Transmedia Heaven: Beginnings

After some effort and thought over the weekend, has one our fictitious characters, Lesland, reached 30 likes on his Facebook fan page. 

A small milestone, but none-the-less we have now unlocked the insights feature on Facebook (you must have over 30 likes) so we can see who is consuming what, when and how frequently. We can delve into the darkest places of our characters fans base, yes all thirty of them, and analyse their media consumption rates. I feel like I am working at MI6 and have infiltrated a cell… of some description.

Ladies and gentlemen we have ventured into transmedia! And we're going to keep you updated on our experiences throughout the process, the things we learn, the things that don't work so well, and everything in between.

For those of you who don't know, transmedia is the technique of delivering a story or creative idea across multiple digital platforms and formats. The idea is to create content that permeates the audience's daily lives so they can engage with it on varying levels and using different platforms, and in this way be a part of the action, and in many cases even control the flow of the action.

We thought long and hard and came to the conclusion that this transmedia world is so new that if you have imagination, and determination, you can make an impact. We have listened to and read so many opinions on this topic and the average attitude is that the whole idea is so new that lots of things are still untried. But that’s good enough for us, we have lots of ideas that we want to build on and share. This will enable us to start to learn and perhaps share the process and results with our clients in the future.

On our research travels we have found some wonderful and unique examples people embarking on their own transmedia journeys. A nice example is Screw*d, a reality-based campaign for Craftsman. It featured Alan Weischedel, a tool-clueless guy on a mission to become a real handyman. Weischedel’s immediate goal was survival, he was put in situations and environments he had no experience with and was set challenges. It was streamed live and viewers were able to give suggestions, via Twitter and Facebook, to help Alan out of various scrapes or give information on what tools would be useful to build things etc.

 

 

An amazing thing happened today. We uploaded a video to Lesland’s fan page on Facebook and more people saw it than Lesland has fans! I know – incredible. It was ‘available’ to 42 people, he only has 36 fans. This means that if we create great, short, witty, grab-you-by-the-throat videos, we will grow an audience! Creator and audience in some kind of symbiotic relationship.

We are at the point of deciding the level of interaction with our new audience. All 40 fans of Lesland have liked him for some reason or other. How much will they want to take part in his life and adventures? What will the level of engagement be?

How can we get people to enjoy taking time out to spend with a fictitious person?? What do we know about these people? You might think very little at this point. Well not exactly. We know that these people are happy to press the like button and sometimes they will add a comment to a piece of video. Can we engage them in a story where they can be submerged in to our world?

The character Lesland is a Police Community Support Officer, a PCSO. Whilst ‘on duty’ he found a suspicious-looking single glove, so he placed a picture of the glove on his fan page and asked if anyone had any information about the owner or the suspect circumstances regarding it’s abandonment. Well blow me down! People bought into it. They added to the story of the glove’s owner, helping us to take the story in new direction. One person even uploaded an image they themselves had created to add to the digital silliness. The power of story reached out with its smooth porcelain hand and said “this way my child to the digital tomorrow”.
 

Not only do you get a response from real people it is actually fun to do. You feel like you are in the operation room of life. An altered ‘anything can happen’ life. I want more…