http://glastonbury.orange.co.uk/glastotag/

Do yourself a favour and go and check this out. Built by Poke in the UK for the Orange Mobile Network one massive picture of the Glastonbury Festival crowd presents users with the challenge to find yourself/friends and tag them on Facebook via Facebook Connect integration. A really clever use of Facebook Connect and a well executed concept with amazing detail even when very closely zoomed in.

For my second morning tea at The FARM I decided to share with the team some of the cool case studies presented at Metro Screen's Transmedia Seminar on Friday June 25^th that I attended as part of my Certificate IV in Screen & Media.

A bit of a buzz word in digital, I thought it good timing to go through some examples of successful transmedia projects to spark thinking in the group as many of our clients go into business planning for FY11.

What is transmedia?

A project that consists of narrative storylines across multiple platforms such as film, TV, web, social media, mobile – the list goes on. Most importantly, the narratives are not the same as repurposing material from one platform to another.

Why do clients want it?

They often don’t know! A study by Digital Brand Expressions in May 2010 found "52% of social marketers are operating 'without a game plan' (read the article here) and brands are afraid of being behind their competitors without presence in social media, video, viral and mobile.

How do you decide the platform?

Content dictates the platform – story comes first! What is the nature of your content and what platform is it suitable for. On the flip side, the platform is not simply a vessel with shapes and fuels the creative – it is a symbiotic process.

Case Study – Miles Becket (EQAL) and LonelyGirl15

Watch the LonelyGirl15 sizzle reel

This project worked because it was timed with what users were doing at the time. Youtube was becoming highly popular, it was recognized that youtube audiences were a recurring audience like TV and video bloggers were emerging.

Case Study – Darius Devas and Justin Buckwell with Goa Hippy Tribe

Watch the Goa Hippy Tribe intro video  

Darius and his team invested greatly in digital strategy (with The Dubs) for this Facebook delivered documentary series to be such a success. Launching with a Facebook group to recruit and reunite the original Goa Hippy Tribe it was from here that the real story leads and talent were generated. Key to this project I believe is the knowledge of difference between a Facebook GROUP and FAN PAGE. Once the story leads were gathered from the interactive and community group, the completed documentary was distributed via the fan page which allowed the producers more control over the content and the interactions with it. Group for discussion. Fan page for celebration of the final product.

Not so good examples

Unsuccessful examples of transmedia products often come down to a duplication of content across medium rather than extension into new content or failed use of UGC (User-Generated-Content). UGC should fuel other medium not simply be created and lost in the ether. The pay off for users must be greater than the effort required (credit to Cora Spear at Wanted Digital for that equation) meaning a tangible end purpose can be gained.

Viral, and when to use it?

Viral is perhaps one of the most common buzz words in advertising yet there is not a great understanding of how to use it, when to use it, why to use it or how to measure its success (we are all still learning as we go!). The viral videos seeded for the Black Water movie (Andrew Traucki) are a good example of reaching the target audience by using the same medium (online video) in its marketing strategy. It is a logical avenue and was very successful.

Risks?

Understandable brands see an element of risk involved with UGC, viral video or other interactive media as there are associations and social commentary that come with it and the content becomes inherently unpredictable. To avoid this some golden rules:

Be transparent with your audience – you cannot initiate conversation and not maintain it, the brand must be constantly involved and responding to its users (invest in social media moderation!)

So, leaving The FARM to think about the possibilities I hoped this presentation not only got people excited but reignited the team to own our agency, to be the experts and to ask the right questions. We are here to not only find out what platforms brands are interested in but why and to what end with the hope of delivering something with just as much a buzz!

[April2010] TheFARMers have had a busy few months preparing for some major launches for Johnson & Johnson and were particularly tickled to see the Aveeno® campaign take off over the weekend.

A new range in Australia, the campaign centers around increasing brand awareness and educating the masses via a big bold media launch. We produced takeovers, rich media, standard banners, a Facebook page and of course www.aveeno.com.au.

Already popular product in the US – where it has been recommended by dermatologists for decades – the early signs are that Aveeno® will be a similar success here. A seeding campaign on sites such as Beauty Heaven, 2Threads and Bella Sugar has already resulted in some rave reviews and testimonials.

In a Facebook first TheFARM also created an application which allows Aveeno® to gather consumer feedback via Facebook. Check out the Aveeno® product survey here.

[December 2009] For the first time this year BONDS ran its popular Baby Search entirely online. TheFARM created a dedicated Baby Search section within the Bumps & Baby website and developed a registration tool that intelligently integrated with the existing Bumps and Baby member database. A Facebook page and Twitter account extended campaign reach and tapped the power of social media to encourage consumer interaction and WOM. 

TheFARM is proud to report that the campaign was an overwhelming success with a record 17,885 individual entries and 420k unique visitors. Facebook was a big part of the success story – prominent placement of share tools on baby profile pages drove 38% of site traffic. At campaigns end the Bumps & Baby Facebook page was going strong. With a fan base of over 10, 000 it looked set to provide a key platform for Bonds to engage with Mums moving forward. 

I came accross some future predictions around Facebook penetration a couple of days ago and is it truly staggering.

Discounting China (Facebook is restricted there) it looks like we will  be approaching 30% of the worlds active internet population will be regular Facebook users by the end of 2009.

In the article they also talked about future projections and the possibility the Facebook audience could possibly top 1 billion users, the digital universe would sure be a different place, for a start we have to play by Facebook's rules while on their platform.

As agencies and marketers what does this mean for us? Well I guess it certainly means no matter who you are at the moment you cannot ignore the big F. The most obvious way to tap in to this huge potential audience is through ads but until now they have been targeted in a fairly standard way. These ads have been more effective in my experience than standard units due to organic impressions generated, context and their non banner like appearance but the targeting has been at best unimaginative, certainly not taking advantage of the social platform.

There is a new option open to us though which seems subtle at first, you can simply target your ads at friends of your connections. These connections are defined by Facebook as: Fans of your page, users of your applications, members of your groups or attendees of your events. Looking in to it a little further this is a different method than the top ten targeting methods currently available. 

Why? Well the ads can have social context which is after all what Facebook is supposed to be about. So if I am working on a new film theatrical release and someone fans my new movie page I can target ads at their friends which will list below the ad that their friend is a fan of my film. If the person viewing the ad would also like to see the film and I am offering pre-release tickets or a competition, who are they going to ask to go with them I wonder.

It is a great step in the right direction I believe for Facebook, there is still much work to be done, I could rattle on for hours about the numerous ways I would like to use the platform but lets save that for another day and simply be happy they are thinking about us little agencies and marketers.