As media morphs and fragments, and as content creators become
more adept at maximizing the reach of their content across platforms, the basic
business model is changing for advertisers. Mindshare
has embarked on an ambitious and fascinating study on the emerging Media
Multiverse and how consumer usage is impacting the major entertainment
franchises.
According to their press release, the Media Multiverse is
“the industry shift towards franchises that live across a mosaic of platforms,
and away from linear storytelling on one channel.” The study examined 35 of the
most popular properties to ascertain their power and their impact on brands.
I sat down with Joe Maceda, Managing Director, Invention
Studio Lead, Mindshare North America, and asked him the following:
Charlene Weisler: Why
do this study?
Joe Maceda: We noticed that more and more franchises were
building extensions across multiple channels and platforms and taking up more
of consumers’ time. We think that is indicative of the entertainment companies
focusing more on audience depth rather than audience reach. And by depth we
mean the ability to get a core group of fans so interested that they will
follow your franchise wherever you take it - in terms of channel and whatever
format. Recognizing that, we thought it was important for us to understand who
those biggest players are that have the most power when it comes to cultivating
those audiences and inviting them into those franchise extensions.
Weisler: The study
indicates that the biggest companies have the greatest resonance.
Maceda: Yes. Those
who have managed to cultivate a brand in a way that is consistent, such as
Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel; those who have an air of special-ness, especially
those who are able to extend it from the theater to the TV format and
eventually into more extensive digital formats.
Weisler: What do you
see as the future for advertisers in this Multiverse?
Maceda: Advertisers need to think about the ecosystem of the
major franchises. If you have a core group of millions of fans who are engaging
with a franchise in eight to twelve different formats over the course of time,
there are implications as to how we message when there are advertising
opportunities. But further down the line, as it gets more ad-free, brands and
advertisers might think about flipping the script entirely and becoming
entities that help create and become partners to create more buy-side content
and unique experiences to become an entry point into some of these franchises
or revive previously dormant franchises.
Weisler: How immersive
do you see it all going?
Maceda: I like to think about immersive as less about the
formats of the content itself (like whether it is AR or VR) and more in terms
of how deeply a fan of that franchise can engage. I think it will be fully
immersive to the point that it might not be linear at all anymore. For example,
more and more movie releases are accompanied by real world experiences that
partly promote the property itself but also an extension of the property.
Weisler: Were any of
the results somewhat surprising to you?
Maceda: We were surprised at how powerful Game of Thrones is given that its
heritage is fairly deep in the fantasy genre and to date, the existence of Game of Thrones is only on premium pay
cable so it is entirely behind a paywall. But it is the franchise that most
people want the most of (54% want to experience more GOT). So we are seeing the birth of a mega-franchise here which we
haven’t seen since Harry Potter 20
years ago. If this follows, we would expect to see, in 10 or 15 years, multiple
iterations or extensions of the story in terms of video content. We can almost
be certain that there will be theme park extensions and other real world
experiences as well as continuing in the written format and the emerging
formats.
Weisler: How would
advertisers know about which content has the greatest resonance, such as a
Breaking Bad?
Maceda: What we found
from our study is the very first thing is whether people want to talk about the
content after consuming it because that is a major indicator of how much more
they want to experience it. So the more someone talks about it, the more we can
assume they want to enter into that world and consume more deeply. So Breaking
Bad is a great example in that it was never created to be a great franchise but
at the same time it captured people in a way that almost required giving them
more. I don’t know if you can set out to create or identify resonant content at
the start but that initial reaction and the way fans engage once it starts to
take off is the biggest indicator.
Weisler: What are the
next steps for this study?
Maceda: We plan to
make this an annual study. I am very excited to see what year two looks like as
more and more of these franchises continue to build out their fan bases and
their formats. We anticipate that, as we looked at 35 properties this year, we
might remove some and add some more. I am most excited to see, as with Game of Thrones, the trajectory and the
velocity of some of these franchises as time go on. We in the Invention Studio are using the study
for brainstorming techniques. We want to identify what types of ideas we can
bring to partnerships with these franchises and understand all of the ways
people are engaging in these properties. Our Partnership Teams use this data to
identify which formats and platforms are most powerful for our consumers.
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