CSI and Transmedia Storytelling

In Octobert 2007, the popular television franchise Crime Scene Investigation: New York took a leap into the world of transmedia storytelling by leading its viewers into Second Life to help fill in the gaps of an unsolved crime that would not be completely solved until February of this year. By leading its audience members into Second Life, CSI producers hope that its viewers can become better acquainted with the online comunity and can interact with other fans of the show, do virtual lab experiments and read blog entries.

Here is a preview of what the episode looked like:


And the following is an interview from Henry Jenkins' blog "Confessions of an Aca/Fan" with CSI producers about their collaboration with Second Life.

http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/10/producing_the_csinysecond_life.html

What is Integrated Marketing?

Bobby Calder and Edward Mathouse of Journal of Advertising Research discuss integrated marketing as a way to effectively reach consumers in a new media environment. There has been an apparent shift in media and advertising away from thinking that exposure to media means effective advertising to focusing on consumer engagement in media as a measure of advertising effectiveness. In contrast to traditional reactive marketing, integrated marketing provides a means to “throw it in your face.” Advertisers will no longer use persuasive messaging as if people are merely consumers, but rather they will connect to the person as a whole. The focus is on a person’s life and anything that affects a person’s life is a potential advertising tool. Understanding the consumer’s current experiences is crucial for the marketers to be able to advertise the product in ways relevant to those experiences. For example, ESPN fantasy sports on the Internet is a way to not only keep major sports fans continuously informed about sports, but also to provide sports entertainment and allow them to connect with others that have the same level of sports interest.

As part of integrated marketing comes the “relationship brand” idea. Products/services promote an overarching brand idea that is the same for everyone, but the way in which consumers experience the brand is individualized and fragmented in a new media environment. Continuing with ESPN as our example, their overall brand idea is same to all consumers, but some may prefer to have sports scores sent to their email, some prefer to check message boards and participate in discussion forums, some may prefer fantasy leagues, and others may just want to continuously check espn.com for updates. Yet all ESPN consumers wish to be highly informed about whichever sports they follow, but now they have the ability to tailor their ESPN experience in whichever way they’d prefer. Integrated marketing allows consumers to form personal relationships with brands through a range of new media technologies and provides an effective way to reach consumers.

Shift in Control of Advertising

A particular way in which the character of advertising has changed within a new media environment relates to control. Saul Berman and Bill Batino of Mediaweek identify four main drivers that have caused a shift in the control of advertising. First, they discuss the ever increasing use of Internet and the simultaneous decrease in TV viewing that has enabled consumers to become more in control of how they view, interact with, and filter advertising. Next, they believe that new media technology has allowed for user-generated and peer-delivered content and new ad-revenue-sharing models so that amateurs and semi-professionals can create lower-cost advertising content. As a result, the realm of creativity of ads has expanded. Additionally, they mention a change in format of advertising from impression-based to impact-based. Now marketers have the capability to measure beyond merely ad-reach and into actual product/service engagement. Finally, because ad space is now available through open, efficient exchanges, proprietary marketers such as broadcasters are being replaced by open platforms.

Advertising and the Proliferation of Media Content

As discussed in Adordno and Horkheimer’s “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (The Consumer Society Reader, 2000), the culture industry is an entity so extensive as to warrant the need for the repetition and reproduction. Because the industry is so far-reaching, the dissemination of media products requires meticulous planning and industrial organization. As technology has advanced and research has been done concerning consumer preferences and practices, the variety and sheer amount of advertising has increased exponentially.

Integrated marketing, for instance, has allowed for the customization of media content to meet the needs of individual users. Putting the same media into different formats, users can consume content in the way they choose and media caters to individual experience. Audiences have become fragmented as a result of this customization, creating change in the media community: people attend only to media targeted specifically to them. Transmedia storytelling is another technique used for getting the message heard. Rather than relying on only one mode of transferring a message, producers make use of multiple media in attempts to express media content. This method does, however, have the potential for overkill.

As a result of the proliferation of new media content, people have become almost immune to the process of consuming culture: “so completely is it subject to the law of exchange that it is no longer exchanged; it is so blindly consumed in use that it can no longer be used. Therefore it amalgamates with advertising… Advertising is its elixir of life.” Because the innumerable products of the culture industry have become little more than visual distraction, the industry has required advertising to revive itself. It is the excitement and novelty of ads that attracts viewer attention, supports the culture industry and makes sales. The key to advertising success is getting noticed. Regardless of the fact that consumers can see through the advertisements they are presented with, they continue to buy the products being advertised. The question of advertising success still remains, however; how to advertisements break through the clutter?


Adorno, T.W., & Horkheimer, M. (2000). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. In J. Schor & D. Holt (Eds.), The Consumer Society Reader (pp. 3-19). New York: The New Press.

What is transmedia storytelling?

Transmedia storytelling, as described by Henry Jenkins, is the conveyance of media messages across various media channels, allowing for more points of entry for the consumer to become involved in the message (Jenkins, 2007). Jenkins describes how a movie like the Matrix can benefit from transmedia storytelling as publicity for the franchise is created through using various channels of communication to spread the media message. Mark Deuze (2007) describes this use of transmedia storytelling as a deliberate attempt by media conglomerates to extend their franchises, explaining that convergence culture allows for large corporations to “seek new ways to intensify customer relationships, and cultivate consumer loyalties by captivating people’s media use across multiple platforms at the same time.” By increasing the number of platforms through which people can create and consume their media, corporate conglomerates aim for more intense consumer loyalty and usage. As media conglomerates integrate horizontally, they enable themselves to extend their brands- be it a movie or television show- over the various media channels which the companies themselves own. This enables such companies to strengthen their social influence in our mediated environment.

Deuze, M. (2007). Media work. Polity Books.

Jenkins, H. (2007). Transmedia storytelling 101. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html#more