“Can you make me a viral?”

Dear god, please no.

The question fills me with pure, stomach churning fear. The measurement of your success or cataclysmic failure is there for all to see – plastered across research presentations, YouTube ‘hits’, downloads – all manor of rigid, unspinable data, far to readily available to humiliate you in the next digital strategy update.

It’s not total creative insecurity; it’s that I fundamentally disagree with the idea of targeting audiences with the sole purpose of having them do your marketing for you.  It’s out of touch, arrogant and doomed to failure.

And anyway, ‘viral’ is an adjective, not a noun.

I don’t suppose Neil Cicierga who wrote and directed the Harry Potter Puppet Pals was given a brief, 3 weeks, and a couple of thousand quid to make his You Tube ‘viral’ – it doesn’t work like that.

He is a fan boy, who over 5 years (yes, he started at the age of 17) developed a comedy concept from basic flash animation into an 86 million ‘hits’, puppet musical sensation.   Try costing that up, it will make your eyes bleed.

It’s also virtually impossible to ‘fake’ a viral.  You can ask a fat kid to do a light saber show – but if it isn’t real no one is gonna spread it.  You just can’t fake these kind of football mishaps.

Despite the perfect storm of marketing strategy to the contrary, the social marketing ‘audience’ is more discerning than ever.   Just ask Henry Jenkins.   From a recent interview in iMediaConnection.com he says:  ‘In general, I have declared war on the concept of “viral media.” As a model, it leads media producers to think in the wrong ways about the value of their content and its relationship to the audience.’

‘Taken at face value, it offers us a smallpox-soaked blanket approach to media distribution: Unknowingly infect your consumer and let them spread the germs to their friends and neighbors. In fact, in a world with many media choices, consumers are actively selecting what content is meaningful to them and circulating it consciously to people they think may be interested.’

Yes Uncle Henry, you can’t give a girl a video virus like you can give her herpes.

Despite this, companies such as The Viral Factory have made big business out of building a highly coordinated social media campaign.  But this isn’t because they made a good ‘viral’ – the videos they make are brilliant, funny and have great creative concepts at their heart. It’s lovingly developed content, with time and budget spent – plus they know where to stick it so it’s found.

So no, I can’t make you a viral, but I can make something fucking ace with a great idea plus enough love or money or time.   You know, just like it’s always been.

Transmedia: Media, But With Big Sexy Implants.

What exactly is Transmedia?  Cross-platform?  Multi-platform?  Cross-media?

First a few definitions.   When anyone uses/plays/reads/watches they are a consumer of the storyworld.     And the ‘story’ will henceforth be known as the Intellectual Property.  That’s because what transmedia does best, is take the initial IP and weave it magically across many platforms.   The IP remains unchanged – stronger even.

Transmedia, is storytelling across multiple platforms.    Or as uncle Henry Jenkins explains ‘it’s storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a viewer/user/player’s understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, it attempts to create “entry points” through which consumers can become immersed in a story world’

Transmedia seems to lend itself best to an IP that has deeply loyal fan base – like, yes, Sci-fi, Horror and Comic Books.   Starlight Runner is widely considered the leader in Transmedia planning and implementation (Avatar, Tron, Prince of Persia) and founder Jeff Gomez was drawn to the biz after his discovery of the world of Kikaider.  A Japanese sci-fi hero.

The big news this month, that Imagine signed a first look deal with Black Light based on ‘well thought out concepts with strong underlying symbolism and archetypal foundations, with graphic novels and designs that were exquisite’ was really no surprise.

Brian Grazer then goes on to lament: ‘we can’t afford to buy Marvel’.

And now, Tim Kring has just launched a new transmedia company Imperative.  I am interested to hear what he learned making Heroes season 2,  and how they set about recovering from the writers strike.

But if we unstitch this grandiose concept of building story worlds (or story architecture) around these more, erm, (anyone got another word for geek? nope?) ok then – geeky genres – what are we left with?

Does Transmedia work with Romantic Comedy?  If we look at Candice Bushnell’s Sex and the City, and the answer is yes, please!

What began as a series of columns in the New York Observer, grew into a book, then into the hugely successful HBO TV series, and now we wait for the second film.

The first SATC film had a 300% return on investment on US box office sales alone, while the other big franchise film India Jones and the Kingdom of Something or Other returned less than 200%.

Now there’s not a lot of deep mythological background to SATC, but there was a story progression, and different entry points – and the results speak for themselves.   (I’ve heard it called transmedia lite – nice)

Does Transmedia work with kids?  Hell yes.

Naturally & intuitively kids consume without prejudice.   Online they are almost exclusively interested in the interaction with content.    I’m mostly talking gaming here – gaming means engagement, and when gaming becomes an extension of the over-all story world you have a very powerful tool for growing your IP.  But I’m also talking toys, ring tones, comics – anything kids can access their favorite hero or heroine.  They’re the early adopters, and their consumption is the future of consumption.

Seize the Media showed the incredible power of transmedia & horror with their launch of Head Trauma.  I’m still in awe at the incredible experience they put together, which included a ARG played out from the trip to the theatre, during the movie, and – as sinister as it gets – when the consumers got home.

Lance, Anita and David must be the holy trinity in Transmedia.   Writer, Producer, Techy – they build on the Transmedia ethos by specifically citing the digital possibilities – ‘the online components exploit the social conventions, and social locations, of the internet.’   (And isn’t that totally the fun part?)

Selling the need to build a story ‘architecture’ must be a tough task.   But we’re starting to see the amazing results when you do.  And what happens when you don’t.

Transmedia seduces the consumer, leads them on, and show’s them something new.    The story has moments, hints, messages, clues, links, merchandise – whatever is best – to lead the consumer through the story world, resulting in loyalty, a deeply rich IP, and ultimately, massive revenue potential.

If you’re a writer – for script, screen, graphic novel, book – should you be writing for multiple platforms?   My answer is is not necessarily.    Worrying about the where’s and how’s of delivering the IP can be the job of a brilliant cross-platform, multi-platform, transmedia producer.   Don’t waste your time figuring out what the kindle is good for – just keep writing your book, play, game….

An idea is an idea.  A story is a story.   Keep thinking about the world, the journey, the IP – protect it and invite a producer in early to help you build the story architecture.

Let someone you trust decide where to stick what bit of it.

Brit of a Bore.

I remember when I used to love music. We hung out alone for hours. Music was great company. Music was there when I was happy, sad, drunk or high. Music was the warm arm of friendship who nurtured and understood me as I grew from a 80’s pubescent pop fan (team Cindy Lauper) to guitar-playing grunger, then hip-hoppin’ & pot smokin’ snowboarder and finally – many incarnations and memorable albums later – I eventually emerged a vaguely capable and relatively groomed human.

But, over time, I felt that music didn’t really get me anymore.  Music slouched lazily in the corner of my lounge like a petulant teenager who refused to tidy up.   The huge expanding mass of old CD’s, vinyl and cassettes became a constant, unsightly irritation, taking up too much of the room my shoes needed.   I didn’t want to rage against the machine anymore, and couldn’t for the life of me imagine an occasion one might want to dust off the old Mudhoney LP.

Music didn’t grow up with me, so instead… we grew apart.

My relationship with film has kept me happy for these last few years.   A two hour commitment – each piece needing only to be seen once – but spoken of forever.   What an efficient use of time in my never ending desire to sound more cleverer about shit.

Over real ale at a particularly rubbish Soho boozer (struggling to be heard over Cheryl Cole’s latest miscarriage) I admitted to friends I just wasn’t that into music anymore.

Of course the obvious:  You’re just getting older, Rebecca.  And as a concession:  Modern music is shit.   As you grow up, there becomes something mildly undignified about discussing music in that sweaty, bearded, enthusiastic way you did at 24.

So tonight is the 30th Brit awards.    And as I glance down the nominee list, I see at best a few young promising artists among some fairly average clothes horses who can barely hold a note, let alone compose a musical legacy.

Should Leona Lewis really be in a category for ‘artists’?   Who the fuck is Pixie Lott – a Geldoffspring?  Is Norah Jones still boring people with her music?  Exactly when did Taylor Swift ‘breakthrough’ – was it that Kanye West incident?  Are there really so few male artists in the UK that we need to include Robbie Williams to make up numbers?  Since when was The Climb a ‘British’ single?

Its awful & depressing, totally to be expected, and almost make me want to get into film scores.

Still, at least Cheryl Cole isn’t nominated.   Oh.. wait…

Here is the full list of nominations for the Brit Awards.

The iPad Has Potential. Period.

Yes, yes, yes.    It has lots of OBVIOUS, IRRITATING flaws that we all know will be slowly, painfully ‘fixed’ one generation at a time.   But, like a hot date with thighs you could crack your fidelity on – it doesn’t really matter what it does right now, you just want to hold it.

The best reviews I could find tonight came from WIRED:  ‘Can Apple’s IPad Save the Media’ - I still firmly believe that if its easy and worth the experience  – people will pay for good media.  And, Gizmodo – who were less complementary – their article got so many hits tonight the page crashed.  Check out 8 Things That Suck About the IPAD.

But for me, its the perfect bedfellow.   I can watch a bit of television with it, listen to some music, read a book, and when I’m done it slots neatly into my knicker drawer.

My iphone is just a little bit small for me to do any ‘real work’ on, and I because I try to avoid ‘real work’ as much as possible – I don’t want to carry a computer – so the IPad just works.  Its pretty,  its the perfect.. ahem.. size, and it almost does all I need.

Its simple, it provides me with all my multimedia requirements, and I don’t need a PHD in Technology to get the best out of it.

So whilst the digi-boys guffaw at the all the shortfalls of the ipad – I say its the perfect partner for a girl like me.

Shame about the inability to multitask.   But isn’t that always the way?