You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London
Your property is no longer “a film”, “a documentary” or “a television series” — it is an interconnected constellation of cross-platform experiences that, combined with a profound understanding of your audience, provide an experience that fans can plug into via multiple media.
In terms of cultural theory, you can thank Henry Jenkins’ study of The Matrix as a transmedia property that embraced film, serialized content, comics, online media and videogames: his work at MIT kicked off the idea of supporting stories through orchestrated digital and analog channels.
The most successful strategies are those that do not think of the digital extension as merely an “extra” experience. To truly maximize the potential of a digital strategy, it must be thought of as the hub of a series of cross media entities that bring audiences from one entry point to the next. It is this combination of all platforms that will make up the true value of your property.
The benefit to you as the producer will not come in the revenue derived from any one component, but in the value the entire package provides to potential partners: advertisers, broadcasters, distributors, etc. With all of these components pulling together, you make it much easier to bring quality audiences to their advertisements / network / merchandise. And with audience eyeballs increasingly focused on all things digital, particularly young audiences, this is becoming important. The genie is not going back in the bottle.
But to begin to tap this potential, you first need to understand and be able to articulate your goals as a producer.
The notion of concrete and meaningful goals being critical to the success of any campaign is nothing new. We are all familiar with the adage that without a goal in mind, it is impossible to know when you have succeeded. Yet surprisingly when it comes to setting goals for digital extensions to film and television properties, we often encounter companies that are not setting goals that are:
- - Concrete
- - Measurable
- - Realistic
- - Appropriate
Finding the time to set goals
It is not lack of interest — or lack of belief — in the importance of establishing goals for a digital strategy that keeps producers from taking this necessary first step. It is usually a simple time issue. The producer is busy doing what the producer should be busy doing: making the absolute best film or television show within the available time and budget. But with the right guidance, setting goals for digital extensions can actually be quite quick and painless.
Discovery
We recommend scheduling a “discovery session” with all of the stakeholders involved in the property. Working through a series of pre-established questions will bring this key group much closer to the heart of both what you need and what you need to avoid. The precise make-up of the attendees will vary depending on the property and the production team, but should include top decision-makers from the production company, the broadcaster, the distributor, internal digital strategists, existing funding partners… you get the idea. Achieving consensus (or at least cohesion) is far less likely if key voices aren’t heard.
Generally speaking, it is better to have someone tangentially-related or wholly removed from this group of stakeholders guide the discovery session. With that bit of distance, the moderator can help untangle the various crossed wires and pull together the consensus results at the end. Otherwise, you run the risk of setting up an echo chamber that amplifies internal opinions without introducing new ideas. What’s more, having someone agnostic and unconnected with internal politics never hurts either when the objective is honest evaluation!
Evaluating your goals
Separating the objectives of individual stakeholders from the larger goals of the property can be difficult at times, but it is possible to reach an accord, provided your focus isn’t spread too thin. The traditional “S.M.A.R.T.” acronym for evaluating goals is always a decent place to start.
That said, you must still take care that while the team is giving shape to your goals, digital media is treated very much as part of the entire package that is your property and not just an obligatory “add on.” Not doing so can result in setting goals that will be less appropriate for your property or fail to unlock the potential long-term gains you could realize.
What are “less-appropriate” goals?
These are a few “digital extension goals” that seem to come up again and again. While they may result in some benefit to the producers if realized, they do not help set the producer on a path that will truly maximize the potential new media has for their property.
Less-appropriate goal #1:
Create a “cool” experience
The “cool for cool’s sake” trap is one to be wary of… if you build it, they may not come. Creating an online experience that, while fun or even award-winning, does not result in a win for your property is not a good use of development dollars. For example: a Flash game featuring your cast of characters may look compelling and even result in a number of hits to your site… but if those hits don’t help translate into additional fans, more advertising dollars, a second season, etc. then the game fails as a digital extension.
Less-appropriate goal #2:
Generate significant revenue
While digital extensions can be used in part to generate some additional revenue through the sale of merchandise or through advertising, this return is usually negligible (especially today with online ad prices plummeting). To put it in perspective, you can currently buy one million very targeted impressions on Facebook for $100. Unless your site can command that type of traffic, you can’t easily compete. In addition, experiences that provide no other significant value to audiences run the risk of turning off fans who are looking for you to give something to them, not the other way around.
Having said that, the iPhone seems to be changing the playing field for digital content in much the same way that the iPod revolutionized digital music: buying mobile content is seen as fun, easy and acceptable. Producers interested in developing an alternate revenue stream might find this form of digital extension more appealing.
Less-appropriate goal #3:
Get a million users by X date
It is exceedingly difficult to “hit a million users” or even a million page views overnight: getting this kind of “hockey stick” growth pattern is possible only by coordinating one or more platforms related to your property. Even with such coordination — and a sizeable advertising budget — there is no guarantee.
Success in the digital realm can no longer solely be measured by hits and impressions alone. The quality of the engagement is becoming the more critical factor. Far better to have five thousand users who are smack in the middle of your demographic and extremely active when it comes to evangelizing your property, than a hundred thousand members you know nothing about and who do nothing to support your cause.
So, what are “more appropriate” goals?
That said, there are many things new media can do to support and extend a film or television property. Depending on the stage of the property’s life-cycle, some tactics are more appropriate than others… but even within a discrete stage, there will be several different paths worth pursuing. A lot comes down to your ingenuity and that of the team you assemble.
New Properties
Use digital media techniques to validate the potential audience and its demographic make-up. This will be especially important to investors, broadcasters and similar stakeholders.
Properties in Development
Follow Peter Jackson’s example and engage with your audience from day one. In addition to gathering feedback from your future viewers, you can make refinements to your property when it is relative inexpensive: that is, before the cameras start to roll. There is no doubt this made the Lord of the Rings trilogy a far better experience for everybody from the most ardent fan to the second unit’s Key Grip.
A Fledgling Film
New media can be used to deputize existing fans and provide them with tools to better evangelize the property and induct new followers. Viral advertising has become particularly effective with the advent of the social web.
A More Mature Property
Digital extensions are an effective means to bridge the gap between seasons and keep fans engaged with the characters and world of your stories year round. What’s more, an already successful show can use the television broadcast to drive traffic to other related properties.
An Old IP
If you have just secured the rights to a defunct property or one that has only succeeded in another medium, digital media can help revive the IP. By uniting these often disparate fan groups, new media techniques can prove to potential investors that there is sufficient interest in the property to warrant a comeback.
It is not surprising that producers often do not think of new media in these terms… it is simply that the potential of new media to function in these capacities does not occur to most producers. If all you have seen are “brochure-ware” websites built around contained Flash content, that is sometimes what you expect the state of the art to be… at least as it pertains to film and television. So why dig deeper when you have a multi-million dollar show to run?
Most producers’ efforts and expertise revolve around, well, producing their shows. It isn’t your job to keep abreast of new digital developments, consider how they fit with your show’s requirements, and develop a nuanced plan. That’s the job of your internal new media strategist or external digital consultant… more on that later. For you, what is important is understanding the goals of your production, articulating them clearly and keeping them at the 50,000 foot level.
A last word on reaching consensus
Before moving on to the exciting step of developing a strategy to realize your goals, you must go through one final check – ensuring that all stakeholders in the property have signed off. There is nothing worse than thinking you have reached a consensus and proceeding on your merry way only to discover halfway through that the broadcaster, your principal advertiser or your distributor has an altogether different objective in mind!
So take the time ensure that everyone involved has been made aware of (and embraces) the goals for your property’s digital strategy. Have the person guiding the discovery session write it down. If necessary, get signatures. In this way, you can move on to next step, secure in the knowledge that your expectations are understood and that all stakeholders are pulling in the same direction.