What is a mediaverse? A mediaverse is an immersive group of media platforms focused on a brand. The purpose is to continue expanding a popular idea / brand by diversifying with more platforms to further involve the user in the rabbit hole.
Ok, let’s see if we can clear that up with an example. One of the best case examples of a mediaverse is NBC’s Heroes brand. The world started with the TV show itself, but quickly after the launch reached the proof-of-concept metric, a variety of supporting platforms were launched. As the show progressed, the platform cluster has evolved, grown and become more interconnected. Here’s a dissection of the Heroes mediaverse:
Feel free to explore in Heroes | NBC
o The main TV show of Heroes.
Obviously, this is the cornerstone of the entire cluster. All episodes are available online so people who miss the show or are more web-oriented can be drawn into the gravity of the show. The great additional benefit of the ability to rewatch online is that
-gave fans a reason to visit the website
-Made the program be shared with friends
-Reinforced loading dock for all future rigs
-provided an additional ad revenue channel
o Graphic novels: the website offers users free access to serialized graphic novels about the program. The novels began to bridge the gap between the weekly episodes. This gave viewers eager and eager to see what’s next the ability to delve into the middle story lines and gain additional information about the characters. Again, this provided an additional revenue stream by having Nissan Versa sponsored ads across all downloadable content.
* Side note * Nissan in Season 1 was its own key player in the Heroes media verse and did a brilliant job of picking the right horse at the right time. The rented Nissan that Hiro uses on the show became an accepted product endorsement that was echoed on several of the channels in the Heroes mediaverse.
oBlogs and websites
This is really where the immersive factor of the Heroes world started to spread in more directions. The brand launched a number of related websites and blogs around the world. Many of the characters are represented, as well as influential companies. Here is a list:
Primatech role
Vote for Petrelli
Yamagato Scholarship
Activating Evolutions
Corithian Casino
Hana’s Blog
Primatech Video Surveillance
Claire’s Myspace
And I can’t find it now, but there was a Hiro blog.
The point here is that the mediaverse grew out of updating the fictional world. Also, they chose channels that were relevant and made logical sense. For example, the Vote Petrelli site was perfect both for this year’s media election climate and the fact that Nathan Petrelli would obviously have a political website. Like a myspace page for teenage superhero Claire, it fit the bill perfectly. The collections on the site provided more ways to become deeply involved with the program.
Heroes Wiki
The Wiki was another well structured idea. A good chunk of superhero fans love learning about the show’s dark details, and the wiki provides a way for all of that information to be compiled. Plus, anyone wanting to get relevant production information and summaries can log in and acquire those details. And since the wiki platform is open source and free, comparatively few resources were needed to put this piece together.
* Note: Heroes Wiki is a fan-created site that is gaining enough popularity to be listed on the official NBC site. See the explanation in the comments of this article.
oWalkthroughs
The site offers a series of weekly tours of all seasons. The tutorials interconnect many of the other platforms and provide a place for users to comment and ask questions. This resource is great because it creates a timeline blog that lists the world’s top week-by-week events.
ohhistory
The Istory feature is an interactive storytelling platform for the brand that allows users to make decisions that affect the storytelling provided. This is a solid reworking of the classic turn-by-page books that used to be very popular. Everyone speculates during movies and shows about what they would do in a certain situation and now fans have that opportunity. All the characters are specific to Istory, so again, fans are given another means to engage more deeply with the brand and producers are given feedback on what kinds of things they would like to see happen.
oWebisodes
Yes, the platforms keep coming. Web episodes in their own right are becoming a marketing meme. I love this idea as web episodes are cheaper to produce and provide valuable testing and data collection opportunities to leverage concepts through other channels. Another example I know of that went from the web to television is the Sanctuary series on SciFi. In any case, the Heroes web episode re-creates another avenue for users to get involved. Even web episodes fade as users can access platform-related videos, photos, and wallpapers.
o Create your own hero
This platform directly pinged users to give their opinion on which character they would like to see in the world of Heroes. I love it, try and launch with the advantage of hooking the users who voted for the character in the first place with the option to attract the finalists. It looks like the selected character will have their own spinoff show or web episode.
oMicroseries
Santiago, the winner of the platform Create your own hero, gets a microseries. I think by now you’re starting to see the pattern here of how one platform stimulates another and creates interconnection between other platforms in a self-supporting mechanism.
or interactive SMS
The SMS tricks that many brands have used generally don’t count toward building a mediaverse, but live, during broadcast polls, quizzes, and trivia do. The $ 5000 giveaway is a good incentive and of course the brand acquires phone numbers and text messaging privileges for numerous fans.
OHeroes Magazine
This is a web-only edition, but since so much is happening in the world, it makes sense to have magazine angle coverage of all the interworkings. The magazine also fills the void of getting cast interviews that are strangely lacking on all other platforms. I suppose this is because most platforms are working to create a fiction with reality effect and the cast interviews break the fictional dream, so to speak.
oGames
As if you hadn’t seen it coming … All kinds of games and quizzes to immerse yourself in. This has been poorly done by many brands, but games and superheroes certainly fit well into the world of Heroes.
o Message boards
Some of the above platforms provide the opportunity to interact with fans, but the message boards focus on this. The speculation and all the wonderful fan activity that happens on the message boards adds to the world. And again, you see the pattern. This is yet another platform to interact more deeply with the brand. And what are they talking about on the boards? All other platforms and elements of the Heroes mediaverse.
oTake It – Widgets and Icons
After all of the above, one would think that the mediaverse would be complete, but new platforms are constantly emerging. Countdown widgets, AIM icons, wallpapers, and ecards galore. This platform spreads the brand through fan distribution and has a small user space on various channels.
orShop
Well, you’ve got an idea with the store, I hope …
Phew! So by looking at the long list of platforms that are bundled together in the Heroes mediaverse, you can see how it helped stabilize the brand and provide consistent content in a medium that typically thrives on enthusiastic anticipation.
Well, if you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering, how does this apply to more traditional brands? Can it work with anything other than TV and movies? Certainly the idea of a mediaverse leans toward entertainment channels. It could also include books, like the massive Harry Potter franchise, which has spawned a world of its own.
I think we’ve seen a lot of attempts and poor execution in this area without having an overall strategy in place. The closest I’ve seen are some of the viral campaigns from movies like the latest Batman release.
So here is the challenge:
Choose a non-entertainment industry or brand (not movies, TV, or books) and explain your vision of a brand mediaverse or point out that it currently exists
My choice is Nikon. Nikon has taken advantage of photo-sharing technology like Flickr to tag images taken with a Nikon camera and launched its own site that displays user-created content. Photo contests have long been a good marketing arm of camera companies. I think I could extend this with deviant art-like sites to produce a lot of user-generated content from Nikon cameras. Plus, the exclusivity marketing would be huge, like buying key photography spots at events like celebrity awards or sporting events and only allowing Nikon cameras in the area. There are tons of mini blogging possibilities here for comic images or any other emotionally engaging topic. Just think how smart it would have been at Nikon to have released something as meme-inducing as Ihaschzburger or the like.
Let me know what you think.