NARRATE

Christy Dena proposes that we abandon linear stories to offer more possibilities to our audiences through interactivity.  The Transmedia product is not for consumption.  Instead, what is envisaged is learning through interaction and immersion in an experience.

In this way, transmedia is not marketing, but rather immersive communication. It needs people to break the norms of communication.  What happens on the margins of what is termed transmedia is what brings us more ideas.

Dena insists that what makes transmedia stories work is the system of relationships we create; we must ‘manipulate’ the interest of the public through our content, carefully selecting the order in which we launch each subproduct.

The same original materials can give rise to different products.  Channels should not compete with each other for attention since, in the end, they cancel each other out.  What is important is that they complement each other.

She compiles the key qualities which also define a good transmedia project: creativity, curiosity, passion, restlessness and transversality.                                                                                                                         

The Transmedia Storytelling, according to Jenkins

Henry Jenkins coined this term to refer to audiovisual stories or narratives developed on various media at the same time, each one relating a different part of the story.  In fact, he linked this concept to what he called the ‘world-building’.  In other words, he said, closed universes of information are generated, in which the spectator or the user can recompose the story and complete information about it by jumping from one media to another.

This gives the spectators, no longer a passive audience, a crucial role, generating direct participation within the story itself.  Without their activity, it would not be possible to complete the story fully.

The seven principles of transmedia

Jenkins conceived  this phenomenon in the following way:

1. Spreadability vs. Drillability

Spreadability is the capacity of spectators to share content, whereas drillability refers to the degree of involvement of users - in other words, what they manage to find with regard to this storytelling.  Both elements complement each other perfectly.

2. Continuity vs. Multiplicity

Continuity is the internal coherence of the story itself. Multiplicity, on the other hand, refers to all the points of access there might be to the story.

3. Immersion vs. Extractability

Immersion refers to a world of fiction which attracts and entraps the user. In other words, it is something in which you can immerse yourself mentally. In contrast, extraction refers to the possibility of bringing the elements of the story together and applying them to the real world.

4. World-building

The story generated has to refer to an unexplored, fictional world which has its own rules and principles that differ from reality. It has to be well defined and distinctive.

5. Seriality

Seriality refers to the possibility of breaking down the story into distinctive fragments. In this way, it can be fitted into several episodes, with one part of the story reserved for each medium.

6. Subjectivity

Subjectivity involves the creation of a space so that there is not only one subject.  In other words, the spectator can become involved with several characters or remain with one or other character in the same story.  There is the possibility to choose.

7. Performance

For its followers, there exists within the story the possibility of creating something to interact with it.

These are considered the seven principles of transmedia storytelling. It is a working model that continues to be studied today and is employed in successful communication campaigns.  Therefore, it is vital that you familiarize yourself with how it works and all of its potential.

1. What is Transmedia Communication?

The term ‘Transmedia’ attempts to put a name to all the storytelling experiences that are released through several media or platforms, so that in each one a part of a great storytelling world is told and in which the spectator has a meaningful participation.

What is new here is the idea that the narrators can create new, deeper experiences for their audiences, something of special interest to Hollywood, but one which is not lost on Madison Avenue.  After all, brands also have stories which they need to reach their audiences.

As consumers, we do not rationally assimilate content (that is, understand the key message and remember it), but rather we relate to the brand at an emotional level, which is the same as saying that we become fans.  Telling stories about a brand (or better still, the history of the brand) is an excellent way to establish this relationship and to build your own audience.

2. What does Transmedia bring to the brand?

All transmedia initiatives are still novel, and therefore, those who dare to use them are still regarded as both innovative and risky.  In this way, the audience feels that it is doing something special and different, while brands succeed in getting media coverage for their initiative with relative ease.

In addition, transmedia is a great engine for engagement, since it enables the story of a brand to be told in an implicit, emotional and participatory way.  Accordingly, transmedia storytelling becomes an excellent unifying element bringing audiences together, people interested (even impassioned) by what is being communicated to them.  Whereas advertisement is seen as an interruption of what interests them, transmedia communication succeeds in generating very high interest brand content.

3. Transmedia communication is based on drillability

Designing a good transmedia story is key.  It is not about breaking up the story and cutting it at more or less arbitrary points. Each one of its parts must extract maximum value from each medium.  Each part must be capable of providing a micro-experience to stimulate the desire for knowing more.

So, a transmedia campaign works in a way that is diametrically opposed to a conventional one. Instead of repeating the same thing in as many media as possible, each new point of contact must have a different impact which moves us through different depths as if we were moving in a lift. Each new impact enriches those that preceded it and the message as a whole.

If in a 360º campaign, the idea is at the centre; in a transmedia campaign, that place will be occupied by the audience.  Transmedia forces us to truly integrate.

A transmedia campaign requires real integration: all the parts are responsible for contributing to a unique whole, a story that is only complete when it is experienced in its entirety. Therefore, ATL, BTL, PR, WOM and any other abbreviation must cease being sealed-off compartments in order to be coordinated in a centralized and effective manner by a master storyteller who designs the whole of the experience.

It is not enough to write a brief and share it around all the partners.  Each agency, every department involved must give up part of its autonomy in the pursuit of proper collaboration on the ground.

Marsha Kinder is a student of American Cinema and a Teacher of Critical Studies at California Southern University.

In 1991, it was she who first used the term ‘transmedia’ to refer to specific entertainment franchises, such as Nintendo and Ninja Turtles.  She used expressions like ‘transmedia intertextuality’ or ‘transmedia supersystem’ to refer to a network which interlinks various image mode productions, different generations of audience and subcultures.