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”.