In “Transmedia storytelling,” a brand story is told on different media to reach different potential audiences. So instead of marketing campaigns that target one audience at the expense of all others, each media approach tells a new story targeted to its own audience.
Shit, that sounds so not interesting. Ok. ZOMBIES!! BUT IN SPACE!! OMG THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!! THERE’S ONE ON MY LEG WHY GOD WHY?!!
Yeah, EA made a Space Zombie game. This was a huge deal, because the game industry isn’t that different from the movie industry: they’re kinda pussies. They’d rather put their money on a remake or sequel than risk it on something original. So this was a brave move for EA, which is usually content with squeezing out another Madden game every 12 minutes and calling it a day.
How did they sleep at night, what with the unique and untested concept of reanimated alien corpses? That Transmedia stuff. Before EA released the game, they released a series of comic books telling the games’ back story. Then came another layer of narration, via anime. Then came the actual console game. Then a microsite allowed players to continue the story. Finally, the comic books were animated and put on youtube.
Cool, but not revolutionary. Lots of brands whack away at the message and create/maintain buzz through different media. We get minigames on LOST and McDonald’s comic book versions of Knocked Up. Seriously, even Dominos released a video game based on the Noid (why yes I am old, thanks.) So here’s the radical part: none of it was crap. The comic books were actually good, stand alone, well-crafted stories by a kick-ass artist. The anime was interesting and cool and started getting passed around youtube. The micro-site made people who hadn’t cared about OMG SPACE ZOMBIES want to buy the game. As did the comic book geeks, who wouldn’t normally have been into it.
“The content is the new marketing tool—all of the assets are stand alone…quality of each was key.”
-some guy on the panel. The 2nd one. I think he had a beard.
There were no afterthoughts here—no tiny players supporting the big fat star of a main media approach. EA realized that because the game was a gamble in itself, it had to be more than a marketing one-off. They understood that there was more to a strategy than checking off boxes (here’s our app, here’s our print, here’s our widget). The knew it meant figuring out how different pieces of media will reach different (and maybe new) audiences in the most compelling way.
Some other interesting stuff from the panel:
- The microsite (Noknownsurvivors.com) was a 3-d flash environment that helped foster a relationship with the game. The site encouraged continuing play and created a shared experience people could expand on blogs and message boards. It got 5 million hits, and was “One of the key factors in [people] buying the game.”
- Though the site was popular, the books and animated series brought more long-term value, because they were bite-sized and easy to disseminate over lots of media. “The limitation of a webpage is that it’s a destination. That’s ok, but it should always be coupled with easily-shared content that can take advantage of social media.”
- EA worked with bloggers to build excitement (Marketing guy: “That buzz over 6 months, you can’t buy that kind of buzz. Well, you can buy that. I did buy that.”) but the most hits to the site actually came from a tiny blurb on Wikipedia.
Anyway, I am shit at video games and really scared of zombies, but this was interesting and inspiring. The panel themselves seemed grateful and a little surprised that EA had been willing to take a chance do it right, just like we feel when clients buy brave and thoughtful work. Of course, now they want to make a sequel.
“Give people a reason to want to interact with your brand, instead of telling them they should.”
-another guy, possibly the one on the left
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