[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Web Series: SPIRAL
5 Lessons on Playing with Fandom
Recently, I have been working on the web series SPIRAL, which is nearing the end of its initial Season 1 rollout. This project has been in the works for about five years, so it is exciting to finally see the digital marketing strategy put into action. I always want to share what I learn, so here are the lessons so far, focusing on the built-in audiences and fandoms that come with our actors
First of all, what is SPIRAL?
The SPIRAL web series is the brain child of executive producer Andrew Williamson (Motive, High Moon, Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH) and executive producer/writer Karen McClellan (The Next Step, Being Erica, Cracked). The story is about a group of college students who are implicated in the mysterious death of one of their own and find out they share not only a disturbing recurring dream, but also a past life. The series stars a strong group of actors (Alexandra Beaton, Brennan Clost, Angela Palmer, Cody Kearsley, Louriza Tronco, Corteon Moore, Kailey Spear and Enuka Okuma) who come from TV series with serious fandoms like The Next Step, Make it Pop, Riverdale and Rookie Blue. We have been trying to make the most of the fans of these shows. Below are five of the lessons we have learned so far:
Lesson 1: Support & motivate your actors’ participation
The bottom line is, the reason these particular fans are responding to your story is because actors they love are in it. You need to find ways to include your actors and encourage their support (because it doesn’t matter if they have the biggest social media following in the world, if they don’t do anything for your show). Here are some of the ways we have supported the SPIRAL actors:
An extremely positive production experience and quality end product bonded the actors, made them excited to share, and motivated them to want to do it again (without this foundation, I don’t think any of the following would have worked);
Regular meetings and/or communication let them know what the plan was for the rollout, where they could help, and what the results and impact were so far. (I have been doing weekly group emails with updates and asks, as well as providing individual outreach when necessary);
We have found ways to weave the actors into the strategy as much as possible with tactics like social media account takeovers and providing unique visual assets for them to share;
We also activated their competitive spirits with a leaderboard that tracks and compares how much traffic each of them have sent to the website;
And we try to celebrate our actors whenever possible: birthdays, film festival screenings, other TV appearances and premieres, etc
Lesson 2: Meet the fans where & when they already are
Recognizing our strategy had to include our actors’ fans, meant learning about who those people were. Part of our initial meeting with the actors was asking them about who their fans were, where they lived, and so on. Quickly we learned that a lot of our potential fans would be coming from Instagram, likely from England (where The Next Step is huge) and would include a lot of young 12-14 year old girls.
This knowledge completely changed our Instagram strategy. We made it all about the actors and their fans, got rid of any pictures that did not include the faces of our cast and looked for ways to weave them into the online chatter. We also learned we could get a big bump around the time of day young girls in the UK were getting home from school if we were active and available on Instagram at that time.
Lesson 3: Be responsive & inviting (& protective)
Once you start the fandom train, you need to take care of it, every day. Active community management, supported with new content has been critical to this kind of audience growth, especially on Instagram. We try to respond as quickly as possible to any comments or mentions there, on both feeds and stories. We also have been actively looking for ways to engage and invite them into the storyworld.
There are strong emotions at play here. The young girls that make up the majority of this fandom are passionately dedicated to these actors and this is not something we take lightly. There is an intimacy created in the social media space which is very powerful. We have been and will continue to be careful with the kinds of conversations we support. For instance, there are some difficult themes related to suicide and violence in the story and we have tried to point to resources for those who might be triggered or need help.
Lesson 4: Leverage milestones & “ships” of the original series
We haven’t done this enough, but are planning to do it more. Two of the series fandoms we are focusing on are The Next Step and Riverdale . Besides trying to be a part of the online conversation on the days of the week new episodes for these series are released, we also are trying to play on fan desires to see certain characters from those shows in a relationship. We’ve seen this demonstrated most dramatically with last week’s Episode 6 unlocking and fans seeing Alex and Brennan’s characters share a kiss in their past life. Images of this moment got an amazing response, especially when shared by the actors with their fans. We broke almost all our weekly records for online activity.
Lesson 5: Celebrate the fans
Although the actors’ fans were not a part of our original strategy, we quickly recognized their eagerness as an asset (especially when fanart and edits were being created before the episodes were even online). This led to the creation of a fan corner on the website where we included interviews with the cast and, even more importantly, featured a superfan each week. Celebrating fandom in this way has paid off. The fan edit output is ridiculous (in a good way). Fan accounts and creations for the show continue to pop up with great regularity. We are also very lucky to have actors who also consistently like and comment on these to the great delight of the fans.
[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Transmedia: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries – Pt. 2
Measuring Success
So now onto some of the hard numbers of success. You can check out the infographic to the right to get some additional highlights, however the main success metric for the show creators has been the video views. Each LBD episode boasts about 300,000 views on average (comparable to successful niche television programming). This clearly reflects a quality “lean back” experience, but there are other numbers that show how much this content engages and inspires its audience. Do a search for “the lizzie bennet diaries” on Google now and it returns over 3.5 million pages of LBD content; this includes pages from the story itself, articles written about it, social media memes created, and fan frothing of the highest caliber. The first LBD episode with over 1,000,000 views has spurred over 2,100 fan comments, while the exciting episode 60, has received over 500,000 views (100,000 of which were received in the first 24 hours) and over 7,000 comments. Keyword research shows that people are searching for “the lizzie bennet diaries” over 12,100 times every month (which compares to other modern retellings such as “pride and prejudice and zombies” with 9,900 or the Bollywood “bride and prejudice” with 22,000 searches).
LBD fans (many of whom call themselves Seahorses) are highly motivated and engaged throughout the whole transmedia experience and were just waiting to be asked to do something for this show they loved so much. And ask the team did, in that now famous Kickstarter campaign. Three asks were made for fan support: 1) to finance DVD production (a completely fan driven desire), 2) to help pay for a little summer bridge series Welcome to Sanditon and 3) any “extra” would go towards paying the team of twenty who had brought Lizzie’s world to life over the past year. Jay firmly believes it is this last ask that spurred the fans on to pledge as generously as they did. Most of the comments on the campaign make it clear they wanted to give back to the people who had taken them on this amazing journey. The team is incredibly humbled by this response, perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility, but excited to see what they can do with and for this audience next. This, more than anything, may be the ultimate success metric and the lasting legacy of LBD, especially if it can become part of an ongoing and evolving business model for the creators and sew the seeds for multiplatform storytelling success of others in the future.
Transmedia Lessons Learned
Speaking with Jay he had three very clear lessons learned from this amazing transmedia success story:
There is no such thing as digital marketing. He explained this means every piece of content they put out was considered part of the story. The social media and other online assets were not siloed into a separate marketing department, they are as much a part of the LBD storyworld as the core vlog series.
The transmedia team needs to be in the writers room. An extension of the philosophy above, for a multiplatform story to work, the transmedia content producers need to be as deeply embedded in the creative process as possible. Major plot points unfolded in the social media storylines and synergy and knowledge exchange needed to happen between all the storytellers involved.
Interactivity does not mean surrendering the storytelling to the audience. If the audience had its way Lydia would never have fallen for Wickham and a big part of the drama, conflict and character growth of LBD would not have happened. Jay feels the audience still wants to be taken on a journey that transports them somewhere else. Interactivity can happen by creating spaces where the audience can play and interact with characters but the story is still protected and guided by the creative team.
My Digital Marketing Takeaways
Despite not having a formal strategy I see LBD as a digital marketing success story which demonstrates some important fundamental truths, including:
Know your niche and be where they are. This achievement was built upon two initial niche audiences: the Nerdfighters and the most voracious Pride and Prejudice fans, those who had shown a willingness to consume this story over and over again. With zero dollars for publicity, digital offered a way to reach out to these audiences directly and have a presence on the social networks that mattered the most to them (like Tumblr).
Use the power of the digital two way conversation to engage them. The transmedia elements of the LBD story leveraged this power not in a “used car saleman” way, but with an authenticity, narrative and responsiveness that generated strong emotional reactions (which makes people want to share and spread the word).
“Don’t ask before you give”. Sheri Candler recently made this statement when we were teaching together in the IPF workshops. I agree it is absolutely key to digital marketing success and the LBD team proves to be a perfect example. They gave their fans a year of fantastic story and experience before they launched their Kickstarter campaign. It is highly unlikely this campaign would have seen similar success if it has been launched before or even early on in Lizzie’s journey.
What Comes Next for LBD?
Two things are clear: 1) the successful Kickstarter campaign means Welcome to Sanditon will have more resources and it was just announced that this story will start to unfold next week on May 13, 2013; and 2) the next big series is set to start in July (which they don’t need to Kickstart because it has already been funded by Deca.TV). However, what the new big series is to be is still a secret. Looking again at the keyword research might I suggest “sense and sensibility” (with 49,500 monthly searches on Google), “mansfield park“ (27,100), “northanger abbey” (18,100), “emma jane austen” (12,100), “persuasion jane austen” (6,600). Or what about doing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries in another language? In Spanish “orgullo y prejuicio” gets almost 50,000 searches a month. Then there’s the possibility of looking further afield outside the Austen canon. Perhaps to the Bronte sisters and “jane eyre” (165,000) or “wuthering heights” (135,000). Wherever the LBD team chooses to try their collective hands next, I have no fear they will continue to build an authentic brand that delivers compelling story experiences complete with fantastic, relevant modern day writing, great characters and casting, and a respect for the audience they have built and continue to serve.
[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Transmedia: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries – Pt. 1
Recently the online creative community’s collective head exploded when a crowdfunding campaign for a movie about the long cancelled TV show Veronica Mars exceeded its $2 million goal on Kickstarter by over 285%. But I, and many others in the digital crowd, were even more impressed by the modernized Pride and Prejudice web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries that also ran a campaign at the same time and exceeded its goal of $60,000 by 771%. I was lucky enough to recently speak with LBD’s transmedia producer Jay Bushman who generously shared his experience of this wild screen media ride. In this issue of From Search to Screen I explore the journey of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries so far and pass along lessons in digital marketing learned, especially when it comes to owning your own success and finding, engaging and galvanizing your audience across multiple platforms.
The Story is the Thing
Lizzie Bennet co-creators Hank Green and Bernie Su recognized from the beginning Pride and Prejudice was their “greatest weapon,” a fantastic tried and true story (as Hank’s wife had pointed out). The book was first published on January 28, 1813, but has been retold and reimagined in plays, movies, television shows and multiple other creative works. This romantic comedy of errors has also often found significant commercial success. I could not help doing a little keyword research and noted that “pride and prejudice” is still searched over 200,000 times a month on Google. This enduring story clearly has much resonance, which the LBD team handled beautifully, transitioning it to a modern setting and narrative with great writing and pitch perfect casting (especially for Lizzie, Jane and Lydia).
By Luck or Design?
Now the digital marketer in me would love to say that this huge success story was also because the LBD team had a solid yearlong marketing strategy mapped out right from the beginning. However, this is not the case. Hank had enough faith in the power of the Pride and Prejudice story to literally put his money where his mouth was and become the sole investor, financing the initial 24 episodes. He also knew a little something about YouTube success from his many years running his VlogBrothers channel with his brother John. Although LBD wasn’t incorporated into that content, he knew he had over 1 million Nerdfighters (what VlogBrother fans are called) to help him get the word out. With zero dollars for marketing and promotion, the team still expected that after about three weeks of LBD they would have to reach out and do some active PR to get write ups in on and offline publications. This turned out to be unnecessary…
LBD soon took on a life of its own and was generating enough revenue from YouTube advertising to be self-sustaining. But this really hit home for the team when they went to Vidcon at the end of June 2012 (3 months into Lizzie’s story) and found themselves swarmed by fans, with sold out panels and an impromptu signing that lasted three hours. It was clear this show had struck a chord. Soon Deca.TV came onboard as co-owner, helping Hank recoup his original investment, providing infrastructure and financial support, taking over administrative duties, and freeing up the creative team to simply create.
And still the growth continues. Unbeknownst to the LBD team, January 28, 2013 marked the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice and also coincided with the climax of the narrative of the web series resulting in a new wave of fans discovering the show and spreading the word even further. LBD can now boast coverage in top shelf media such as The Guardian newspaper, TIME Newsfeed, USA Today, ABC News, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, BBC News, and The Wall Street Journal.
Marketing = Telling the Story?
Although there were no marketing dollars in LBD or formalized plan in place, the pervasive storyworld of Lizzie Bennet across so many social networks created a huge in-story marketing machine. For instance, a clever writer named Kate Rorick wrote episode 59 which had Darcy walk into the frame for the first time at the very end of the episode, without revealing his face. This sent LBD fandom into a tizzy of anticipation which exploded in episode 60, heretoafter known as #DarcyDay. This storytelling machine with many moving parts managed and created by Jay and his transmedia team, also listened and responded, answering fan tweets, sharing gifs and memes on Tumblr and giving them more Lydia Bennet when they demanded it. While there are no hard stats on this, the teams’ anecdotal evidence suggests the majority of the audience discovered LBD because it appeared in their social media feeds as their friends shared and frothed about the series. What an amazing example of the power of superfans when a story and experience is truly authentic and engaging enough to move and inspire them in this way. Is it marketing, smart storytelling, or a hybrid of both? I bet you can guess what I think.
Continue to Part 2 > Measuring Success, Lessons Learned & Digital Marketing Takeaways…
[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Television: Battle Castle
2011 a grand experiment in transmedia and social TV launched in Canada. It was a documentary television show called Battle Castle that told the story of six pivotal sieges of European castles throughout medieval history. It was also a slick website, a couple of different online games and a very robust social media campaign. This kind of transmedia storytelling experience had not really been tested before for a factual TV series and saw the Canadian television producers bring together international, digital and transmedia partners to realize their vision. This issue of From Search to Screen takes a look at the biggest digital marketing success of the Battle Castle story, the social media campaign. It broke new ground and was held up as an example of what social TV should aspire to at the recent Storyworld Conference in California.
To Insource or Outsource?
Outsourcing is second nature to screen media. Production tends to be a collaborative art, bringing together many people with different skillsets to create a unified work. And with the new and wide scope of Battle Castle the talent pool had to be expanded even further to include digital and transmedia talent. While the social media was initially outsourced it did not attract much attention. That is when producers quickly realized there were members of the internal production team at Parallax Film Productions who had intimate knowledge of both the onscreen and behind-the-scenes stories. These personnel were actually the biggest asset Battle Castle had for the kind of interactions social media demanded. When writer Nicole Tomlinson and executive producer Maija Leivo took over the campaign that is when it really started to take off.
Leveraging Passion and Knowledge
Maija and Nicole were on a big learning curve in terms of social media, but they took the leap and weren’t afraid of looking foolish. They had some initial digital market research to point them in the right direction, but it was really their deep and rich knowledge of the material that carried the day. Not only were they able to come up with great tidbits to share, they also came up with creative campaigns like their medieval soup contest (where they challenged followers to make one of three authentic soup recipes and submit their experiences) to engage their audience and get them excited in ways that had nothing to do with warfare or siegecraft.
Opportunity Where Digital & TV Meet
Creating synergy between both the digital and television elements provided several unique opportunities for the Battle Castle team:
Data. Even before the show was on the air, the online presence for Battle Castle was generating data on who was interested and what got them excited and involved. Maija and Nicole paid very close attention to the other “likes” of people who became fans on Facebook. This allowed them to do very small and targeted ad campaigns to others who liked the same kinds of things, very effectively growing the Facebook Battle Castle fanbase (which soon surpassed the “likes” of their Canadian broadcaster). The data also gave the team an understanding of what kind of content fans wanted and that’s what they gave them, resulting in a high percentage of fans also “talking about” Battle Castle and sharing that content even further.
Structure. The online audience was being built long before the television series premiered in Canada. But they were very aware of the benefits of synchronizing and timing their efforts to the structure the TV schedule provided, wanting everything to peak on the night of the premiere driving up the numbers. This initially gave them an organizing principle and framework for their social media content strategy, and a very specific goal.
Reach. Once the show was on air it also fed the social media and online presence for Battle Castle through network promotion on the History Television website and by including the URL in the show credits. The social media team also actively engaged in conversations with fans during the broadcast through Facebook and Twitter creating an early social TV success story (without any specialized app).
Challenges in the New World of Social TV
It was not all smooth sailing however. Early challenges included finding the right balance in the content that was provided online so that Battle Castle gave enough away to keep the social media audience interested, but not so much that they would not show up for the TV broadcast . The show was also lucky enough to be picked up in the UK and Australia, but these broadcast schedules were not synchronized whereas the social media campaign was a constant throughout. Some of the international challenges for the Battle Castle team were:
Fewer resources. The team was reduced to one and other broadcasters were not able to invest or support the Battle Castle digital marketing in the same way as in Canada (and did not even include the URL in the show credits). This meant Maija had to do the same/more with a lot less. Luckily the digital footprint of Battle Castle was fairly well established at this point and it was being found more naturally through online searches. But it likely would have done even better with either synchronous broadcast around the world or continued investment by the other broadcasters.
Keeping it fresh. With new audiences finding Battle Castle’s social media profiles, a new balance in content needed to be found – between giving the original core fans new stuff to get excited about, but also introduce and recycle older content for those who were just discovering the show. Luckily some of this was carried by the conversations within the community itself, but Maija was still required to manage most of this.
Different countries/different audiences. Not surprisingly, different audiences in different countries have different sensibilities and expectations. Whereas the Canadian audience was primarily positive and loved the show’s style and content, the UK fans have been a tougher sell – demanding higher academic standards and less appreciation for the pop culture appeal. Maija has had to again find a balance when talking to all these disparate voices through the same forum.
Lesson Learned
Despite the challenges, Maija has done a great job at continued engagement, supporting a core audience that has not diminished in its enthusiasm or dedication to the show. Are there things she would have done differently? Not with the social media. Although she and Nicole were new to this promotional tactic, they were smart and listened to their fans (and the data they generated). This created well-informed instincts that guided the social media campaign and continues to grow and engage its fans to this day.
However, if there was any lesson learned, it was to trust herself more and the overlying vision for the project. As with any traditional media company breaking new online ground, there was a steep learning curve. It is easy to not trust yourself in these circumstances. Outside expertise is critically important, but it needs to defer to the original vision for the project. Finding a better balance between these two elements may have led to more success for Battle Castle’s transmedia and other digital assets.
[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Indie Film: Karen Lam & Stained
Karen Lam is a well-respected filmmaker in the horror genre. Her shorts include “The Cabinet” (2006), “Doll Parts” (2011) and “The Stolen” (2012). Her first feature was “Stained”(2010) and she is currently in the process of pulling together her second, “Evangeline.” Her work has been seen and won awards in festivals all over the world. She is also known and admired for her acumen in building a strong and loyal fanbase online. In this issue of From Search to Screen, I’ll share Karen’s theories about digital marketing success and the dramatic changes for independent features she has witnessed over the past few years.
Your Brand: Filmmaker vs Film
Movie marketing is an investment – of money, of time, of resources and energy. Digital marketing for indie film is usually a DIY investment. Most indie filmmakers tend to think/plan project by project. They set up a three prong online promotional strategy for each movie: website, Twitter and Facebook. The film opens and they tweet about it. Done. On to the next one. Rarely do they worry about carrying the audience with them. Karen has spent countless hours growing her online following, but her focus is more on herself and her online persona than on her movies. Her underlying rule is that as a filmmaker her personal brand is a better investment than the brands of her individual films. Instead of putting her movies first and looking for one indie blockbuster success to establish her career, she focuses her efforts on building personal relationships with her fans who then follow her wherever she leads. Investing in this long-term strategy gives her a valuable asset to leverage when she puts together deals and for a potential monetization strategy in the future (without any gatekeepers like a distributor or platform like iTunes). At this time of big changes in the indie film landscape, she is definitely one to watch as she tries to figure out how best to leverage and involve her fans in her brand.
New Challenges for Indie Filmmaking
When Karen’s first feature “Stained” was produced it came together under the typical Canadian model of distributor and government investment. As she works to close financing on her next movie, she has learned just how much things can change in three years. It has never been easy to make a movie, but now it’s more complicated than ever. A couple of things she has noticed:
No more DVD sales mean much less potential film revenue. People no longer buy or rent DVDs in the same way they used to and this has had a huge effect on film financing. Karen has found that in trying to sell distribution for her movies she has seen territories that used to be worth $250,000 now valued at only about $25,000. She sees a significant and growing gap. Movies only seem to get made in one of two models: Hollywood mega budget blockbusters (often involving an international co-production partner) and micro budget indies (hence the prevalence of “found footage” films). There seems to be no room for mid-level films any more.
Consumers want it for free. The platform subscription model (such as Netflix $8/month all-you-can-stream video content buffet) is contributing to the illusion that content is free. People are becoming less and less willing to pay for individual copies of movies, especially through the big gatekeepers. All of this decreases the revenue potential of indie films and makes raising the financing increasingly difficult.
International co-pro focus. Filmmakers are also having to look farther and farther afield to find additional sources of investment. In her research Karen has discovered that countries like the US and even China are not worth pursuing for financing. The places in the world that have capital to invest in making movies are, surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Russia. Filmmakers need to know where those opportunities are in order to focus their resources effectively.
Online Opportunity for Filmmakers
But despite the difficulties listed above, there is a continued allure and romance associated with making a movie. Television and web series do not give screen media creators the same kind of prestige as film (especially one that has garnered some awards and international acclaim). In Karen’s philosophy, the movies themselves become part of the filmmaker brand, and the online world represents unique opportunities to build and own that brand like never before. Not only can she have conversations directly with her fans (no gatekeeper in the way) to find out exactly what they like and don’t like, she can also reference online data to check her assumptions about them. For instance, she was sure her audience skewed to women over 35 years of age, but the data revealed to her an even split between men and women 18-24 years old. Also, for whatever reason, a HUGE following in Brazil. This kind of knowledge has never been available for filmmakers before and can inform strategic decisions and ideas unlike anything to date.
Digital Marketing Lessons Learned
So what are Karen’s biggest tips for fellow indie filmmakers when it comes to digital marketing?
1. Define your online personality. Part of building your personal brand as a filmmaker is knowing very clearly who you are and what kind of stories you want to tell. Defining this will help shape your strategy.
2. Don’t fake it. Whoever you decide you are online needs to align with who you are and what you are passionate about. Karen began as a fangirl of genre and horror herself. She is truly interested in and engaged with her fans because they share this passion.
3. Be respectful. In this brave new world of fandom, your audience truly shares in anything you produce. They help you get there. It is important to have real and meaningful responses to any feedback you get from them. At the end of the day, that mutual respect breeds loyalty and that is the new coin of the realm.
4. No opportunity is too small. The wonderful thing about online is you can reach everywhere in the world and so opportunity can come from ANYWHERE. Karen spends a lot of time being interviewed for blogs and getting her films into small horror niche festivals. This has resulted in some unexpected and profitable opportunities, ones that she could not have had without the Internet.
[CASE STUDY] Digital Marketing for Web Series: Seth on Survival/My Lupine Life
It all began with an online phenomenon known as Seth on Survival – a web series, blog and app that has been dishing out monster fighting advice to kids since September 2009. Hosted by charismatic ‘Seth Greening,’ kids continue to be invited into his world of surviviology:
“Seth on Survival is the helpiest site dedicated to your ongoing survival and the ultimate destruction or at least suppression of your most annoying enemies. Join us for practical supernatural survival tips, tricks, tools, controversies and true-life supernatural survival stories.”
In this issue of From Search to Screen, I invite you to share the journey of Seth, his collaborators and the highly engaged community of SOS kids that led to the recent release of the werewolf spinoff about living the Lupine Life.
Canadian Web Series Pioneer
When Seth on Survival launched in the fall of 2009 the world of webisode series was just starting to pick up some momentum. Home Internet connections were finally getting fast enough to be able to carry video without too much frustrating buffering. The International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) was created and held its first awards show, the Streamys in March of 2009 (at which Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog cleaned up and whereSOS went on to be nominated in 2010 for the Best Mobile Experience). The third season of Felicia Day’s The Guild had just premiered in August and The Annoying Orange was about to launch its first episode on YouTube in October. In Canada, Vuguru was about to partner with Rogers Media to produce upwards of 30 new web shows a year. SOSlaunched against this background as an experiment in this new kind of storytelling.
Finding an Audience
One of the biggest challenges for SOS was the target audience. Seth appealed to tweens and younger kids and without a television network or huge marketing budget, it was hard to reach these potential fans. This age group was also not on social networks in the way teenagers and adults were, meaning grassroots DIY social media marketing was not going to reach them. The key to finding this audience was when the SOS companion app, the Monstrometer, was added to iTunes (it was the 50,000th app added – iTunes now boasts over 700,000 apps as of September 2012). Kids LOVED the app. And they loved to tell their friends about it and scan them to discover what kind of a monster they were. The app ended up growing the audience for the web series and website through viral word-of-mouth that actually happened offline. In five months the website had ‘saved’ 100,000 lives (received 100,000 visits). At the year and a half mark that number reached one million and nine months later it was two million.
A Complete Storyworld
SOS is so much more than the original web series (in fact this is perhaps the smallest part). It is, by the most common definition, a true transmedia experience. Seth’s story is told over the five webisodes, the Monstrometer app, supplemental websites like the Zombie Actors Guild, an early SOS Twitter feed and, most importantly, through the website, blog and discussion forum where a highly engaged and committed group of fans lives. 65% of the traffic to the website is made of repeat visitors who come over and over again to interact with Seth and share their stories with each other.
“More, More, More!!”
But it still isn’t enough. The kids keep on wanting more – more content, more engagement with their favourite surviviologist and more of the world he inhabits. SOScollaborators Torin Stefanson and Teri Armitage were inspired by the conversations of the kids on the site and also saw from the metrics data on the website that werewolves were a hot topic. And so the idea for My Lupine Life was born, expanding the storyworld and transmedia experience of SOS even further with this lycanthropic spinoff.
The Birth of Louis Pine
Accessing Independent Production Fund money and the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit, a healthy web series budget was put together to shoot My Lupine Life in Saskatchewan (the home stomping ground of Torin and Teri). It cost roughly $4,000 per minute (although not all minutes were created equal with over a quarter of the budget being spent on one effects heavy episode). It increases the SOS storyworld by 13 webisodes, an additional website rich in werewolf mythology (launched August 2012) and a second app (which has just launched in the iTunes App Store).
To Web Series or Not to Web Series?
‘Seth,’ Torin and Teri have built an amazing world where “there are more supernatural threats to your survival than at any time in recent memory. Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Leprechauns, Yeti, Kraken – the list goes on.” The most fulfilling part has been the amazing engagement of the fans and their generosity as collaborators in helping to create, sustain and build the world of Seth. Would they do it again? Probably. But perhaps now that web series and transmedia experiences are maturing, there may be opportunities in the world of branded entertainment or new content delivery mechanisms (like gaming platforms) that would enable the SOS team to enjoy the fun more and minimize the struggle.
Editors Note: Some of the statistics above were updated on November 9, 2012 and if you want to enjoy Louis Pine’s story right now you can watch below: