1. A prior version of this presentation was created for a panel
event at the FutureM conference in Boston on October 7th,
YOUR
2010, featuring Jenka Gurfinkel, Marta Kagan, & Jan Libby.
LIFE
IS
A
TRANSMEDIA
EXPERIENCE

2. “Transmedia”?

3. “
Transmedia is a fancy
word for a simple
concept: telling
stories across
multiple platforms.”
—Tim Kring, creator, “Heroes”

4. FOR EXAMPLE:

5. Castle
The ABC show, Castle, follows fictional mystery writer
Richard Caste, and his unlikely partner and literary muse,
NYPD detective, Kate Beckett, as they solve Manhattan
murders. Castle’s novel, Heat Wave – named for its
protagonist, NYPD detective Nikki Heat – was penned
during the show’s first season, and released both as a
plot point in the course of the show’s story arc…

6. …And, simultaneously,
as a real-life book
published by Hyperion.
The hardcover even
made it onto the New
York Times Bestseller list!
The author? Richard
Castle, of course. Naked
Heat, the second
installment in the Nikki
Heat series, written
during Castle’s summer
in the Hamptons (aka the
show’s second season
hiatus), was released in
September 2010.
Photo: Fannish on Flickr

7. When characters from the hit AMC show Mad Men, first appeared on
Mad Twitter and began interacting with fans and one another, these
unauthorized, fan-created profiles sparked major controversy with the
network. But AMC quickly recognized the value in allowing its most iconic
Men characters to live, breathe, and tweet, alongside the show’s fans. Now,
character Twitter accounts are quickly becoming a natural standard for
character-driven entertainment.
Or here…

8. True
Blood
The premise behind
HBO’s True Blood is
that the invention of
a synthetic-blood drink
has allowed vampires
to “come out of the
coffin,” and live openly
among humans. To
promote the series
premiere, ads for the
new Tru:Blood beverage
brand began popping up
in billboards and
magazines all over the
country, bringing a key
part of show’s fantastical
story into reality.
Photo: iMalkah on Flickr

9. During True Blood’s third
season, the show’s
Millennial vampire even
started her own blog,
babyvamp-jessica.com,
where she posts text and
video updates on the
latest goings-on in her
“life”, undead lifestyle
advice, and the general
meandering thoughts of
your typical, newly
immortal 17-year old girl.

10. BUT
IT’S
NOT
JUST
HAPPENING IN
ENTERTAINMENT….

11. Burger King
When Burger King revamped The
King character as a sarcastic
mischief-maker he became more
than just a brand mascot. The King
Halloween masks sold out the first
year they were available. Some
even ended up auctioned off on
eBay for hundreds of dollars. The
King has since appeared as a hand
puppet, a Simpsons character –
complete with four fingers, yellow
skin, and an overbite – and even
become an avatar in his own Xbox
videogame. YouTube Videos
created by and starring fans
dressed as The King (masks, and
all), engaged in the eternal battle
with Ronald McDonald, have been
viewed millions of times.

12. Knorr
To help tell the story of Knorr’s Sidekicks brand
meal accompaniments, they created an adorable
little character named Salty. This sadface saltshaker
is constantly getting left out because Sidekicks are
25% reduced sodium. But while Salty can never
catch a break, Knorr sure has. Salty’s fans on
Facebook and Twitter have helped sell out 18,000
real-life Salty toys and used them to create their
own videos and photo-shoots with Salty as the
star. The melancholy saltshaker has helped
Sidekicks sales go up 10%, and led Knorr to
become the category leader.

13. Old Spice
What began as a Super Bowl ad featuring a
hilariously suave caricature of, literally, The Man
Your Man Could Smell Like, became a bona fide
pop culture sensation. The campaign’s narrative
evolved into 186 personalized, real-time video
responses from the Old Spice Guy to his
Twitter fans. He even made an
impromptu appearance in the
flesh at the San Diego Comic
Con. By the end of the
summer, Old Spice had
become the all-time
most-viewed sponsored
channel on YouTube, and
doubled their sales.

14. SO,
THAT’S
COOL,
AND
ALL…

15. BUT
IS IT
REALLY
ALL
THAT
NEW?

16. “
The marvels of communication
technology in the present have
produced a false consciousness
about the past—even a sense
that communication has no
history, or had nothing of
importance to consider before
the days of television and
the Internet.”
- Robert Darnton, historian

17. 17,000 YEARS AGO…
Lascaux Cave in France's Dordogne River Valley contains
arguably the world's most incredible array of Upper Paleolithic
art. Prehistoric artists created some 600 depictions of bulls and
other animals on the cave’s calcite walls, around 15,000 BC. The
earliest known Egyptian Hieroglyphics would not appear until
more than 12,000 years later. Some theories about Lascaux
argue that the painting is a narrative, describing an event that
took place in life or in a dream.
Photo: National Geographic

18. THE
ORIGINAL
MASS
MEDIA…
Most ancient cultures saw pictures
in the stars of the night sky. The
earliest known efforts to catalogue
the stars date back roughly 6,000
years. By the 5th century B.C., most
of the constellations had come to
be associated with myths. To the
Ancient Greeks, the constellations
were characters from their
mythology, placed among the stars
as a reward from the gods.

19. THE
And involved every medium we’ve had
available.
WEATHER
CHANNEL
Likewise, the Ancient Greeks heard
thunder and believed it to be
Zeus’s thunderbolt. They might not
have had TV, or the Internet, but
they had weather, an incredibly
effective and dynamic medium for
spinning stories. (Weather
forecasters are still doing it today).

20. ANYTHING
CAN
BE
A
MEDIUM
In 1996, the Bongo Java
coffee-house in Nashville,
Tennessee became world
famous for the “Nun Bun,” a
cinnamon pastry discovered
there, bearing an uncanny
resemblance to Mother Teresa.

21. Indeed, starch-based media
are a recurring favorite. A recent
episode of the Fox show, Glee,
centered around a character cooking
up a prayer-fulfilling “Grilled Cheesus”
sandwich on his George Foreman Grill.

22. THE
GREATEST
TRANSMEDIA
SHOW
ON
EARTH
Religion is arguably the most successful
transmedia narrative there is, with books,
weekly interactive events, annual
theatrical spectacles, superhero
characters, jewelry, movies, and much
more. There’s even an afterlife!

23. OUR
BRAINS
ARE
WIRED
FOR
NARRATIVE
CONSTRUCTION
When it comes to the way we appreciate
narratives, our brains don’t segregate media..

25. AND
OUR LIVES
ARE FILLED
WITH STORIES
THAT TRAVEL
ACROSS MEDIA *

26. AND
OUR LIVES
ARE FILLED
WITH STORIES
THAT TRAVEL
ACROSS MEDIA
* (WHETHER
*
THEY ARE DELIBERATELY DESIGNED TO, OR NOT).

27. This was the myspace.com homepage on October
1st, 2010, the day The Social Network came out.

28. That week, Vanity Fair posted
an annotated guide to every
real-life Harvard Crimson
student newspaper article
mentioned in the movie….

29. These articles can still
be found on the Harvard
Crimson website. They not
only document key events
in Mark Zuckerberg’s brief but
eventful college career, they
also serve as instrumental
devices in the film’s plotline, as
well as that of The Accidental
Billionaires, the book on which
the movie is based.

30. And then there is the actual creation at the heart of The Social
Network, a website which more than 500 million of us personally
interact with; which now accounts for one out of every four
pageviews in the U.S. — that’s 10% of all Internet visits.
Photo: Tully Wully Chully Mully on Flickr

31. The creation myth of Facebook may have become a transmedia story, but so, too,
is what we create with it every day.

32. Photo: etchasketchist on Flickr
“
We want to present ourselves to other
people the way we would like to have
[them] perceive us.”
- Robert Scoble, tech blogger

33. “
It’s
kind
of
a
hyper-
real
version
of
yourself.”
—Trent Reznor, rocker

34. WITH
EVERY
PHOTO
UPLOAD….

35. STATUS
UPDATE…
Photo: JayB.Stevens2010 on Flickr

36. CHECK-IN…
Photo: DinanM3atl on Flickr

37. AND
“LIKE”
Photo: emerille on Flickr

38. TRANSMEDIA ISN’T JUST
HOW WE EXPERIENCE
ENTERTAINMENT…

39. OR BRAND NARRATIVES…

40. IT’S
HOW
WE
EXPERIENCE
THE
STORY
OF
OUR
LIVES.
Photo: emerille on Flickr

41. Social-Creature is the brainchild of Jenka Gurfinkel, a
writer, former music festival producer, and retired circus
manager – now a digital and transmedia strategist.
jenka@social-creature.com