A hole new world

I’ve been in a few really interesting discussions over the last couple of weeks about the future of transmedia. How will entertainment live beyond a single channel and experience and be more flexible and enjoyable for consumers who are looking for a personalised experience?

With Millenials becoming more and more prominent we are no longer in a world where people are happy to sit back and take what the entertainment Big Dogs give us. Yes even up until fairly recently we’d stick the TV on and absorb everything it gave us but those days have gone. Second screening is now not interesting behaviour – it’s a by-product of people refusing to be unconnected. Gaming is no longer the territory of under 18 males – it’s a huge industry with no demographic restrictions. Family film night is still a comforting idea but it’s fast becoming an anachronism. There might be a film on but one of the people in the room is checking in socially on their phone, someone’s playing a game on a tablet and so on.

If people no longer have the patience or inclination to consume the same thing at the same time how can we create joint experiences and moments together for them? That’s the job of media of course. It doesn’t exist purely to serve people ads. It exists because people respond to stimulus. And humanity is a social animal. We like doing things together. Given that the old model is breaking down how can it be updated?

So far so YAWN. None of this is new and anyone reading this probably can talk at great length on the subject. Most of the people reading also probably know about a few examples of new media that blends formats and experiences together.

What I’ve found interesting over here in Paris is that they appear to have the same problem as we do in London. We understand the concept of how consumers want things to be and we understand the benefits to our clients that the trans-channel approach could yield but we lack the experience and know-how of detailing what that solution could be. To put it another way we do a good job of selling the hole where a solution would go but a bad job of selling what that solution could be.

This is not a problem that’s going to go away. As a full comms agency rather than a media agency we need to make sure that the actual solution and campaign is embedded together with the media planning and insight from the start. If we don’t then our clients will turn to someone they already have a history of buying “creative” work from – ad agencies. Now in some cases that’s fine and the best solution but in many more those same ad agencies focus on making bug, shiny TV ads at the detriment of other media touch-points is going to restrict the ability of campaigns to be truly integrated rather than a TV-led solution with some other things layered on top.

We (as an industry in servicing advertisers) need to understand how consumers can be reached in interesting ways across several touch-points and we need to tie that insight into engaging storytelling. That either needs collaboration between agencies that’s an order of magnitude better than it is in most cases or we will need to learn new skills and be able to develop new types of ideas.

Good luck everyone

Tom