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10 rules for creating effective brand fiction
23rd March 2010. Posted by Ruth Ward. Trackback
(One problem with blogging from SXSWi is – there isn’t much time to blog from SXSWi. So I’m catching up with a couple of posts this week...)
A big trend this year has been the increase in brands experimenting with ‘participatory entertainment’ through social media. Some of the most creative uses have, not suprisingly, been linked to TV and film fiction, where the fanbase has taken over to create parallel stories that happen online after or in between the story that develops on screen. One of my favourite examples of this back on home soil is the Peep Show characters on Twitter.
Back in the US, the hit series Mad Men has been at the centre of a hugely successful fanbased social media campaign. Mars Elkins has blogged the details of a session led by Helen Klein Ross (@BettyDraper) and Michael Bissell (@Roger_Sterling) which outlines how the campaign worked, but in essence what started as a couple of fans taking on Twitter profiles of the central characters developed into a Shorty Award winning campaign which saw thousands of people take part .
Cable channel AMC had commissioned a number of online applications to support the show, including the popular Mad Men Yourself tool, but it was the fans who took hold of the central characters online through a series of live Twitter events and character blogs. Interestingly, AMC initially contacted the fans to ask them to cease, but were quickly talked round to the value and power of harnessing this interest and passion to promote the show.
The big question for me is whether the success of the resulting brand fiction campaign was due to the fact that it was led by fans, or whether it would have been as successful if it had been driven by AMC. For those looking to give it a try, here are the 10 rules for creating effective brand fiction, courtesy of Helen Klein Ross and Michael Bissell:
1. Content is king – take it seriously
- In order to make quality creative happen – you need a dedicated brand fiction manager
- Design a brand fiction canon – a highly detailed account of characters, settings, vernacular rising from central story
- Similar to brand identity manual . You shouldn’t think, ‘just because its social media we’ll make it up’
2. Maintain continuity across platforms. It’s not an alternative universe, its one universe
3. Be authentic – content must embody brand values
4. Be relevant to your audience and know your brand fans - what distinguishes your story to others in their minds?
5. Share. Allow fans to engage, respond, retweet, build the relationship
6. Don’t trust a robot to do the job of a human. You can’t automate good content, you can’t automate wit. Don’t use a tool.
7. Don’t dilute your brand. Don’t push products or screw with characters. Keep it real.
8. Undertake a campaign assessment that includes:
- Monitoring
- Engagement
- Redirecting/harnassing
- Tracking
- Archiving
9. Don’t underestimate the time and effort necessary for success. Just because it’s digital doesn’t mean it won’t take time to get it right.
10. Have fun