Kids projects nab Bell Fund money
Of the 21 projects receiving production grants from the October 1 round of applications to the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, half are aimed at the kids demo.
A total of 11 projects and their new media components with some focus on kids have received money from the funding body, including Sinking Ship’s Are We There Yet? World Adventure III for the CBC; Crash Canyon (currently in the works with Breakthrough Entertainment); Finding Stuff Out (Apartment 11 Productions and Smiley Guy Studios); and marblemedia’s Splatalot.
The Bell Fund also handed out development grants to 10 other projects, such as Endgame Interactive (Secret Location, Thunderbirds Films) for Canwest/Shaw; Gawayn Fantasyte (Muse Entertainment) for SRC; and Yourmix.ca (The Mix 3 Productions) for APTN, among others.
And eight organizations have landed professional development funding, including CMPA’s Primetime in Ottawa, the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) and the Whistler Film Festival.
Executive director Andra Sheffer announced last month that the Bell Fund would be accepting applications for the development fund on a monthly basis.
Teletoon kicks off new A18-34 block Sunday
Teletoon is getting ready to add some personality – and its very first personality – as Teletoon at Night launches this Sunday evening at 10 p.m.
The net announced earlier this month that radio personality Fearless Fred Kennedy from Edge 102.1 was taking over as the face of the two-hour block – previously dubbed Detour – which is going after the 18-34 demo. It’s also the first time that Teletoon has brought a host on board.
“Fred personifies the brand,” says VP of marketing Russell Ward. “He’s smart, he has a bit of an edge to him and he’s also aspirational.”
Teletoon is also looking to build on Fred’s existing fanbase and push forward with a strong social media strategy.
“It’s a tricky because that 18-34 demo is really sophisticated,” explains Ward. “They don’t like being marketed to in a traditional way, especially in an invasive way across social media. So we have to be really smart about it and allow them to come to us with the conversation.”
Ward says that Fred is already an active Twitter user, and he’ll also roll out extra content for Teletoon at Night, including blogs, interviews, etc.
On the programming front, Ward says that Teletoon is pushing its exclusive content, as it will be the only Canadian broadcaster airing popular Adult Swim toon Robot Chicken and animated comedy Archer.
It will also air the Teletoon at Night Pilot Project, in which a number of pilots will get their chance on air. “We’re going to use this feedback on this platform to tell us what they think. In some respects, the audience is becoming programmers themselves,” explains Ward.
A prime example of the new line-up is the marblemedia and eOne co-pro The Dating Guy (26 x 30 mins) will be the block’s full-on Canadian series. The animated comedy, created by marble’s Mark Bishop and Matt Hornburg, follows four 20-something fellows on their search for love… or something like it.
It’ll be followed by an extensive online component at DatingGuy.com, with interactive components from blogs, quizzes, full eps along with two original web series. Weekly debrief The Morning After Show is filmed in live-action with dating experts and celebrities to discuss topics from the previous night’s ep.
Meanwhile, Dr. Love is the second live-action comedic webseries featuring the title character who discusses topics and clips from on-air The Dating Guy.
From 'Marble North' comes Splatalot
If viewers can watch upcoming obstacle course series Splatalot and feel like they can put themselves in the shoes of the contestants, Mark Bishop will be a happy man.
Inspired by other shows such as Wipeout, MXC and even quirky Japanese shows like Unbeatable Banzuke, the marblemedia partner and executive producer says, “It has to feel surreal and accessible, but kids should be able to look at it and say, ‘I think I can do that.’”
The medieval-themed series takes place in a castle and was also inspired by the magic and fantasy elements of early action-adventure games found in the classic King’s Quest series. Marble also enlisted comic book artists and game designers were consulted in the early stages to get the feel of the show just right.
Filming is currently taking place in Orangeville, north of Toronto, on 50 acres land in the prodco’s name, dubbed ‘marble north.’ (The Adrenaline Project was also filmed in the same area.) The Splatalot set and castle takes up 2.5 acres and is a permanent set consisting of 30,000 square feet of foam, treated with three layers of paint and a team that works constantly at touching it up.
In total, 312 local youngsters will have run through the course, with a girl and a guy competing to be crowned King and Queen of Splatalot. The series will air on YTV during spring 2011, then it will hit the airwaves in the territories of its co-pro partners, ABC (Australia) and BBC (U.K.). Bishop says there’s already interest in season two.
Splatalot
Partner and executive producer Matt Hornburg says the team also derived some light inspiration from similar shows like American Gladiators and WWE, in that the Defenders of Splatalot aren’t merely obstacles, but they “give the series a core cast and even more of a reason for kids at home to tune in,” he adds. That, in turn, then helps marble start discussions about licensing and merchandising opportunities, which are already in the works.
The Defenders also have their own story that helps anchor the series. Hornburg says they were cast based on their improv and comedic abilities, and the series writers worked with the creative team to flesh out their characters.
Splatalot
There are nine Defendors in total – three from Canada, three from the U.K. and three from Australia – to represent the co-pro territories and also to give some local flavor to Splatalot when it hits international airwaves. Marble is also casting a pair of hosts for each territory, to be filmed separately on green screens and voice-over to add to the localization.
Meanwhile, the interactive components were designed concurrently with the series from the very beginning, which will translate the Splat action through a host of Flash games.
Bishop and Hornburg are also in talks with advertisers for branded on-air and online spots that show highlights and best moments from the series.
Stay tuned for Emily’s first-person account this Thursday, as she tackles the Splatalot course in her role as Playback‘s own stunt person/staff writer.
Marblemedia and 9 Story get Gnasty
Mipcom is just a week away and two Toronto prodcos are heading to the market with a new animated comedy series based on the book by Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine.
Marblemedia and 9 Story Entertainment are teaming up to co-develop Gnasty Gnomes, which revolves around the Gnasty family of gnomes who attempt to make the world a grosser place with antics and pranks.
It's the second time the prodcos have joined forces, having previously collaborated on the interactive components for animated series Best Ed. The two companies will be shopping around the demo in Cannes next week.
The series, targeting six to 11-year-olds, will also be accompanied by an online interactive environment.
Both prodcos will also share Gnasty distribution, with 9 Story taking on Latin America, Italy and Spain, while marble's recently formed Distribution 360 will handle remaining territories.
Meanwhile, marble is already in talks with potential partners for Gnasty opportunities in licensing and merchandising space, including toys and games.
Splatalot begins filming in Amaranth
Graham Maycock of Orangeville walks threw the doors of the blue mythical castle built on a 50-acre piece of land in Amaranth, shakes his fist at the cameras and belts out his war cry, “Fist pump. Fist Pump. Yeah.”
In front of the 13-year-old lies an obstacle course featuring a spinning mace wheel, a pair of moving giant foam axes, a floor engulfed by millions of gallons of water and two trigger happy gladiators armed with a gun ready to fire soapy Nerf balls the youngster’s way.
“Oh my gosh. This is going to be fun, but hard,” Maycock recalled thinking. “I thought it was going to be a lot easier, but it was a lot harder than I expected.”
That challenge is exactly what hundreds of youngsters have, or will, face when they encounter the world of Splatalot, a medieval-themed game show produced by Toronto-based film company, marblemedia. After keeping mum on what the teens may face inside the castle for some time now, “I think we’ve been successful on overwhelming them,” the show’s co-creator and producer Matt Hornburg said.
“We’re seeing the shock in their faces,” he said. “But, they just have no fear sometimes. They’re really willing to try daring things and for me, I think, the biggest surprise is you never know what you’re going to get.”
Hornburg added the need to shock competitors as highly important, especially considering they’re probably already watching prime time adult challenge shows on television.
“You need to have it feel big and impressive, not cheap and simple,” he said. “(The castle) is a multi-million dollar device — there is a huge amount of innovation that went into it, mechanics and the specialized foam as well.”
After the show wraps up filming in early October, Splatalot is scheduled to air on YTV during March Break, ABC Australia next spring and the BBC in England next summer, Hornburg said. Each of this season’s 26 episodes feature 12 contestants, known as the Attackers, facing off against gladiators, the Defenders of Splatalot, over three stages — cross the moat, escaping the stockades and finally, capturing the crown.
“They see these giant 14-foot in the air battle axes that are moving that they have to climb over top of,” Hornburg explained of the course. “This huge mace wheel that they have to run across with these big foam protruding things. It is a pretty big deal.”
Orangeville’s Melanie Gallant is psyched to test her skills, as she’s been chosen to navigate hey way through Spaltalot on Sept. 24. Completely in the dark and not knowing what to expect, the 14-year-old is excited to “just be on TV,” but has no idea how she’ll do compared to others.
“I don’t know what other people I’m facing. They could be really athletic too,” she laughed, noting the added bonus of missing school on Sept. 24. “I’ll get to try something that I’ve never experienced before.”
However, as Hornburg explained, competitors shouldn’t assume athletic teenagers are going to complete the course more successfully than others.
“Don’t think that the tall athletic jock is necessarily the one to win the race. We’ve had people from all shapes, size and backgrounds that have done really well,” he said. “And there are others that we expected more from that just found it really challenging.”
Receiving about 1,000 applicants, producers for the show chose 312 teenagers, many of which call Dufferin and its surrounding community home. One of those local residents, Chris Dixon, 15, of Shelburne, who took part on Wednesday (Sept. 8), said it was nothing like he expected.
“It was pretty hectic. … Like Wipeout for teens,” Dixon said, only divulging competitors should to expect to get wet. “It was great though. You’re doing this thing that people don’t normally do.”
If you ask Hornburg, any competitors missing their chance to get in front of cameras this time around may get another chance to test their might against the sheer force of Splatalot. As he explained, the show’s immediate popularity and growing fan base on Facebook already has producers alluding to a second season.
“If that is any indication, it means that we have a really big hit on our hands,” Hornburg said. “Hopefully, we can go back there and shoot for the next three to five years.”
Entertainment: They've been nominated often for TV awards but have never won
Gemini Award nominations are nothing new to Rothesay brothers Matt and Mark Bishop.
In the last decade they've each enjoyed several nods at the Gemini Awards - which honours the best in Canadian television each year - but have yet to take a prize home.
With four nominations between them this year, the brothers are hopeful they'll finally get to toss the proverbial bouquet after the ceremony on Nov. 13 in Toronto.
"Unfortunately Mark and I are sort of perennial bridesmaids," quipped Matt Bishop shortly after arriving in his native Rothesay from his home in Toronto.
That could all change this fall, though.
Matt, 30, and his colleagues at Sinking Ship Entertainment were given two Gemini nominations in the best pre-school program or series for Dino Dan and Ocean Room.
Mark, 33, along with his marblemedia crew, were nominated twice in the best cross-platform project - children's and youth category for the shows Stoked and Taste Buds.
And while both have been in this position many times - Mark and his company, for example, have garnered more than 20 nominations since forming in 2000 - the morning of Aug. 31 when the nominations were announced was still an exciting moment.
"I was actually on a conference call when all of a sudden there was a flurry of email and facebook activity," Mark recalled. "Of course, I was pretending to pay attention to my conference call (while) seeing all these emails come in from our team who are quite excited about having multiple nominations."
Not only was it exciting because he'd been nominated after a two-year drought, the recognition reflected the cutting-edge work his company does.
"It's a new category and quite representative of what we do," Mark said, "in that we do television content and web content.
"Our process at marblemedia has always been to develop both television and interactive content at the same time," he said. "(Online content) is really about giving the audience a chance to actually interact and engage with the content ... in games and activities and be a part of the brand in a way that you just can't do in television."
Matt and his colleagues at Sinking Ship Entertainment were likewise elated by the nominations, but for a different reason. They've enjoyed nominations in the Gemini's pre-school category every year since forming the company in 2004.
"The nerves were creeping up that this might be the year that we're not nominated, so it came as a sigh of relief and jubilation when we got two in the category," Matt said, noting it's the second time his team had two nominations in best pre-school program or series.
"We were really excited (because) pre-school is such a competitive field in Canada; some of the top pre-school shows in the world come out of Canada," Matt said.
Dino Dan, a "Jurassic Park for kids," is currently rated the No. 1 kid's show in Canada and the No. 2 show in Australia. It launches in the U.S. this October.
Members of the Sinking Ship team were also nominated for Dino Dan in the best visual effects category, marking the first time in Gemini history that a pre-school series was nominated in the category, Matt said.
While thrilled to be recognized and hopeful for a victory, both brothers admit it's tough to take home a Gemini when you're competing with the behemoths of the industry.
The Tudors - one of Dino Dan's competitors in the visual effects category - spends more money on effects than the entire Dino budget, Matt noted.
But a nomination almost means more to the brothers, anyway.
"We take the nomination with a great deal of respect because that was voted on by a small jury of our peers," Matt said. "Having that recognition in the industry is quite rewarding for us," added Mark.
Both graduates of Kennebecasis Valley High School, who cut their teeth in the entertainment industry on stages around the Kennebecasis Valley, the brothers hope to serve as inspiration for New Brunswickers who want to make it in the competitive TV world.
"If people have a passion for the arts - whether it's music, theatre or entertainment of any form - you can make a living off it and you can get jobs off it," Matt said.
"Both Mark and I started our companies (in their early 20s) and it's important for kids to know that it's within your reach to do. It doesn't matter if you're in Saint John or Timbuktu - if you've got the passion for it, just go ahead and do it."
Teletoon Canada reveals fall lineup
Teletoon Canada has announced its fall 2010 lineup for Teletoon, Teletoon at Night and Teletoon Retro. Launching on September 6, Teletoon's new slate features a host of acquired series, big ticket movies and original series.
The Teletoon lineup from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. consists of a wide-array of new programming, including the live-action/animation hybrid game show Skatoony, reality-show parody Total Drama World Tour, the new series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the return of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, and a new season of Johnny Test. Teletoon will also be broadcasting My Babysitter's A Vampire, the network's first live-action feature as well the Canadian premieres of Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo and Scooby-Doo! Curse Of The Lake Monster.
Teletoon at Night, the network's post-9 p.m. block aimed at young adults, will feature new series The Dating Guy and Archer, along with the comedy of the Teletoon At Night Pilot Project and new episodes of the sketch comedy series Robot Chicken.
Meanwhile, Teletoon Retro will bring back returning classics such as The Smurfs, ThunderCats, The Flintstones and The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show.
marblemedia and Seven24 launch new distribution company
Toronto prodco marblemedia and Calgary's SEVEN24 Films have formed a new company, Distribution360, under former Joost/Alliance Atlantis VP Stéphanie Röckmann-Portier. The new distributor will be platform agnostic, and concentrate on children's, youth, drama and factual programming.
Mark Bishop, partner and executive producer at marblemedia, says he and SEVEN24 managing partner Tom Cox began conversations about the new entity last Banff. (The two also appeared together at the CRTC new media hearings last year.) It was obvious, notes Bishop, "that there was a synergy - two complementary companies that wanted to continue to produce compelling content and have it distributed on all platforms."
Bishop says Distribution360 will leverage IP on all platforms appropriate to the content, and will be as hands-on as producers need them to be. That could mean a full-service approach, offering value-adds like brand integration, interactive content creation and executive producer services (even helping producers find money they need for their projects), or it can be less hands-on. Bishop notes that producers will be able to customize to fit their needs.
He does advise, however, that creatives "try to engage in a conversation with us as early as possible. Ideally, just as they have been green lit. The earlier we are able to engage in the content, the more meaningful it can be."
Stéphanie Röckmann-Portier will take on the role of MD/head of sales for the new venture. She most recently served as VP of content partnerships for online video service Joost, and previous to that was VP of international sales and head of factual for Alliance Atlantis.
Marblemedia has several notable multi-platform productions to its credit, including This is Daniel Cook with Sinking Ship Productions and This is Emily Yeung; the first television series and website in American Sign Language, deafplanet.com; as well as Taste Buds, a kids cooking and food adventure series.
SEVEN24 Films have produced for CBC, CTV, Global, CBS, Lifetime, TNT, ABC Family, BBC, Disney Channel, Warner Brothers, Granada, Focus Features and Mandalay Television. Notable projects include Heartland, Mayerthorpe and the Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain.
Kids gameshow picked up in UK, Canada, Oz
Broadcasters in the UK, Canada and Australia are onboard a new physical gameshow that newly launched sales outfit Distribution360 has unveiled here in the Canadian Rockies.
One of the two Canadian prodcos that launched Distribution360 yesterday, Marblemedia will produce Splatalot, a medieval-themed physical gameshow aimed at eight- to 12-year-olds, for YTV in Canada, the BBC in the UK and ABC in Australia.
The 26-episode series features what Marblemedia described as Canada's largest extreme obstacle course. The shows will be shot north of Toronto this summer, and delivered to broadcasters in spring 2011. International distribution of the Splatalot format will be handled by Distribution360, set up by Marblemedia and Seven24 Films.
Three versions of the format will initially be shot, with hosts from Canada, the UK and Australia, respectively. Each episode will feature a different group of 12 teen contestants, competing in three castle-based rounds, where they face six gladiators, in order to be crowned prince or princess of the castle.
"Splatalot is all about the hilarity of watching contestants get splattered, with the best spills instantly replayed in slow-motion. With oversized props, cool special effects and lively characters, it’s sure to be a highly-entertaining adventure," said Matt Hornburg, the series co-creator and partner at Marblemedia.
The path to transmedia
Coined by MIT professor Henry Jenkins in his 2006 book Convergence Culture, the term “transmedia storytelling” involves an evolving narrative told across multiple media platforms, playing to each channel’s strength, and each one contributing to create a story world larger than the sum of its parts.
The concept has long been embraced by the entertainment world, in which a story – man grows up to avenge parent’s murder, for instance – takes on a life of its own as it is elaborated and extended via film, videogames, animations and comic books. Recently, brands have started to experiment with developing their own story worlds and narratives across various media touchpoints.
General Mills Canada, for example, with AOR Cossette, recently created a viral soap opera campaign for its Old El Paso brand featuring a dramatic Spanish family. The online vignettes star Roberto, who is also featured in the TV commercials, carrying story consistency across multiple channels. Consumers can insert themselves into the plots, and pass the results on to friends.
For Frito-Lay North America’s Smartfood brand, Toronto-based Juniper Park developed In a Woman’s World, a series of animated webisodes that follow four friends’ funny moments and rituals involving food, relationships and exercise that women can relate to. The site also includes games, cartoons and avatars women can create to cross over from one world to the other.
The approach is contrary to the traditional campaign model, which is based on one concept or a distinct USP that’s simply expressed across multiple platforms. That practice was all well and good when the bulk of advertising targeted a TV-fixated generation, but not so much anymore, says Faris Yakob, formerly EVP/chief technology strategist at McCann Erickson in New York, given that we’ve transitioned into a media-rich world, where attention is scarce and a new “idea consumer” is coming to the fore.
“Previously, the audience was like a Victorian child – seen and not heard,” says Yakob. “That’s simply no longer the case. Now, whether you’re making traditional advertising, or doing social media, people have a role in the cultural discourse, and I think you should probably respect that if you want them to be involved in what you do.”
In a thesis he wrote in 2006 for the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Yakob borrowed from Jenkins’ concept of transmedia narratives to propose a different way of thinking about media planning to engage this new consumer: transmedia planning. It’s a model for the development of an evolving, non-linear brand narrative, in which different channels and platforms are used to express stand-alone elements to create a larger brand world.
“We need to realize, increasingly, the audience is a participant. That changes how we have to do what we do, not just in terms of building narratives, but everything we do,” says Yakob.
It’s not a new concept. As consumers have been changing their media habits, brands have steadily been changing their thinking over the past decade to find more engaging approaches. Developed in 2001, DDB’s (now-defunct) Downtown Partners worked to bring the “Bud Light Institute” to life by unconventionally using various media touchpoints to create a narrative that built the sense of a physical presence without an actual building.
OOH executions depicted the opening of the “Institute,” which was portrayed as a grandiose structure dedicated to promoting fun for guys. The agency placed mock employment ads seeking a CEO in Toronto dailies, directing applicants to the campaign website where they could acquire applications and register with the Institute database; an audition for the job was actually held at a golf course in Toronto. A music CD was available for purchase, featuring songs about guys having good times, while TV ads hawked fictional “Institute” products like a perpetually steaming cup of coffee that gave the impression that a guy was at his desk at work when he was, in fact, playing hooky.
“It was kind of an early version of transmedia,” says Andrew Simon, SVP/CD at DDB Canada. “I think to the point of playing to the strength of the medium, that’s where it really resonates.”
Though transmedia planning and storytelling is still in its infancy in terms of adoption by big consumer brands, entertainment marketing is leading the way with some recent resounding successes from which conventional brands can glean ideas. “Why So Serious,” the alternate reality game (ARG) launched in 2008 to promote the film The Dark Knight, was a 360-degree, interactive viral experience centred on the web, which extended to a variety of platforms, both online and offline. It sought to bring Gotham City to life by allowing participants to become real citizens of the city.
Touchpoints including real-world events, collaborative narrative, print, video, mobile, user-generated content, live-streaming audio, scavenger hunts and online games enabled players to craft their own experiences. Players could aid in the rise of the story’s arch-villain, the Joker, by becoming his henchmen, or campaign for Harvey Dent, Gotham City’s district attorney, or even take the law into their own hands by becoming copycat Batman vigilantes, each role bringing a different aspect of the overall universe to life.
“You’re deeply immersed in this experience,” says Simon. “And because of it you have a deeper connection to the brand, and everything adds on to each other, so it keeps getting bigger and bigger, your connection deeper and deeper, and you become more invested in the whole experience.”
Coca-Cola is one big player that’s made no secret of its attempts to more deeply connect with consumers via its “Happiness Factory” platform, a narrative of sorts that ascribes high-level meaning to its product experiences. It’s based on the fantastical world that exists inside a vending machine in which the factory workers live, serving as the main characters in a series of stories that extends the world across multiple channels.
Touchpoints have included commercials, a music track featuring artists from across various genres, interactive video games and real-world installations; each allows Coke to add something different and extend positivity and happiness as the product proposition.
“The best big ideas are the ones that let you do anything, at least, mostly anything,” says Yakob. “Coca-Cola’s positivity position, at a certain point it ladders up to the highest-order value proposition it can get to and it says, ‘yeah, we believe that being positive is good. Cool.’ And then they can do anything they want, as long as it has a positive aspect to it. Not like the idea of endlessly bleating the same USP.”
These efforts illustrate two key components to the idea of transmedia planning.
“One, don’t say the same thing all the time, because it’s quite boring,” says Yakob. “Having a single thought endlessly reiterated is a function of a scarce media environment where you have to condense what you say down to 30 seconds.
“Secondly, the transmedia planning model removes the idea of a big idea at the centre, removes the thought of this individual consumer at the centre, and instead thinks about how the network effect works.
“So, one element of transmedia planning is ‘propagation planning,’ which my friend Ivan [Pollard, group partner, London-based Naked Communications] and I came up with. The principle behind propagation planning is that since everybody is, in some form, a medium, consumers who are participatory are aware of their ability to create, co-create, modulate and propagate content.”
So, where media planning of the past and present has been about the first impression, transmedia planning thinks past that to the secondary and tertiary impressions and what needs to be done in order to generate them.
Yakob cites a Canadian example, Molson Dry’s “Association of Party Pros,” which the brand calls a social reality game, developed by Cossette in Montreal. Launched in 2009, the Quebec effort recruited members to the association, which was supported by an ad campaign and a web platform.
The game took place at the destinations where partiers naturally flock to: bars, concerts, parties, Facebook, nightlife webzines and the campaign website, Produparty.com. Players would create a profile, choose a party name and position and upload videos and photos of their best party moves.
The goal was to accumulate points based on their performance at parties to be featured on the APP website and on Facebook, gain special privileges at events, win exclusive party gear at the Molson boutique and ultimately attain the title of “Party Legend” and represent Quebec at the Tenerife Carnival in the Canary Islands.
The effort leveraged its viral components and attracted thousands of players, held 25 parties with more than 3,000 pros in attendance at each, accumulated close to 10,000 fans on Facebook and crowned 20 winners.
“You have the intersection of narrative from online to events, you have roles for people and you have reasons for them to propagate content about their events,” says Yakob. “You have collaboration, you have cross-platform narrative.”
The trick for conventional consumer brands lacking their own innate narrative is to figure out how to create one, something that requires a lot of investment. One option is to partner with third-party content creators and implement connection strategies to build a brand association, says Rob Young, SVP, planning services, PHD Canada.
“Brands can try to set themselves up along the story trail,” says Young. “If a brand says ‘I’m a story unto myself,’ you’re setting yourself up for a fall, because I don’t think consumers find them to be a particularly compelling story.”
Toronto-based content-creation company Marblemedia is actively helping brands insert themselves into pre-existing narratives. In September, Marble is set to launch an animated sitcom on Teletoon called The Dating Guy, about the romantic, working and everyday struggles of four friends, centred on the main character, Mark, who happens to work in advertising.
In transmedia fashion, different elements of the show’s universe are being extended out to other platforms. For example, characters in the show refer to Dr. Love, an advice columnist who never actually appears on the show. Viewers can go to his site to access daily podcasts from the doctor. Also featured in the show, a fictional online magazine called Super Hotness is likewise blown out into the real world with its own website.
Other elements in the show include video content, photo galleries and music playlists viewers can interact with online. To complete the loop, viewers can leave their own dating stories on Mark’s voicemail, which then can serve as springboards for future storylines.
Brands can be integrated into the show itself – either shown in the background and/or written into the dialogue – or its web properties, and can even “hire” the cartoon characters to appear in branded, customized webisodes.
“Mark is always creating ads, and oftentimes we’ll hear his frustration, we’ll see a clip of it, he might have it on his iPod in the show,” says Mark Bishop, partner/producer at Marblemedia. “It presents us with the neat opportunity to integrate real brands into these ads; we’re talking to real brands about creating ads for them within The Dating Guy world that would be seeded into our storylines.”
Though most can easily take the connection strategy route and insert themselves into third-party-created storylines, the jury is still out on whether brands, especially big ones, can successfully create their own compelling narratives. Yakob thinks it can be done, if brands beef up the experience.
“Anywhere advertising understands that its role perhaps isn’t to talk about USPs but to create high-level meaning around product experiences, then I think you have something that leans towards transmedia.”
Given the amount of integration and time investment that goes into efforts like Molson’s “Association of Party Pros” or Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Factory,” the question for agencies has to be how they should be structured in order to best engage in the space, especially given the requisite synergy between creative and media.
The resounding answer, Young, Simon and Yakob agree, is to have no structure, break down silos within agency walls, working seamlessly internally with all agency departments and partners sitting at the same table.
For its part, last year Marblemedia created a role of director of brand integration in order to breach a disconnect between broadcasters, producers and advertisers.
For media agencies, in particular, Young says that they need to be more creative in their thinking and more dutiful in their research.
“As media become more fragmented, as new platforms emerge as they have been doing with great regularity, the complexity of the planning process moves up a notch,” says Young. “It affects the media agency because it complicates their lives. They have to uncover the right platforms for the story and that takes some time.
“It takes a really thorough understanding of the consumer. You can’t just rely on a PMB run to get this kind of information. You have to understand individual consumers, how they live and what platforms they use to follow these stories with.”
Young also says that it requires agencies to develop a new metric that takes into account the total audience interest in the story.
“The metric has to cross platforms and it has to take time into consideration and the number of platforms,” he says. “That’s the sort of numeric that you have to think about when you’re thinking about this kind of approach.”
To engage in the transmedia space, says Young, it’s essential that brands have a strong brand key, a formal declaration of the brand DNA, so they can maintain their stories and associations over extended periods of time despite agency personnel turnaround.
“It’s the brand memory,” says Young. “The brand has to be strong enough so that when it’s handed to the next planner, its essence continues to be clear and continues to drive that process.”
Transmedia tales lead Understanding Youth
"Transmedia is not just about buying ads on multiple platforms."
Those words were from Columbia journalism professor Dr. Adam Klein in the first few minutes of his keynote presentation at yesterday's Understanding Youth conference in Toronto, presented by strategy magazine.
The first speaker of the day, Klien has worked with some of the biggest mediacos in the business - VideoEgg, EMI, Hasbro, MTV and Ask Jeeves - in addition to his academic career at Columbia and Harvard.
Defining transmedia as being "about different entry points that co-exist but have an individual life," Klein said that media strategies too often focus only on a linear way of thinking, with execs choosing to think of transmedia as something that can be purchased and left alone. But today's digital-native youth don't approach life in a linear fashion and that means you have to think about media in a whole new way if you want to reach them.
"It is about relationships," he said of transmedia. "It is about relationships built on all platforms. It's about the relationships that come from engaging through the user creations."
Transmedia is bi-directional, it's co-creation with your audience and if you're not prepared to participate with your audience, then you will not engage them, he said. Campaigns, or media companies, that don't achieve that will soon be irrelevant, he said, citing as a primary example the music industry, which failed to accept technological change, and pointed to future media examples such as MTV ("I predict that MTV networks will be irrelevant in five to 10 years") and the New York Times ("heading to oblivion"). Creating media strategies to reach young people today, he said, is always remembering how they use media today, namely when they want and where they want. Bucking that trend, he said, will get you nowhere, or worse (see MTV comment). Success in the new media world, he quipped, is "about the ability to perform an unnatural act: to promote and sustain constant innovation."
Klein's thought-provoking presentation was followed by Mark Bishop of Marblemedia, the Canadian prodco with a speciality in transmedia and integrated content.
Using examples from Marblemedia's stable of animated and live programming, Bishop illustrated some of the ways the company reaches the two to six-year-old demographic through its "This is Daniel Cook" and "This is Emily Yeung" programs and complementary interactive properties.
The key to successful transmedia, Bishop said, is not in repeating content across multiple platforms, but customizing content to each. The "This is..." websites are one example, he said, and the company's Taste Buds programming and website are another. Taste Buds is a live-action kids cooking show (for seven to 10 year olds), and Bishop explained that it was developed specifically with interactivity in mind, for both kids and parents. The link between the real and virtual worlds is the Chillbot, a "high tech fridge," with a screen that doubles (creatively) as the skin on the website.
Videos, games and recipes are available on the site, and Bishop said it's interesting to watch the web traffic differ on the two days the show is aired on TVO Kids: On Saturday mornings, the website traffic is largely game-driven as kids seek out online fun, while on Monday evenings, the traffic is recipe-driven, as parents (ostensibly) seek out the dishes they see on the program. All of Marblemedia's properties are developed that way from the start, Bishop said, ensuring that interactive and transmedia elements are not out of place within the overall tone and themes of the shows. (He also told the audience that interactive comprises the majority of the budget for a new project being developed at Marble.)
The morning's transmedia discussions were augmented with some data in the afternoon, complements of Scott Beffort, lead strategist, at Toronto-based Decode. Beffort said that the average Gen Y'er has 43 friends they actively engage with via social media, and only 12% have more than 70 friends they contact regularly. Thirty-five percent have less than 10 friends they engage with at least once a month online. Teens' online social behavior tends to mimic their "real life" social behavior, Beffort said, so it's important to reach out to them via both online and offline media. It's also important to remember that access to a teen online is not a VIP pass into their lives, he emphasized: just because a message is personalized does not mean they will engage with it.
The conference wrapped with a youth panel, moderated by David Diamond of Toronto-based Utours, who told the audience that they typically need to try a product before they "like" it on Facebook, they spend tons of time multitasking with media each day (an average of 10 hours, 45 minutes), they watch TV on their computer screens, and that they really, really like Walmart, which was a very interesting revelation, considering the brand's mom-friendly image.
In his closing remarks, show host Tony Chpaman, CEO of Capital C, summed up the day's learning by saying that what he got out of Klein's speech and the info shared in the cases and research presented, is "we have to put drawbridges everywhere."
Website Launch Promotes New Teletoon TV Episodes
Teletoon reports it is stoked about its new interactive website, designed to support and promote its TV series, Stoked Interactive.
New episodes of the show premiere this week, and a second season is planned to take flight in September 2010.
The new site updates viewers on the schedule, and offers new activities and experiences for fans around the globe. Teletoon has launched a French version of the site, as well.
Working together with long-time content collaborators Fresh TV and marblemedia, Teletoon says the site will continue have new features added over the next few months, such as the user generated content tool Rippin' Remixer (an online music video editing module) and Grom Life (a social media simulation game for viewers).
"We are very pleased with the keen fan interest and increasingly strong web traffic for Stoked Interactive," said Matt Hornburg, Executive Producer, marblemedia. "Building on the success of the TV series, our team, with Teletoon has built an entertaining and interactive site that extends the surfer culture with what this audience wants - more indie music, added irreverent fun, and a chance to interact with their favourite characters."
"Stoked Interactive has successfully brought fans out of the winter blues and plunged them into the world of surf and sand," said Tom McGillis, Executive Producer, Fresh TV. "The site provides endless opportunities for viewers to engage with new and exciting content and the Fresh team is totally stoked with the results!"
Stoked Interactive is produced in association with Teletoon Canada inc and with the financial participation of Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund. This extensive online experience, along with the television series, is available for licensing via Cake Entertainment.
Fresh TV's Stoked follows six teens from across Canada who travel to Sunset Island, B.C. for a summer of sun, sea, sand and, most importantly, surf. Working at a luxury resort they find that their plans for an endless summer of surfing might not be all that they hoped when, instead of a surfer's paradise, they find a tacky tourist resort with rude guests, a run-down staff house and itchy, hideous uniforms.
Already making a splash are features currently available on Stoked Interactive: a rad character-driven messaging activity, Meet the Groms and Stoked Radio. These features, along with interactive games such as Wipeout's Wipe Outs, Suitcase Sling and Surf or Sink make Stoked Interactive the ultimate place to live the young surfer 'Grom' lifestyle while giving viewers more ways to connect with the iconic characters of their favorite show.
The series airs on TELETOON on Thursdays at 7 pm ET/PT as part of Teletoon's 3 Hours of Really, Really, Really Awesome.
Established in 2001 by Mark Bishop and Matt Hornburg, marblemedia is a content creation company on the forefront of television and new media production, devoted to telling stories that entertain and engage audiences across all platforms.
marblemedia is a recipient of the Canadian New Media Award for Company of the Year and the Lions Gate/Maple Pictures Innovative Producer Award.
Notable marblemedia projects include: the teen competition series The Adrenaline Project; the hit preschool series This is Daniel Cook and This is Emily Yeung, among others.
Founded by Gemini nominated producers Tom McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, George Elliott and Brian Irving, Fresh TV finances, develops and produces animated and live action television that powerfully connects to the interests, influences and enthusiasm of tween and teen audiences around the world.
Current productions include the Total Drama franchise, 6teen, Stoked and the live action series, My Babysitter's a Vampire.
Fresh TV's sister company is animation studio Elliott Animation, providing 2D, 3D-CGI and 2D Flash animation production services for major North American clients from its studios in Toronto and Hamilton, ON.
Founded in 1997, TELETOON Canada inc. is owned by Astral Media Inc. (50%), and Corus Entertainment Inc. (50%)
marblemedia Goes To The Vancouver 2010 CulturaL OLYMPIAD
Demonstrating marblemedia’s gold medal talent at the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, the award-winning production company announced today that it will be a contributing artist to the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE).
“All of us at marblemedia are excited and honoured to be a part of Canadian history,” said Mark Bishop, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of marblemedia. “We want to thank CODE for allowing marblemedia to go global at the Winter Games!”
Two of marblemedia’s kids properties, This is Daniel Cook-Figure Skating; and This is Emily Yeung-Learning Ballet (co-produced with Sinking Ship Productions) and two films from the marblemedia anthology series The Art of Seduction - Electric Chairs and On Fire (co-produced with the National Film Board) have been selected to be featured on towering high-definition screens at the Vancouver and Whistler Celebration Sites during the 2010 Olympic Games.
About marblemedia
Established in 2001 by Mark Bishop and Matt Hornburg, marblemedia is a content creation company on the forefront of television and new media production, devoted to telling stories that entertain and engage audiences across all platforms. marblemedia was recently honoured by The Hollywood Reporter as a Next Generation producer. marblemedia has also been the recipient of the Canadian New Media Award for Company of the Year and the Lions Gate/Maple Pictures Innovative Producer Award. Notable marblemedia projects include: the teen competition series The Adrenaline Project; the hit preschool series This is Daniel Cook and This is Emily Yeung; the first television series and website in American Sign Language, deafplanet.com; the mobile short film anthology Shorts in Motion: The Art of Seduction; Taste Buds a kids cooking and food adventure series. Upcoming projects for the independent producers include: The Dating Guy, Skatoony and Just Like Mom … and Dad.
About The Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE)
Powerful, kinetic, the human body in motion is a wonder. See ordinary movement from a whole new perspective—and extraordinary movement in a whole new light. CODE, the Cultural Olympiad’s digital edition, presents CODE Motion Pictures, a collection of digital shorts created by filmmakers across Canada that explore the human body in motion. The series will be featured on towering high-definition screens in Metro Vancouver and Whistler, on handheld devices and on computer monitors around the world during the 2010 Winter Games. CODE Motion Pictures commissioned 16 brand new films that will premiere during the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, highlighting more than 70 Canadian shorts to be enjoyed in entirely new settings.
In partnership with Telefilm Canada and the Association of Provincial and Territorial Film Funding Agencies, CODE creates an opportunity for Canada’s filmmakers to show the world what they’re made of, and for audiences across the country and around the world to enjoy their films.
marblemedia preps a third season of hit TV series Taste Buds
marblemedia today announced that a third season of the smash-hit children’s television series Taste Buds has been green-lit by TVOntario for a spring start of production.
With recent funding secured from the Shaw Rocket Fund, marblemedia will produce six new deliciously enticing episodes of Taste Buds. A hands-on interactive food adventure series for children ages 7 to 10, Taste Buds takes place in the kitchen and beyond. Hosted by returning cast members Avery, Lily and Matt, season three continues to encourage young viewers to be part of the whole process of food preparation – shopping, cooking, eating and cleaning up.
“We are proud to be able to influence the way kids are learning about food,” said marblemedia Executive Producer and Partner Mark Bishop. “Our third season of Taste Buds will celebrate the countless letters and suggestions we continue to get from kids and their parents while introducing them to new foods and healthy ways to create meals for the whole family."
The launch of season three is scheduled for fall 2010, as the show returns to TVOntario, Access Alberta, Knowledge Network and the Saskatchewan Communications Network.
Associated with the television show, the official website TasteBudsTV.com, will be seasoned with additional interactive content supporting the third season, including streamed episodes, delicious recipes, make-your-own “cookbooker” and games for all ages.