Four years ago, almost to the day, Guy Gadney predicted in AdNews that the entertainment industry was about to teach adland and brands a thing or two about the coming impact of “transmedia” production in which creating bespoke content for specific channels and devices would become paramount.
Today it may seem obvious – but four years ago, as the online video ad market was just taking off with repurposed TV ads, the transmedia trend was still emerging territory, even for the entertainment sector.
In April 2010 the Producers Guild of America (PGA) added “transmedia producer” to its code of credits, the first time in its history it had ratified an addition to the code in an effort to keep up with the rapid changes to content and distribution.
“As technology evolves it’s no longer adequate to think of a project as simply a television show or a movie,” PGA president Marshall Herskovitz said at the time. “We now understand that the audiences will want to experience that content across several platforms – online, mobile, VOD, Blu-ray and now iPad, often with different or additional material.”
It was a sage call at the time and one Guy Gadney, the former head of PBL Media’s digital services (now Nine Entertainment Co) and his partners at The Project Factory were already pushing as digital content producers, here and abroad. The early move is now paying off.
After a number of projects with European, British and US TV producers and networks creating initiatives on digital channels outside broadcast TV formats – many of which have triggered audience lifts of 20% or more when new season TV series relaunch – one of the biggest tests is now underway with Sherlock and Hartswood Films.
Not only are producers trying to keep the audience connected to the franchise while it’s off air, the idea is to also reduce the marketing resource and dollars required to rebuild awareness for the series when it launches again in individual markets.
“Hartswood was looking at how they could develop this massive franchise with great talent into something that could extend the Sherlock brand,” says Gadney. “Sherlock is basically three 90-minute telemovie episodes and then that’s it. So you get these huge gaps like Game of Thrones – shows that people love but there’s a vacuum. It creates a problem because when the show comes back the marketing division needs to prime the pump again and spend money to bring audiences back for it.”
This is the fourth project for what Gadney calls “episodic apps” in which the TV audience is enticed off the big screen at the end of a series and onto mobile screens for an interactive experience. The first pilot was launched with RTL Media in The Netherlands two years ago, ironically for a Reg Grundy soap called The Restless Years, which is massively popular there. Backed by Coca-Cola, Samsung, Subway and South Africa Tourism, The Project Factory launched an app in the “summer void” when the show finished, with additional videos, games and quizzes which kept the audience interacting with the franchise until the new season launch.
“The Restless Years had basically become an institution in The Netherlands, which was averaging 1.5 million viewers a night, five nights a week, but had plateaued,” says Gadney.
“We came in with this transmedia angle to bridge the summer break. When the show came back, the TV audience had gone up 25% from 1.5 million to 1.8 million and held. RTL said it was unbelievable, 25% is unheard of so they said ‘do it again’. So we did. And last year we bridged the summer break and again the audience rose by 25%. So the cliffhanger came out at 1.8 million and went back in to the next series at 2.25 million, and held.
“So to my mind, what we’re doing by creating content in this new medium is we’re talking to the audiences the way they want to be talked to.”
And hence the grander, global Sherlock project. In January, The Project Factory and Hartswood launched a premium app priced at $4.99 in which users were invited by Sherlock to unravel 10 cases. Gadney won’t divulge purchase numbers, citing commercial confidence, but the Sherlock: The Network official app took out the top ranking iOS entertainment app in 37 countries.
Gadney says it was a trial around monetising a new content distribution model. But on 6 August, it relaunched the Sherlock app on iOS and Android through a series of partner promotions, including Amazon here and the US and the giant China telco, Tencent, with 650 million users. It’s now gone “freemium” in which users get the first six cases for free and then pay. Gadney says he expects a conversion rate of 1-5% for users paying for the next cases.
“We’re aiming for millions of downloads because [audience] reach will be our focus,” he says. “Reach keeps you in the loop for the broadcast series next time around. The business model we’ve put in is flexible enough to change over time so that you can start off by creating a revenue stream and then expand it out to do something that’s both revenue and marketing because it’s got people interested in the show.
“This is really changing the way TV producers and networks think about distribution and audience engagement.”
This story first appeared in the AdNews print edition on the 22 August 2014.
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