourth wall--changing the field of action to your own
physical space. He’s using the participants’ experiential world—much the way that an Alternate
Reality Game brings the game play into a real world environment—TOMS brings the power of his
movement into your home and in this case, onto your physical person.
Slide 42. TOMS now
Slide 43. Red Bull University
Slide 44. Maslow’s Hierarchy
Allowing people to move from recipient to participant, moves them up the hierarchy of needs,
from satisfying a base need with a product purchase to connection, achievement, and creativity
and meaning.
Slide 45. The Lawyer’s Story
Slide 46. Family Lawyer
Slide 47. Your Story
This has been a quick Transmedia Storytelling 101. We’ve shown some examples from traditional
product-based brands as well as an advocacy brand – which is really what TOMS is. The story of
TOMS is really about advocacy. Each of you are here because you are leaders. Whatever
organization you lead is going to have a story – and it’s going to be a bigger and more organic
story than a product-based company, and its going to have more places for participation. So how
do you find your story?
Slide 48. One Sheet Exercise
• Story in three sentences
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12. • Work from the experience of the image of the brand
• Characters in three sentences
• Who are the characters?
• Are you a character?
• Does place matter?
• Why did you choose that story?
Slide 49. 5 key takeaways
• Start with the story
• Identify your core story and passion at a universal level to engage the audience
• Think multi-dimensionally
• Connect with your audience’s lizard brain
• Use the new media landscape—ripple out, don’t broadcast
• Prepare to collaborate where you don’t expect it
Slide 50. Thank You
Pam@athinklab.com
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13. Slide 51. VI. Closing Remarks (Pam)
So, to sum up: Transmedia Storytelling is a powerful way to communicate. Even if you don’t initiate
a transmedia campaign, it is a valuable exercise because
1) it forces you to focus on the fundamentals—to identify your core story. At the same time, it
2) pushes you to think multi-dimensionally, because you have to maintain coherence and authenticity
across all platforms.
3) Considering multiple platforms means considering who you are trying to reach and how best to
reach them.
So how do you start finding the story of your cause or organization?
One way to do that is to ask the members of your group to tell you their version of the company
story, and, like we asked you to do today, why they chose that story. This exercise can be much
more revealing than a Mission Statement—because the stories contain emotion and purpose.
Read through them as a group and you will begin to pick out patterns and similarities. You’ll also
see where there are some differences in vision. This is very important, as it will help you to align your
goals.
When the company story is everyone’s story, much of the social media marketing takes care of
itself. Once you have the story, Transmedia Storytelling is then developing and conveying that story
through multiple media means in a way that is coherent. The story and the audience will drive your
media choices.
This not only allows for flexibility – and fun – it also allows you to tell different aspects of your story,
and to let your audience help build that story and purpose. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll
learn from your audience, as well as what they will do to continue to market your cause or
company beyond your known means.
Thank you so much for your time. We hope that this was a helpful introduction to Transmedia
storytelling and that everyone had fun today. We’re happy to take questions now. And the slide
has our contact information. In addition to workshops such as this we also work with organizations
to help you find your company story, using our StoryOpenings ®technique. We would love to year
questions and thoughts, so please email us!
this is "hard numbers" on what transmedia storytelling ala what we say about JayZ can do... here is
a piece from a Hollywood Reporter article on the Glee soundtracks of cover songs, and their covers
of songs on the TV show:
Artists are seeing a ripple effect, too. While synch rates are down — the price tag for a hit song is in
the vicinity of $25,000 (a fee the songwriter splits with his or her music publisher) — exposure through
Glee often results in a dramatic jump in catalog sales. After September’s Britney Spears episode,
the pop star sold 35,000 incremental units among five songs, one of which, “Stronger,” saw a spike
of 1,160 percent, according to David Bakula, senior vp analytics at Nielsen Entertainment, who
recently submitted a 70-page report titled “The Power of Glee” to Sony Music for analysis. Spears’
2004 greatest-hits album also saw increased sales of 413 percent. “The halo effect is pretty
significant,” Bakula says. “It isn’t all about tracks. Our research found that it was more about the
artist as a whole.”
It's the HALO effect that is the new ROI (my words)
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14. and a nice blurb from creator Ryan Murphy: Then there are artists whose catalogs are off-limits.
Glee’s best-known rejection: Kings of Leon, who rarely license their music. Murphy’s message to
nonbelievers the Followill brothers? “F--- you, Kings of Leon,” he says, raising the volume of his
monotonal interview voice ever so lightly. “They’re self-centered assholes, and they missed the big
picture. They missed that a 7-year-old kid can see someone close to their age singing a Kings of
Leon song, which will maybe make them want to join a glee club or pick up a musical instrument.
It’s like, OK, hate on arts education. You can make fun of Glee all you want, but at its heart, what
we really do is turn kids on to music.”
they really are a machine, those Glee-sters (in a good way): Murphy is organizing a charity effort
called Glee Gives Back. “We just got approved for a million dollars over the next three months to
fund arts-education organizations,” he says. “It’ll also include proceeds from DVD sales. It’s very
important to me and to Fox that we establish scholarships in schools.”
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