At the London Transmedia Fest at the end of October – an event put on by DMIC, Ogilvy and other parties – the power of brands was readily apparent. As commissioning budgets dwindle, producers worldwide are looking for new ways of funding content, and one of the more attractive options is brand integration. The challenge is to succeed with such an integration in the best way possible, so that the brand connection doesn’t detract from the content on offer while it at the same time gives the brand value for money.

One effective method in such a case is to utilize transmedia storytelling methods for the design, development, production, distribution, marketing and audience engagement phases. By diving deep into the values of a brand, the history of the brand and the particular product at hand, the people who had developed said product, the people in the history of the brand and so on, we will be able to design campaigns that not only immerse themselves totally in the fabric of the brand, they also have a number of entry points into the narrative, spread out over a number of media platforms, and a logical way of piecing all of this together.

What I feel in the aftermath of LTF2012 is most of all a change in attitude. It might not be readily apparent, but it is there. If ”storytelling” is the answer to the question ”what next for the marketing industry?”, then ”transmedia methods” is the answer to the questions ”how on Earth are we going to accomplish that then?”.