This post I’ll keep short and to the point.It’s my thoughts about how companies can benefit from utilizing transmediastorytelling; not only when it comes to marketing a product or a service, butalso when it comes to the company itself.
There are many companies that think abouttransmedia and use transmedia storytelling to break through into theconsciousness of the masses – Audi’s “Art of the Heist” comes to mind – and do sosuccessfully. There are others who look to transmedia storytelling to help themaccomplish other things, such as Cisco, with their salesperson-targeting “The Hunt” campaign. There are yet others, often with pretty impressive muscle, who thinkdeeply about new forms of storytelling and new ways to grown nearer tocustomers. Coca Cola’s ”2020” vision is a prime example.
But the use of transmedia storytelling methodsdoesn’t have to stop there. Neither does it have to be companies the size ofAudi, Coca Cola or Cisco who look to transmedia to help them evolve. Transmediastorytelling methods can be of tremendous use to anyone in any field.
An example: a colleague pointed me in thedirection of Black Milk Clothing. It’s a good design brand with interestingcreations, yet what makes me remember them is the story on their About page. Inshort, it’s a brilliant read about how Black Milk came to be, the story of theman behind it and his passion from years back, about not giving up andabout succeeding through brilliance and perseverence.
This, in effect, goes beyond mere branding. It is the mythology, the storyworld of Black Milk Clothing. With this mythology as a foundation, if they decide to connect to their customers on adeeper level they have a wealth of entry points to work with and choose from.Do a competition about who can design the best re-design of the first creationsof the creator. Create an app which is a replica of the stands where he triedto sell his first creations, where customers can trade second-hand items of thebrand… these opportunities, and many more, spring from the mythology sketchily writtenon one web page.
It doesn’t end there though. Black Milk’s mythologygives the company something to point to to any future employee – ”this is wherewe come from, this is who we are!” – or collaborators. It’s their gene pool,basically. It’s a true story (I assume),but as with all mythologies, it could be embellished, as long as the differentnew parts do not conflict with the earlier core parts.
This then is something that can beaccomplished by just about any company. White books and Rules of the Companyand such documents are all well and good, but they seldom tell much of the coreof the company, the stories it’s built on, the future it might hold. It’s also much too common to merely look ahead, when looking back from time to time can help with directions, ideas and future entry points.
Tell your company’s story. Not just withwords, but also with deeds. No one tells a rulebook onwards. A good story, nowthat’s another thing.
Simon Staffans // Evolving Media 