Archive for the ‘Transmedia’ Category
Monetising video: commercialising content in a world of video overload
Retired content delivery devices find a new purpose as street art in Melbourne
By Kaye Blum
Held at the KPMG Auditorium (Sydney) in August, this panel session from the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) proposed to address the issue of how to make money from video and whether people will actually pay for content.
Presenting industry insights were Matt Moran from the Platform, Nick Love from Shine 360°, Angus Stevens from Southern Cross Austereo, Georgie Powell from YouTube, Sue Carter from Tigerspike, Will McKinnon from SBS, and event chair Scott Bradley Pearce from ArgentDigital. Following are my key highlights from the session.
Adapting to storytelling across platforms
Shine 360° Managing Director Nick Love started out making content for TV but now focuses on storytelling for multiple screens. He presented a case study for The Voice, for which they managed the social media in-house last season. “We used it to tell stories, not just cross-sell,” he explained.
They scripted for three platforms: TV, Facebook and Twitter. Plotting story across the three screens, they used the right channel choices with the right voices. “It takes design,” he said, adding that they worked on it for six months before going to air to ensure it was an integrated part of production.
They had to re-design the production supply chain and publishing workflow. “Without metadata you are lost… We couldn’t find any tools so we built our own,” he claimed, “MDM, adding, adapting and building metadata from content creation to distribution.”
In terms of monetizing, Shine 360° are not in the ad selling business, so they partnered with M9. On top of pre-roll and mid-roll ads, they made money through sponsored integration, with Ford sponsoring the live stream. They also integrated e-commerce with music sales and episodes on iTunes.
Love emphasised the importance of social media and data, and noted that Season 1 had 67% desktop traffic, while Season 2 saw an increase in mobile traffic. “It’s just the beginning – our storytelling hasn’t changed, it’s just introducing different screens.”
Monetising with YouTube
Georgie Powell, Content Partner Manager at YouTube, highlighted some vital company stats:
- Youtube is the world’s largest video platform and the second biggest search engine in world.
- Content owners can take 100% if they sell above the rate card.
- 90% of views of Australian content is from outside Australia, impacting import/export and rights.
- One in three YouTube views are on mobile devices.
YouTube’s demographic is Gen C – the curators, creators, connectors and communities of content. They like to upload and share, 91% sleep with their smartphone by the bed, they have an active social media presence.
“We need to think differently about how we program and create content for this type of audience”, Powell said. “We need to engage WITH, rather than program AT them.”
She explained one of the ways for content creators to make money from YouTube content is with Content ID. This enables rights owners to upload content and turn it into a reference file that shows who has ripped your content by scanning for matching videos, which you can monetise. Freemantle Media have Content ID and saw 20x growth in monetisation.
She covered the YouTube business models: ad supported, paid channels and transactional. Paid channels are already available in Australia.
Multi channel networks (MCNs), she claimed, are the next generation of broadcasters. There has been a huge investment in this field in the last six months overseas, but we are behind here in Australia (about three years).
A new model for production houses
Angus Stevens, Creative Director at Southern Cross Austereo, was previously a film/TV director and provided some great insights to the changing industry for production houses.
“There’s still money to be made, but you have to use a different model than what you’d use for TV,” he said. Crews and producers need to think this way as well. It’s not about making pretty pictures, it’s about how it will reach the audience. And this means different budgets.
“You have to put the old [production] model away”, he claimed, “You’re judged on distribution and scale.” He talked about innovation in execution and the need to be nimble to be profitable. Consider how can you use the medium to engage. “You can’t shoe-horn TVC values into a small platform.”
Co-incidentally I had recently done some initial consulting for a start-up run by traditional TVC directors and producers and had made the recommendation that a different model was needed for their purely digital product, but they insisted on maintaining a traditional TVC production house model. I chose not to proceed with these clients. Hearing Stevens dispelled any doubts I may have had about my decision.
Stevens also discussed client needs versus audience wants, describing content marketing as those who want to hang out around the campfire. With branded content, those guys bring their own guitar, music, etc. to control the environment. The client wants their music to be played at the campfire. Be clear about the difference between the two, he advised.
For content marketing, fish where the fish are, he said. Find where your audience is and go to them. Be honest (“Gen Y can smell bullshit a mile away so don’t bullshit”, he later added). Consumers don’t have loyalty.
“Creativity is hard to make and hard to sell and hard to measure, so you need to be in it for the long haul,” Stevens claimed. The online environment is quick, fast. “Do you want high impact, fast turn-around or a genuine engagement with the content?”
He showed a quote from an ADMA Report June 2013 to emphasise the point: “Creative brand campaigns take longer to deliver business success – after 6 months – compared to short term… but ultimately creativity wins out.”
Stephens took us through some great case studies, including The Friskies awards for best cat video of 2013; Vice (“the content is so good on Vice that brands want to be associated with it); and TAC Victoria’s roadtripforever.com campaign integrating social media.
Great stuff.
X Media Lab & KR8V masterclasses – Sydney, June 2013
By Kaye Blum
View from the Harbourview Terrace, MCA
For the past five years I’ve been trying to attend a X Media Lab (the “X” in X Media Lab stands for cross-platform, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural) conference, but for various reasons, missed out. This year it was back on home turf to celebrate its tenth anniversary after holding events in over a dozen countries.
Founded by Brendan Harken, X Media Lab events have covered as much ground in digital topics as it has geographical locations. Themes have included global media cultures and ideas; the future of journalism; animation and games; location based services; storytelling in the digital age; digital music; cross-platform and immersive media; and, in Switzerland this month, transmedia (wish I could be there).
This year’s event comprised a highlights day conference designed for “time-poor” creative industries executives, held at the stunning Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MCA’s) Harbourview Terrace; plus two days of KR8V masterclasses, held at the University of NSW College of Fine Arts (COFA).
The highlights day featured over a dozen national and international academics, digital professionals and artists; each limited to a snappy 20 minute presentation (the full list of keynote speakers can be found here). Here are my picks:
Kristen Taylor, Digital Community Strategist for Al Jazeera (previously at The Huffington Post, FourSquare and the BBC New York) shared some poignant insights to why a digital community needs narratives. She talked about context and curating an archive that accrues value over time, such as tumblrs by The New York Times and National Geographic’s ‘Found’. Tumblr and Instagram are her preferred social media channels.
Key take-out from Kristen: “The internet continues to run on kindness… networks have self-healing properties – they heal themselves through kindness.”
Kate McQuillen from Mememe Productions had just won an interactive Emmy award for dirtgirlworld, an “organically designed transmedia project” including an animated kids TV series, merchandise, website, live events, garbage trucks, seeds, and more. There are only eight Emmys in Australia so it’s a fantastic achievement. It was fascinating to hear her journey from having the seed of an idea based on core values such as love and sustainability, and meeting future colleagues in the loo at X Media Lab ten years ago.
Key take-out from Kate: “We wear our hearts on our sleeves and don’t apologise for being ‘out there’.”
Author and presenter Dominic Knight talked about story and structure; the hero’s journey (Robert McKee, Joseph Conran) and the importance of knowing the rules, but where you can innovate.
Key take-out from Dom: “Stories are the conceptual framework that help us understand the world.”
Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO of minfo (China’s leading mobile search service), and founder of Guanxi Inc (a location-based social discovery platform), provided an overview of what it takes to be a tech entrepreneur. And judging by the long list of criteria he shared, there’s obviously a lot more required than just having the idea.
Executing the idea is only the beginning, he explained. A strong work ethic is critical, and being prepared to do the stuff that no one wants to do. Self-esteem, focus, creativity, patience, selling acumen, passion, in-depth industry knowledge, and having a strong team around you were just some of the points he covered. Having savings in the bank and being in a position to take risks were other crucial points – ones that often get ignored, usually to the detriment of the start-up.
To help get investors on board, Alvin provided a list of critical questions that need to be clearly and confidently answerable.
Key take-out from Alvin: “Be healthy – it gets tiring.”
I attended Alvin’s Masterclass on Saturday to hear him share a generous amount of detail on creating integrated mobile marketing campaigns. He also provided some terrific insights to the mobile market in China.
As a digital producer, Galvin Scott Davis has developed top lifestyle apps, business apps and kids games. He is the founder of Protein One, a boutique digital design and development agency in Sydney. His presentation opened with the question: are you a “why” or a “why not”? Creatives realise early on that they are “whys” – they’re always asking questions even as young children, he explained, then they realise it’s more fun to be a “why not”.
It was asking “why not” that pushed him through the challenges of creating a children’s app that required a technology that hadn’t yet been developed. (This process was explained in his masterclass.)
Key take-out from Galvin: “Creatives have imagination, innovation, and talent. We forget to have bravery, stubbornness, and persistence. We need all of the above.”
And one more: “if you’ve got stories, don’t let other people saying ‘no’ get in the way…. Embrace your hurdles – it can be dangerous but rewarding.”
Galvin also delivered an information-packed Masterclass on Saturday, called Reversing The Publishing Model – How To Reinvent Your Story Across Digital Media To Getting A Book Deal. Using the creation of his Dandelion e-book app as a case study, he generously shared the process from concept development through to reaching the Number 1 downloaded app in the Australian AppStore, then scoring a 3-book print publishing deal with Random House. It was fascinating, informative and inspiring stuff.
Adam Good, director of digital media and content at Telstra Media, also had plenty to share in his presentation. He explained his concern with creative leadership in business and the two areas where he believes more training is needed. Strong leadership is one mandatory skillset; creativity is the other. “You need to flex both of those muscles to succeed” he said, naming Steve Jobs as an example.
Adam believes there are not enough CEOs in Australia that have both of these attributes, with many coming up through financial management but lacking the sales/marketing/artistic side. He said he sees a lot of businesses failing due to this; there are not enough of these type of leaders here. I wanted to ask him why – is it because our culture places less value on creativity? If you’ve grown up enduring more than an occasional ribbing for being creative like I have, then it’s easy to assume so. But that’s a debate for another time…
The MCA illuminated for Vivid Festival
Back to Adam’s presentation, which moved on to Telstra’s future vision. There were many informative stats but 20 minutes wasn’t nearly enough time and the presentation ended prematurely, with the promise of providing the rest via a Twitter link (which I followed up on).
Key take-out from Adam: “We need to change the mindset of people who don’t pay for content.”
Michael Naimark, media artist and part of the original design team for the MIT Media Laboratory; and Horst Hörtner, founding member and Director of the Ars Electronica Futurelab, a world leading interdisciplinary research project uniting art, technology and society in Austria, both shared some valuable insights in their presentations.
Key take-out from Michael: “Wearable tech is inevitable.”
Key take-out from Horst: “The next revolution: key technology that has the potential to change fundamental paradigms of our society…. 3D printing, we believe, is the next revolution.”
Vivid Festival and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) were held in Sydney at the same time as X Media Lab and the city was literally bursting with creative energy. By night, Vivid’s stunning light projections transformed the Opera House, the MCA and other city buildings into dazzling palettes of colour and light. The post-conference networking event on the MCA’s balcony provided a spectacular view and an impressive end to an information-intense day.
SXSW final wrap-up: transmedia, mobile & making it through crowdfunding
By Kaye Blum
My final wrap-up of SXSW Interactive and Film sessions below. SXSW Music reports will soon be published on my music blog eyeswideclosed.com (in production).
SXSW13 Hipster warning: If only they read the signs…
My main areas of interest at SXSW Interactive (and Film) 2013 were social media, transmedia and mobile. There was a huge range of sessions and workshops on social (of which I attended as many as was physically possible), hence it gleaned the majority of my report coverage.
The queue for a session on mobile at SXSW13
SXSW13 queue blues cured by getting mobile in a Corvette
As mentioned in my first post from SXSW, there weren’t a lot of mobile themed sessions. Of the few they did have, most were held in a small venue called Wanderlust, which was a yoga studio with around 100 seats (if that). With the huge growth of mobile it was a surprising choice of venue. Consequently there were queues stretching around the block for these sessions and I missed out on both (one just after the opening night party which I’d forfeited to ensure I could get up early enough the next morning to attend). I consoled myself by taking a test-drive of the latest Corvette around the block (what a great branding exercise from Chevy).
I was also keen to attend any SXSW Film sessions featuring transmedia, interactive or cross-platform projects. Given the Film sessions overlapped between Interactive and Music, it was a challenge making the five or six I’d highlighted in the schedule. I managed to make it to two. The first, Exploring place with cross-platform storytelling, included some excellent speakers providing insights to their projects (Michel Reilhac, Liz Nord, Danny Harris and Mike Knowlton).
The second, 10 things I learned fro Kim Jong IL to make an interactive doc, featured Ann Shin and Hannah Donegan from Fathom Film Group; plus Media Ridha and Adrian Bellna from Toronto-based Jam3 (who made the award-winning Bear71).
They presented some great insights to the making of their interactive doco The Defector including spreading the word, doing your research, finance options, pushing boundaries, and the importance of testing.
I also attended a session on crowdfunding called Hacking the crowd – artists as entrepreneurs featuring musician Kim Boekbinder (The Impossible Girl) and
Molly Crabapple, Founder of Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. Both have built careers through crowdfunding and on their own, no management or labels or galleries involved.
They provided informal yet detailed accounts of their lives, creative drives, and how crowdfunding provided a powerful platform to launch their careers. Key take-out was a comment from Kim: “What we used to call art, photography, writing and music is now just called content. I make my living as a creator – it’s not about the content I’m putting out… I’m really really lucky, and I’d like a world where everybody’s that lucky.” Hell yeah.
Overall, SXSW Interactive was a full-on, intensive and pretty exhausting experience – but I still got a lot out of the sessions I attended and found it an enriching – albeit information-overloading – experience.
Being a first-timer, I learned some valuable lessons on how to make it a better experience next time. These include getting to Austin a few days before the conference actually starts to get your bearings on the many conference locations spread across town and to get over the jet-lag. I flew in from Australia via LA the day before it started which was almost two days in transit – I think it took me the whole first week to recover.
Quicker than the bus? Smart SXSW transport alternatives.
I also recommend securing central accommodation at any cost (if budget is not an issue as it was for me this time) to avoid time-consuming bus rides or relying on the virtually non-existent cabs. City hotels start booking out in August, so be quick.
Plus, make an effort to go to as many of the social events that your liver can handle: it’s a great way to meet peers (I spent too much time running from panel session to workshops to more sessions, not wanting to miss out!).
Most importantly: accept that you can’t do everything on offer (and there were over 1,000 interactive sessions to choose from this year). Try to choose a few sessions that are completely unrelated to your chosen topics – these are the sessions that can provide the most inspiration.
Would I go back? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure it provided enough bang for buck, with the cost of travel thrown in. It seemed to be over-subscribed, too much going on at once and too many people (there were 30,621 Interactive participants, plus 16,297 for Film and 25,119 for Music, although some of these numbers could have attended all three – the stats provided don’t specify).
However I fell in love with cowboy boots, duck tacos and the city of Austin itself; so I’d like to return one day and see it in its usual state without the 70,000 or so SXSW punters jammed into the city. For now, Austin, it’s over ‘n’ out.
ewritersjourney 