Transmedia vs. Traditional Storytellling

This reading opened my eyes to the endless possibilities that exist through transmedia storytelling. It brings a whole new level to traditional storytelling. In my opinion, this can be a good or bad thing.

                Traditional storytelling gives you a linear story that you either read or hear. This is one dimensional as if you are watching the events in the story take place. Transmedia storytelling gives humans the capability to take a one dimensional story and put a person inside of it. From this point on, the story is no longer linear. The story changes depending on your decisions. It takes a person who feels like they are witnessing the story taking place and places them in the story. The witness becomes a character and the story begins to engage all of the senses. This gives people the power to become one with a story and fully experience it.

On one hand, transmedia storytelling is positive because it engages people more than ever before. On the other hand, transmedia storytelling can be seen as negative because it allows people to rely on everything they are given. With traditional storytelling, listeners and readers were only given a plot. In order to become immersed in the story, one had to use their imagination. People had to imagine what it would be like if they were a character in the story. Transmedia does not require any extra thought. Everything is given to the person. This could damage the way people think and cause people to use their imagination less. 

Transmedia

The reading this week is about transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is telling a story through the use of many media platforms. Though transmedia storytelling is not always used for marketing, it is an extremely powerful marketing tool. A very recent example of transmedia used in a mass marketing campaign is the film Jurassic World. Jurassic World launched a twitter account a full year before the film came out to begin generating talk of the new film. The producers knew that they would have to create a huge marketing campaign in order to win back fans from an older franchise. They used modern techniques to do so. They took advantage of viral marketing and instead of creating a website that would promote the movie, they created a website to promote Jurassic World, the fictional theme park. The website included park maps, park cameras, current weather on the island, ride wait times, and even how to book a flight to the park. Every detail was addressed and users could easily be tricked into believing it was a real theme park. The website connected to the "official site" of Masrani. This is a fictional corporation that owns Jurassic World. This website includes the company stocks and the option to apply for a job. Both websites also included many videos from YouTube about the building of the park and the owner of Masrani. When the film came out, the fictional company website included a note from the CEO warning of the risks of investing in the company since the recent event (the destruction of the park that is portrayed in the film). The campaign was revolutionary and extremely instrumental in the success of the film. This is a great example of transmedia storytelling in marketing. The creators of Jurassic World used several mediums to not only tell a story, but to create a new world.

This is my badge that I earned for applying for the dinosaur maintenance job.

Something else that is under conspiracy of being a transmedia marketing campaign are the clowns. There have been reports of clowns luring people into the woods and scaring people all over the country. Few of the reports have been verified and many have turned out to be rumors. The rumors have started mainly on Twitter and there have been videos on YouTube of creepy clowns walking around and scaring people. It is not yet verified if these are all elaborate pranks or if all this talk is promoting the remake of Stephen King's "It." If it turns out to be marketing for the movie, this could be and even more successful marketing campaign than Jurassic World.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a video sharing website for professionals. The site highlights artistic expression and videos that clearly take time to create. They are a competitor of YouTube, however, Vimeo is superior in many ways. The layout of the website is very clean and easy to navigate. The home page includes staff picks, documentaries, and animation sections. There is also a slideshow of featured videos on the homepage. Besides the layout, Vimeo has much less advertisements than YouTube and HD Quality of the videos is better on Vimeo.

The user interface and targeted audience is different for the two sites. YouTube targets a large audience of amateur producers. This creates a widely used platform with low quality content. Vimeo, on the other hand, targets professional producers and artists. This creates a less used platform with high quality content. Overall, I prefer Vimeo because it creates a more pleasant experience.