Digital AristotleHow narrative is ruling branded social and mobile interactions

Monday, March 4, 13

The State of Digital

• “Old Media” are struggling with the New World Digital Order

• Web 2.0 is dead and gone: it’s either amateurish or unsellable (or both)

• Personal recommendations are highjacked by brands and/or agencies

• “Banner blindness” is a genuine sociological term

• Each and every branded page looks and sounds the same

Monday, March 4, 13

Case in Point

• Can you tell which one of those belong to: a) official branded page of Pepsi Russia, b) official branded page of Mazda Russia, c) official branded page of Bud Russia?

Monday, March 4, 13

Do you feel what i’m saying?Well, bad news: our clients are feeling it too. And they are becoming angry.

Monday, March 4, 13

What we have here is a failure to (meaningfully) communicate with the audiences. Now hold that thought...

Monday, March 4, 13

Meanwhile in Real World

• The amount of information we consuming daily is increasing - constantly and dramatically

• Our collective minds are getting used to consuming fragmented information

• Meanwhile, entertainment industries are adapting to those new paradigms (with various degrees of success): retail-based models might be dead, but streaming/free-to-play is flourishing etc.

• Episodic TV content is on the rise - TV series are the new novels.

• Now, bear with me for a moment.

Monday, March 4, 13

Spot the Similarities

• Each of these products grossed >$1bn globally (not counting auxillary deals)

• Each of these products was universally loved (or universally hated, but that’s pretty much the same thing)

• Each of these products was created by full-time paid professionals, not some Shmoe from Internet

• These products are fundamentally based on the very same (and very ancient) principles...

Monday, March 4, 13

CONTENT IS THE KING!*

*Always been, will always be.

Monday, March 4, 13

David Droga (official digital ad poster-boy of 2012) and his wisdom

“95% percent of advertising is pollution. It’s seen as an interruption”

“[we are doing work] that people actually choose to engage with”

“We are treating advertising as a content”

Monday, March 4, 13

Which Brings Us To...

• To quote Notorious B.I.G., “there’s rules to this shit”: all modern culture still operates (and generates billions) fuelled by the “Poetics” by Aristotle, which is around from year 335 BC.

• To successfully engage audience in meaningful communication, you can do a lot worse then to follow some of Aristotle’s commandments.

• That’s pretty simple to understand, but hard to successfully execute: a) your audience must identify with the character on some level; b) there’s supposed to be a dramatic arc for the story/interaction; c) conflict fuels everything. (Then there’s catharsis, but we gonna skip it for today).

Monday, March 4, 13

What’s that all to do with digital/mobile advertising, our KPIs and quarterly bonuses?.. Let me explain.

Monday, March 4, 13

Creating Branded Content

• We can either create branded content for advertisers or bring them to where the content is. There’s also a third oprtion, but we’ll discuss it later.

• You can not create FAST, QUALITY and NON-EXPENSIVE content, that’s an axiom. But two out of three prerequisites are entirely possible.

• Created branded content must be (expensively) promoted and can still be hit or miss - honestly, no one can can predict anything.

• Aristotle can be of much help here. Observe:

Monday, March 4, 13

Our “interactive presentation” for Sberbank/McCann Russia/MRM has a hero, an active goal, a dramatic arc and even a rudimentary conflict.

Monday, March 4, 13

Bringing Brands to Where the Content Is

• We are now talking about branded integrations into social and/or mobile games.

• Branded experience is being shoehorned into proven and tested narrative confines.

• Every successful game has a narrative (although it is sometimes pretty well hidden). Unsuccessful games do not have branded integrations. See the pattern here?

• The point of successful integration is to expose brand to the audience (and vice versa) in a controlled environment - that’s why you MUST love games and know what/who user associates himself with to produce and sell successful intergations.

Monday, March 4, 13

But there is another option!

Monday, March 4, 13

To Highjack Content-Based Ecosystems

• Brands have a lot of stories to tell, but they cannot fully express themselves in today’s social and mobile environment.

• However, there’s a lot of possibilities to integrate branded communications into established content-based ecosystems.

• Example from an “Old Media”: advertorial “promo” sections in glossy mags.

• Example from New Digital Order: so-called “viral” videos; “Forward into Dawn” web series (which is essentially an episodic commercial for Halo 4 by Microsoft).

• Example from Mobile Age: a lot of branded applications in AppStore/Google Play, the best of which are using proven storitelling techniques to compliment brand’s core experience.

Monday, March 4, 13

MAY I ALSO SUGGEST...Monday, March 4, 13

NARR8 at a Glance

• This is digital storytelling platform - completely free, totally mobile, created by professional storytellers.

• The self-publishing options will be available very soon (refrence: “the Kindle model”).

• We do honestly think that this is the future of storytelling: episodic content, natively mobile (AppStore, Google Play), healthily viral (pun intended).

• Available content allows for seamless integrations of branded communications: from simple product placement to tailor-made series with the same production values as non-branded content.

Monday, March 4, 13

Just a tiny example (do not sue me, it’s just a mockup), and we are off to...

Monday, March 4, 13

Q&A(and an excuse to show you Tony Stark here)

Monday, March 4, 13

P.S. Social Insight is a techological company that focused on an innovative ways of branded content delivery.

We are also an exclusive seller for branded integrations for Game Insight (www.game-insight.com) and NARR8 (www.narr8.me).

And we are measuring all this with our in-house smart data system Mastermind (www.m2-analytics.com).

Presented by Andrey Podshibyakin (founding CEO), ap@social-insight.ru

Monday, March 4, 13