Transmedia Is Not Marketing

Late last week, I was involved in a Twitter conversation in which a gentleman dismissed the "transmedia bandwagon" as having been invented by marketers.

I have a lot of problems with this. So many, many problems. Let me count the ways.

Our Antecedents

In his gorgeous memoir about the Cloudmakers, Jay Bushman likened the ARG as akin to the use of sound in the Jazz Singer. It wasn't the first film to use sound, it was merely the first film to easily show audiences the powerful way sound could affect a film.

Likewise, the Beast was by no means the first project to use fictional websites or blogging as a made-up character. And it definitely wasn't the project that invented the technique of creating evidence of a story and playing it out as though it were really happening. The roots of this narrative style are older than the internet, older even than electricity, sunk deep in the tradition of espitolary novels -- arguably invented in Spain in 1485.

And then there's the Blair Witch Project, which predates the Beast, but used many of the same tools and techniques. Filmmaker Mike Monello is a marketer today, and he's proud of what he does (as well he should be). He has no reason to shy away from calling the Blair Witch extended experience anything besides a clever marketing campaign; quite the reverse, in fact, since it turned out to be a brilliant factor in the film's success. And still, he is adamant that the extended world they created was more about art than anything else.

But the urge to call a transmedia narrative "marketing" if there is at any point an intended monetary transaction is overwhelming. I've heard people say that, for example, "Perplex City was marketing, it was just marketing itself."

This is ludicrous. It's like saying all cinema is created as a marketing tool for selling theater tickets. Yeah, there are films where that's sadly not too far off the mark; but it nonetheless misses the entire medium of film as an artform. Same-same with transmedia, folks.

Visibility

So why do we have this idea that transmedia=marketing floating around, anyway? Why is it that, no matter how many Perplex Cities and Routeses and Must Love Robots and Cathy's Bookses and Lonelygirl15s and Head Traumas and Worlds Without Oil you bring up, they get dismissed as "rare exceptions?" Especially when it's so patently untrue.

That comes down to economics. It's not that there are more marketing campaigns using transmedia than anyone else; it's that the marketing campaigns are much, much more visible. Why? Because they have more money to throw around.

For one thing, they're a lot more likely to be able to pay the team a living wage, which means the creators can afford to spend more time and care instead of working on it in off hours and weekends. And more money means a higher production value; dollars spent translates pretty well into better-looking video, better-sounding audio, and sleeker, glossier websites. Audiences like that.

And even more important than improved production values, money lets you promote the story. This is crucial -- you need to pull people into your project. The most effective are any traditional media you can afford: TV spots, billboards, bus shelters, whatever. Even better if you can hire a PR agency to pitch your project to Wired, the Guardian, the New York Times.

This is why the most successful transmedia campaigns to date have, by and large, been part of an overarching marketing campaign. Those folks can afford to promote the project. And transmedia projects need promoting, just like every other form of entertainment does.

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that building a transmedia narrative on its own is really bad marketing, because it still requires this overhead of promotion. If that doesn't put the nails in the coffin of this "transmedia=marketing" business, I don't know what else could.

Some Marketing Is Art

And yet, and yet -- even if transmedia were invented by marketing, even if it were solely used as marketing campaigns... is that such a very bad thing, really? I vote no.

We have a strange dichotomy in our culture that says art and money are mutually exclusive. If you're doing something for the love of it, you are legit. If you're doing work for sale or as work for hire, you are a sellout.

This is a steaming load of bull hockey.

I've worked on original IP projects for love, and I've worked on marketing projects. I apply the same degree of craft and thought to everything I do. Does this mean sometimes I'm an artist and sometimes I'm just a hack? Or does it mean that maybe -- just maybe -- some of those marketing projects shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as art and entertainment?

At the end of the day, marketing and advertising are one of the very few plausible ways for visual designers and writers (just for example) to earn a living with their art. Yeah, some of it is going to be phoned-in, soulless work. But you know what? These industries do as much to shape our consensus culture as the film and TV industries do. If you need evidence of that, look at Old Spice, or the Budweiser frogs. They have a commercial point, sure, but nothing captures the public's imagination if there's nothing there at the heart of it.

Transmedia is bigger than purely marketing. It's true that marketing dollars have done a lot to shape us; but as Bushman says, vaudeville marketing dollars did a lot to shape early cinema, too. Cinema is a lot bigger than that now. Give us that same hundred years and we will be, too.

Comments

[Simon Staffans]

Andrea, this is very much spot on. There should be a place and acceptance for all kinds of projects; the artsy stuff as well as the commercial stuff. How often is not art inspired by commercial projects and vice versa?

I think there could be a case made for a carefully crafted business plan (that does not detract from the story or the UX) being as much of a challenge to develop as any other aspect of a transmedia project. And if we make a transmedia project that cannot stand on it's own feet, economically, without everyone involved pitching in for free, where's the continuity in that?

thanks again, looking forward to the discussion :)

[Irene L. Pynn]

This is something I have been mulling over for some time, and I've been hoping to blog about it once I have my thoughts focused enough. You've stated my feelings perfectly here:"It's like saying all cinema is created as a marketing tool for selling theater tickets. Yeah, there are films where that's sadly not too far off the mark; but it nonetheless misses the entire medium of film as an artform."In many ways, transmedia/ARG/etc., is a genre or storytelling platform of its own. Of course films and songs and books and games and transmedia experiences can be used to market other products (or even themselves, I suppose...), but the overall storytelling expression is itself a form of art that can be used for marketing, or for the sake of illustrating a message, or both.

[Leighh]

I think it's coming from a valid fear that once marketers start driving the conversations in the transmedia storytelling world that that will somehow devalue it and ruin the work itself.

The concern is valid. As what we've seen with social media, marketing is filled with many people who can speak a great game, have really successful personal brands but aren't that great at the actual creation and creative process.

Marketers are not by nature storytellers (no matter what their bios say). And I think the same can be said of storytellers as they are just at the forefront of understanding marketing and how to link storytelling meaningfully back to the core values of a brand.

It's why its so damn fun and interesting. The rest, the debates, the fears, the judgements and the need to label those that create it, is just a bunch of white noise.

[Chuck]

I similarly tire (as does the commenter above me) that "marketers" are often identified as "knowing how to tell a story."

I think this is true in some cases, but for the most part, the stories told through advertising tend to be fairly base and shallow. No real harm in that, I recognize that it may very well be necessary. But there's this idea going around that "marketers = good at story," which sometimes translates to, "marketers = good at transmedia."

Love this post. Wanted to comment on it yesterday, but time keeps punching me in the throat.

DAMN YOU FATHER TIME.

Need coffee now.

-- c.

[Andrea]

Here I am soliciting comments and run out of time to actually *respond* to them! I have some thoughts on the marketer as storyteller thing... but they aren't baked yet. Somebody else wanna blog it?

[cube3]

"modern" transmedia-- ala use of electric mediums "was" created by marketers.

The selling of a TV show, TOY line, comic line, is modern transmedia marketing. It was not about story, but about product design and reach. It came from the licensing mania that arose from any mass media product. Disney figured out what was happening and used the methods as the electric media grew in its earliest days. The only difference was start up methods, which required TV networks to put you on the air.Modern Web -internet-plus TV- transmedia was created in the early mid 90s... We did much of this in NY as Cube3.We came from doing this for marketing clients in the mid 80s, as well as toy/TV cartoon deals.

oue goals were to "create a universe in the ether of the web" but our methods were honed in marketing business plans.... this led to all of what i see today from virtual products, to mmo, to user generated designs annd avatars (characters) based on the world we created, that used specific mediums to sell what worked IN those mediums...

the failure of new media in the early 90s- late 80s to "repurpose" IPs thatwerent designed for those mediums is what led to the "modern transmedia model"but its driven by the need to market successful products in EACH media....

Transmedia succceeds when the "viewser " a term i "think" (thunk)i created for marketing the model...lol c 1993 has a experience or product offered to them that "is primarily" concieved for that specific medium.

Dont give me game mechanics in a movie script..:)and dont introduce characters in a facebook game.;)

anyhow... i really think one must look back beyond the web 1.0 time to see transmedia as a model for business.. and BTW- i dont beleive Star Wars was a transmedia model... its was a movie model with alot of luck, only after the intial universe was narrated in the first and second film scripts-- did any transmedia thinking come to lucas arts... all non movie media came only after the first films surprise success.

the development of the 2nd trilogy was all transmedia planning,,, and in many ways..its was bad transmedia design... jar jar should only have been a toy..never a character;)

IMO. the matrix was the first big successful transmedia IP.... concieved at the start as a world to be introduced via multple mediums at the 'same" marketing time.

[c3]

Some thoughts.In th wake of the Star wars surprise success. Universal and Larson created BSG. It was definately a transmedia approach. The pilot- was even cut as movie for foreign distribution, it launched pretty close to pilot with toy and comic book/book deals set i beleive if not on shelves by christmas. The story/characters were all "designed" for mass appeal, from boxy to daggits, to male leads to lorne greene for the over 45 set.

Buck rogers in the 25th century had similar planning, but the IP was based on the comic character from earlier in the century. it wasnt a new ip. Star trek the next gen 1987, similar, but no direct movie deal, and of course it wasnt a totally new IP..they all of course learned much from the "transmedia" accident, that was the original trek 1965 creation. it may have been "written" as alarger vision by gene, but it was in reality just a tv show in reality until it took off as an IP.

today every transmedia IP has a core media anchor, be it game,tv, or movie, or book. web first properties are just catching on as "real" to moneymen. "Santuary" comes to mind..many otehr pitched from 99-2008 never got made. Scifi channels TRION project is 15 years after i released Starbase C3 for the SCIFI CON 1.0 and tried to convince scifi execs of transmedia models to come;)

todays networked "social media" techs amke linking a community to multiple medias online much easier than froma decade ago... BUT one really needs to be careful as thre TOS that governs each of your contents postings or uploads, plus the "specious" time frame of those startups success- can affect your projects lifetime, and your ownership and communities access to the experience.

ask any world builder in second life;)

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