brand storytelling introduction @iemes fontys
TRANSCRIPT
BRAND STORYTELLING IN A DIGITAL AGE
Hille van der Kaa [email protected] @Hillevanderkaa
today’s topics
• Part 1: course introduc<on • Part 2: brand storytelling • Part 3: start project
Thursday 13.00 – 17.00
September 5 -‐ course introduc<on
September 12 -‐ visit to The Pont
September 26 -‐ lecture Business & Marke<ng
October 3 -‐ lecture Treatment & Design
October 10 -‐ guest lecture
October 24 -‐ end lecture – final presenta<ons
final project
develop a brand storytelling campaign (concept)
“aUract more students to the museum”
www.depont.nl
Visit to De Pont next week (September 12) What <me? 13.00 o’clock Where? At the museum
final project
develop a brand storytelling campaign (concept)
“AUract more students to the museum”
www.<nyurl.com/brandstorytelling
hUp://<nyurl.com/brandstorytelling
storytelling project report
• Business and marke<ng (7 to 14 pages) • Treatment (6 to 10 pages) • Func<onal specifica<on (10 to 15 pages) In total: 23 to 40 pages End presenta1on: October 24 Deadline report: paper day Oct 28
group work
feedback deadlines Business – Oct. 1
• Goals • Succes indicators • User need • Target audience and marke<ng
Treatment – Oct. 8
• Tagline • Back story and content
• Synopsis • Plot points • Characteriza<on and aftude
• User centric scenario
Design – Oct. 15
• Mul< plagorm form • Rules of engagement • Plagorms and channels
• Service build overview
• User journey • Key events • Timelines • Interface and branding
please send the work by mail on (or before) deadline day no deadline = no feedback
Thursday 13.00 – 17.00
September 5 -‐ course introduc<on
September 12 -‐ visit to The Pont
September 26 -‐ lecture Business & Marke<ng
October 3 -‐ lecture Treatment & Design
October 10 -‐ guest lecture -‐ minor
October 24 -‐ end lecture – final presenta<ons
brand storytelling in a digital age
what is brand storytelling?
corporate
corporate
• Storytelling: Branding in Prac1ce – Klaus Fog
message
without a dearly defined message there is no reason to tell stories -‐ at least not with a
strategic purpose
central theme
among storytellers the central message, or premise of the story, is an ideological or moral
statement that works as a central theme throughout the story.
premise
the story itself becomes proof of the premise -‐ the central message -‐ and through it, the
audience can beUer understand the message.
At its core, the story is about its protagonist Mayank. We’re compelled by his difficult
situa<on and the resolve with which he meets his challenge.
Facebook is simply a suppor<ng character — a tool reminding him that the strength to move on
was inside him all along.
Facebook illustrates its message “connec1ng people” from both high-‐level and granular perspec<ves. From a high level, we get pieces of content focused on demographics.
Through Stories, each vigneUe contributes to the narra<ve of the Facebook brand. In essence, Mayank’s tale is a story within a story.
one theme
Try to s<ck to one message per story. A story with more than one central message runs the
risk of becoming messy and unclear.
Beauty of simplicity Capitalism – effect on the individual Change of power -‐ necessity Change versus tradi<on Chaos and order Character – destruc<on, building up Circle of life Coming of age Communica<on – verbal and nonverbal Companionship as salva<on Conven<on and rebellion Dangers of ignorance Darkness and light Death – inevitable or tragedy Desire to escape Destruc<on of beauty Disillusionment and dreams Displacement Empowerment Emp<ness of aUaining false dream Everlas<ng love Evils of racism Facing darkness Facing reality Fading beauty Faith versus doubt Family – blessing or curse Fate and free will Fear of failure Female roles Fulfillment Good versus bad Greed as downfall Growing up – pain or pleasure Hazards of passing judgment Heartbreak of betrayal Heroism – real and perceived Hierarchy in nature Iden<ty crisis Illusion of power Immortality Individual versus society Inner versus outer strength Injus<ce Isola<on Isola<onism -‐ hazards Knowledge versus ignorance Loneliness as destruc<ve force Losing hope Loss of innocence Lost honor Lost love Love and sacrifice Man against nature Manipula<on Materialism as downfall Motherhood Names – power and significance Na<onalism – complica<ons Nature as beauty Necessity of work Oppression of women Op<mism – power or folly Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice Patrio<sm – posi<ve side or complica<ons Power and corrup<on Power of silence Power of tradi<on Power of wealth Power of words Pride and downfall Progress – real or illusion Quest for discovery Quest for power Rebirth Reunion Role of men Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy Role of women Self – inner and outer Self-‐awareness Self-‐preserva<on Self-‐reliance Social mobility Technology in society – good or bad Temporary nature of physical beauty Tempta<on and destruc<on Totalitarianism Vanity as downfall Vulnerability of the meek Vulnerability of the strong War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy Will to survive Wisdom of experience Working class struggles Youth and beauty
conflict
Conflict is the driving force of a good story.
No conflict, no story.
But why is this the case?
conflict
As humans we ins<nc<vely look for balance and harmony in our lives.
When faced with a problem -‐ a conflict -‐ we
ins<nc<vely seek to find a solu<on.
conflict
conflict forces us to act
In the classical fairy-‐tale the conflict is oten permanently resolved.
The hero and heroine live happily ever ater.
By contrast, many present day stories have a less defini<ve ending. Oten the conflict is only
partly resolved, or a new conflict appears promp<ng further reflec<on by the audience.
By contrast, many present day stories have a less defini<ve ending. Oten the conflict is only partly resolved, or a new conflict appears promp<ng further reflec<on by the audience.
The greater the conflict the more drama<c the story will be.
However, the conflict should not get so over-‐the-‐top that it becomes confusing. When a story
becomes chao<c, it is difficult to keep an audience cap<vated.
guidelines for crea<ng a good conflict
1) Try formula1ng the conflict explicitly and to the point. Is it a
conflict at all? 2) Consider how the conflict can be resolved. Good conflict is
created through a problem or challenge where there is no immediate solu<on
3) Are there many smaller conflicts besides the central conflict? Too many sub-‐conflicts can easily focus aUen<on away from the main conflict making the story less clear
4) Can you iden1fy the hero and his/her opposing forces with in the story? How are their rela<ve strengths matched?
5) Are you having problems iden1fying the conflict in the story? If so: take another look at the basic message: Is it clearly defined?
In order to judge if a conflict will work or not, you can try "measuring" your story on the
Conflict Barometer.
characters
The classical fairy-‐tale is built on a fixed structure where each character has a specific role to play in the story, and each person
supplements each other and forms an ac<ve part of the story.
In order to get personally involved with a story, we, as readers or listeners must be able to iden<fy with the characters. This happens especially when we recognize a liUle bit of ourselves in the characters in the story.
Here, it is important to keep your target audience in mind.
Based on our need to have balance in our lives we will usually empathize with a person faced with a conflict. But we also have to understand the mo<va<on behind the person's ac<ons. Why
do they do what they do?
Ul<mately, a story's progress must seem likely and credible.
character roles
character roles • Protagonist: The protagonist is the main character role in a story and drives the
ac<on. The protagonist will have a goal and undergoes a change – the “hero’s journey” – in the process of seeking to achieve that goal.
• Antagonist: The character in the role of antagonist is in direct opposi<on to the
protagonist. The antagonist may seek the same goal (e.g. find the significant object of the story) as the protagonist or may simply want to prevent the protagonist from achieving that goal.
• Sidekick: The sidekick character role may be linked to the protagonist or antagonist. Each of those character roles may have their own sidekick. The sidekick character provides loyalty and support throughout the story and has unfailing faith in the rightness of the goals and ac<ons of the protagonist or antagonist to which he/she is linked.
• Guardian: The guardian character role is that of mentor or teacher to the protagonist. The guardian provides knowledge, guidance, support, and protec<on but also drives the protagonist to achieving the protagonist’s goal.
character roles • Skep<c: The skep<c character role is linked to the protagonist, but this character’s
role is to ques<on and doubt everything – the protagonist’s thoughts, emo<ons and ac<ons, the trustworthiness of other characters, anything and everything.
• Emo<on: The emo<on character role is linked to the protagonist and responds to
story events emo<onally without thinking and without concern for the prac<cal implica<ons of an emo<onal response.
• Reason: The reason character role is linked to the protagonist and responds to
events in the narra<ve logically, while not lefng emo<on interfere with the ra<onal.
• Tempta<on: The tempta<on character role is not necessarily directly opposed to
the protagonist, but rather tries to hinder, divert, and delude the protagonist from achieving his/her goal, oten by temp<ng and playing on the weaknesses of the protagonist.
plot
Once your message, conflict and cast of characters are all in place, it is <me to think about how your story should progress.
Generally speaking a tradi<onal story can be segmented into three parts;
beginning middle and end.
First, the scene it set.
Next, the progression of change creates conflict and sets the parameters for the rest of the
story.
The conflict escalates but is finally resolved, marking the end of the story.
storytelling
what is media convergence?
its the idea that because of the progress of
technology various different types of media are combining into a single media.
hUp://uk.answers.yahoo.com
media convergence
Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture (2004): ‘Convergence refers to a process, but not an endpoint. There will be no single black box that controls the flow of media into our homes. Thanks to the prolifera<on of channels and the portability of new compu<ng and telecommunica<ons technologies, we are entering an era where media will be everywhere....’
‘We are living in an age when changes in communica<ons, storytelling and informa<on technologies are reshaping almost every aspect of contemporary life -‐ including how we create, consume, learn, and interact with each other.'
‘We will develop new skills for managing informa<on, new structures for transmifng informa<on across channels, and new crea<ve genres that exploit the poten<als of those emerging informa<on structures.’
‘Part of the confusion about media convergence stems from the fact that when people talk about it, they’re actually describing at least five processes.’
technological convergence
‘When words, images and sounds are transformed into digital informa<on, we expand the poten<al rela<onships between them and
enable them to flow across plagorms.’
economic convergence
‘The horizontal integra<on of the entertainment industry. A company like AOL Time Warner now
controls interests in film, television, books, games, the Web, music, real estate and
countless other sectors. The result has been the restructuring of cultural produc<on around
“synergies,” and thus the transmedia exploita<on of branded proper<es— Pokemon,
Harry PoUer, Tomb Raider, Star Wars.’
social or organic convergence
‘Consumers’ mul<tasking strategies for naviga<ng the new informa<on environment.’
cultural convergence
‘The explosion of new forms of crea<vity at the intersec<ons of various media technologies, industries and consumers. Media convergence fosters a new par<cipatory folk culture by giving average people the tools to archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate content. Shrewd companies tap this culture to foster consumer loyalty and generate low-‐cost content.’
global convergence
‘The cultural hybridity that results from the interna<onal circula<on of media content. In music, the world-‐music movement produces some of the most interes<ng contemporary sounds, and in cinema, the global circula<on of Asian popular cinema profoundly shapes Hollywood entertainment. These new forms reflect the experience of being a ci<zen of the global village.’
‘New media technologies have lowered produc<on and distribu<on costs, expanded the range of available delivery channels and enabled consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.’
‘On the other hand, there has been an alarming concentra<on of the ownership of mainstream commercial media, with a small handful of mul<na<onal media conglomerates domina<ng all sectors of the entertainment industry.’
transmedia storytelling
• a transmedia project develops storytelling across mul<ple forms of media in order to have different ‘entry points’ in the story
• At the most basic level, transmedia stories are stories told across mul<ple media
• In the ideal form of TS, each medium does what it does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television and its world might be explored and experienced through game play.
• Each franchise entry needs to be self-‐contained enough to enable autonomous consump<on
spreadability versus drillability
• Jenkins: the ability and degree to which content is shareable and the mo<va<ng factors for a person to share that content versus the ability for a person to explore, in-‐depth, a deep well of narra<ve extensions when they stumble upon a fic<on that truly captures their aUen<on.
contuinity and seriality
• Jenkins: in transmedia storytelling the narra<ve chunks are being dispersed not simply across mul<ple serial segments, but across mul<ple media plagorms as well. Some transmedia franchises foster an ongoing coherence to a cannon in order to ensure maximum plausibility among all extensions.
immersion versus extractability
• Jenkins: in immersion, the consumer enters into the world of the story (e.g. theme parks), while in extractability, the fan takes aspects of the story away with them as resources they deploy in the spaces of their everyday life (e.g. items from the git shop).
worldbuilding and subjec<vity
• Jenkins: transmedia extensions, oten not central to the core narra<ve, can give a richer depic<on of the world in which the narra<ve plays out. Transmedia extensions oten explore the central narra<ve through new eyes; such as secondary characters or third par<es. This diversity of perspec<ve oten leads fans to more greatly consider who is speaking and who they are speaking for
performance
• Jenkins: performance: the ability of transmedia extensions to lead to fan produced performances that can become part of the transmedia narra<ve itself. Some performances are invited by the creator while others are not; fans ac<vely search for sites of poten<al performance
storytelling project report
• Business and marke<ng (7 to 14 pages) • Treatment (6 to 10 pages) • Func<onal specifica<on (10 to 15 pages) In total: 23 to 40 pages Deadline: paper day
business and marke<ng
• Goals (1) • Succes indicators (1–2) • User need (1 par) • Target audience and marke<ng (2-‐4) • Projec<ons, budge<ng and <melines (2-‐5) • Produc<on team (1-‐2)
Goals (3 goals -‐ 1 page)
A. What do you want to achieve from the perspec<ve of the user through the service?
S<mulate community-‐based storytelling
Get the audience to be ac<ve during a live broadcast
Create deeper engagement between scheduled events
Get the audience to become ac<ve outside the home
S<mulate massive community created content contribu<on
Make the service highly personalized
…..
B. What are the goals from the perspec<ve of the crea<ve team?
Experiment with never before tried mul<-‐plagorm concepts
Improve the skills of the team
Raise awareness of issues, social good or another media property
Design a service that lasts two years and longer
Build a strong female or male viewership
Build a loyal local and/or interna<onal community for your property
Increase the overall audience
….
C. What is the economic goal or model?
Commercial: revenue genera<on through mature digital business models
Marke<ng: at cost, promo<onal/marke<ng/adver<sing of another product or property
Social good: at cost, awareness and issue raising or cultural, educa<onal and/or ar<s<c statements
Experimental: a new type of project designed to push boundaries, with the freedom to fail and lose money but learn from
succes indicators (1 – 2 pages)
How will the stated goals be measured, and from those results how will you decide if the
service has been successful?
The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and ROI (Return On Investment) are tradi<onal ways to measure success, but from a story perspec<ve there may be other engagement metrics you are
building into your services.
what are KPI’s?
Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an
organiza<on define and measure progress toward organiza<onal goals.
Key Performance Indicators Reflect the organiza<onal goals and must be quan1fiable.
KPI’s
Sales Revenue
• How much revenue has your campaign brought your company? Understanding your sales revenue is important to know how effec<ve campaign is, no company wants to spend money on something that isn’t genera<ng money.
KPI’s
Cost Per Lead • How much is it cos<ng you to acquire a customer through your campaign?
KPI’s
Traffic to Lead Ra<o
• Understanding your website traffic, especially knowing where your traffic is coming from, whether it’s organic, direct, social media or referrals is extremely important.
online content marke<ng KPI’s
reach
• unique visitors
• geography • mobile readers
engagement
• bounding rates
• click paUerns
• unique pages
sen<ment
• interac<on • social sharing
KPI’s
Social Media Reach • number of lead conversions assisted by each social media channel
• number of customer conversions generated through your social media channels
• percentage of traffic associated with social media channels
KPI’s Mobile traffic, leads and conversion rates • number of lead conversions from mobile devices • bounce rates from mobile devices • conversion rates from mobile op<mized landing pages
You don’t only want to see how many visitors are conver<ng through mobile but you also want some indica<on of how effec<ve your mobile presence is.
weekly dashboard
• Sales revenue • Cost per lead • Traffic to lead ra<o • Social media reach • Mobile traffic
first you need a … goal
hUp://<nyurl.com/iemeskpi
succes indicators (1 – 2 pages)
How will the stated goals be measured, and from those results how will you decide if the
service has been successful?
The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and ROI (Return On Investment) are tradi<onal ways to measure success, but from a story perspec<ve there may be other engagement metrics you are
building into your services.
User need (1 paragraph)
This is a short high-‐level sec<on covering the key ques<on of why your service will be no<ced and used. A simple user-‐needs analysis will highlight gaps in the market, weak compe<<on, or just a
strongly ‘needed’ u<lity-‐like service.
needs analysis
determining user goals, purposes, and objec<ves: -‐ what do users want to accomplish using the product? -‐ what are their overall goals? -‐ what do users need from the product to accomplish these goals?
target audience and marke<ng (2-‐4 pages)
This sec<on will cover two key areas: Who will use the service, and how will you aUract them
to it? It will include a demographic and psychographic breakdown of your user/
audience, lis<ng compe<ng services or examples of similar services, quo<ng numbers.
business models (1-‐2 pages)
This provides an overview of how the budget will be raised or revenue generated. For many mul<-‐plagorm services there will be a mix of business models, so this sec<on will detail primary and secondary models, which may
include the following:
business models (1-‐2 pages)
Sponsorship (commercial or funded by agency)
Adver<sing: text based or rich media adver<sing (surround or product placement)
Subscrip<on (to use the service): part of the freemium/premium model
Transac<on: direct sales of product, pay per use or premium or extended elements
Affiliate marke<ng: money for connec<ng with like services
Virtual currency: taking a percentage of exchanges for virtual currency from real world money
Direct sales of the mul<-‐plagorm ‘format itself’ to third par<es
Sales to market intelligence of anonymous user data
Peer-‐to-‐peer: taking a percentage of user-‐to-‐user fees in your project’s ‘market’, such as virtual goods exchanges or embedded online auc<ons
Sales of product placement spots
Dona<ons to parts of whole elements of the service
……
projec<ons, budge<ng and <melines (2-‐5 pages)
This sec<on will detail all the important costs and/or likely revenues and/or profits from the service. It should include a spreadsheet lis<ng how much the service will cost to build, and this
may develop in granularity as the service planning moves forward.
produc<on team (1-‐2 pages)
This should be a full breakdown of the mul<-‐disciplinary team related to this specific project, lis<ng their individual mul<-‐plagorm and/or
transmedia roles and responsibili<es.
storytelling project report
• Business and marke<ng (7 to 14 pages) • Treatment (6 to 10 pages) • Func<onal specifica<on (10 to 15 pages) In total: 23 to 40 pages Deadline: Paper day
next week
• See you @ De Pont – 12.45 • Download transmedia bible & read it • Select the parts you need • Read about De Pont and start thinking about their business case
• Think about a group – choose a ‘chairman’ • ‘Chairman’ sends me the names of the group • Read chapter 1, 2 and 3
• The new digital Storytelling • Alexander Bryan
storytelling project report
• Business and marke<ng (7 to 14 pages) • Treatment (6 to 10 pages) • Func<onal specifica<on (10 to 15 pages) In total: 23 to 40 pages Deadline: Paper day Oct 28