Transmedia Storytelling to the rescue

Can transmedia franchises increase market share and help you thrive in the digital marketplace?

“Transmedia Storytelling represents a process by which narrative information is systematically dispersed across multiple media channels for the purposes of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.” Henry Jenkins

Transmedia storytelling is going to save a lot of entertainment entities and bloom new ones. You only need look at the data from 2014-16 to recognize the necessity of making a shift to the digital marketplace. Consumer spending in the U.S. on digital over traditional forms of entertainment is on the upswing according to the 2015 McKinsey & Company Global Media Report.  Some predict digital advertising to surpass TV in 2016.

Entertainment companies can do all the studies, trades watching, and waiting, at their peril. The fact is, the only way forward is via transmedia storytelling franchises. Your target markets that are spending the most money aren’t interested or swayed by traditional advertising or the ‘sell’ in any of its permutations. 34% of 18 to 35 year-olds are looking to their social media networks for buying decisions. Online purchases have increased around 15% since 2008.

Millennials are the largest generation is U.S. history according to a Goldman Saks data. And, in case you didn’t catch it the first time, Millennials don’t like advertising or the ‘sell’. If, as Adweek points out in an article on the data from a survey of 500 Millennials, “ … by the year 2020 millennials will control more than $1.4 trillion in spending power,” then they are shaping the marketplace right now. Their spending habits and interests should matter to anyone that wants to survive the shift to a digital marketplace.

Millennials want to do their own research and they want to connect in an authentically human way. According to an Entrepreneur article, “Millennials want to feel like they’re impacting the community—and feel like the company cares, and isn’t just about making a profit.”

Millennials want to laugh and be entertained by something meaningful. Period. It’s that simple.

The beauty of transmedia design is that there are many ways across all platforms for your primary demographic and potential audiences to continue to be immersed in your story world, explore all the places that reveal it, and be driven to all your projects. Even marketing and brand collaborations can be story reveals or principle and values advocacy. Look at Chipotle’s Scarecrow, a perfect example of the power of storytelling to get your message out and expose wider demographics to your company. Within a month of releasing that short film, it had received 11 million views.

Transmedia design will truly save entertainment companies making their way into the digital marketplace because it is the surest way to connect with Millennials and wider demographics considering traditional advertising or selling approaches are no longer effective. The money that used to be spent on advertising and promotion will now have to be allocated to transmedia designs in order to drive audiences/consumers to major entertainment projects. The days of an entertainment company focusing on just film or television or video games are over. Also out are the days of relying on audience data/metrics. Companies will have to produce all three and even more importantly, they will have to focus on relationships with consumers, by building a consumer community and engaging it. Consumer relationship management (CRM).

Transmedia designers will have to be fluid in their storytelling and modify or alter stories in response to their audience interests and focus. They will have to manage the consumer relationship that has been built in to the design to engage, possibly collaborate with, and create stories that connect to targets. That is if the transmedia storytellers are paying attention to what we know about current and future digital trends. They will have to employ a fluid approach as storytelling designers. Including marketing and brand collaborations to generate revenue to support the franchise. If traditional advertising and marketing are out and movie theater attendance is on the decline while digital use increasing, exposing the franchise to ever wider demographics will have to be a part of the transmedia design. Marketing, promotion, Immersion, fan engagement, will all have to be a part of the franchise plan.

How the conglomerates are going to shift is yet to be seen and may depend entirely on their ability to let go of their tried and true model based on traditional modes of entertainment. Use has changed, marketing has changed, the treasured studio to movie theater system isn’t viable in a digital marketplace shaped by the habits and interests of Millennials.

Hopefully they will see the benefit of spreading returns over years with transmedia franchises rather than periodic big returns that keep everything else going. By having multiple connections on a more personal level with audiences/consumers as part of the transmedia franchises, the company can begin to structure itself around those relationships. Their transmedia storytellers will know more how to get the message out or drive the demographic through a story that speaks to them to the major revenue drivers.

Transmedia storytelling franchises will save the entertainment industry and increase a company’s market share of the digital economy.