Continuing from my previous post, I am exploring the lack of any psychological study behind Transmedia, Multiplatform and Interactive storytelling.
Now I don’t know a whole lot about Film theory, but I know that Hitchcock’s films are very well covered as they are all deep wells of psychological tricks and techniques. So I thought I could improve the projects I worked on by utilising some Transmedia equivalent to Film theory. But I could not find anything useful, let alone apply it.
Until one day in 2012, when I was surfing the web looking for info on how to market Bellyfeel’s business as we were not getting enough work in at the time. To be honest I had always found marketing to be the work of the devil. Some lesser effective, yet more insidious brother of advertising. (I can say now that I was wrong!)
But I knew I had to do something.
This is…
IRONY no.1
Because our main competition for interactive production work was from digital marketing agencies!
Back to my story, I was surfing through some very hokey “self-help for business” type of sites trying to find something tangible to work with, when I happened on the website of Perry Marshall. Perry is a marketing guru with a bestselling book on Google Adwords, a thriving online business and a high paying consultancy business. He is a really smart guy.
I landed on a page on his site where he talked about “Guerrilla Marketing For Hi-Tech Sales People”. Basically a light went on in my head that I didn’t even know existed.
The gist of the info was about stopping cold calling, using digital technology to elevate your business proposition to a higher level of visibility and measuring results so they can be improved. All good stuff! But the amazing thing was the way he wrote. I could instantly relate to what he was saying in a way that was very powerful. I was engaged with that webpage in a way that I never experienced before.
On further inspection I found his site to be a wealth of useful information. I signed up to the mail list and found the info I got via email to be just as compelling, I had to read each and every one. I still follow his emails and blogs, they’re very good.
IRONY no.2
I was on the end of some very shrewd marketing techniques that were basically selling me some very shrewd marketing techniques.
A lot of this info was selling his products and knowledge, yes. But it also adhered to the Freemium business model that I had been keeping a close eye on for Bellyfeel future entertainment projects. There was enough info for free to radically change our business, yet I was also inextricably compelled to buy something too and there was a range of pricing to fit any budget.
In fact the only thing I ‘bought’ was a free CD paying only for the shipping from the US to the UK.
But I was seriously impressed with the psychological approach behind what I read and was contained in the marketing info I got access to.
So I read and followed the links and made notes and read and followed the links and made notes and so on…
IRONY no.3
Transmedia as we know it is 99% funded in the form of marketing campaigns for large entertainment franchises; films, and games.
