Transmedia Brand Storytelling

This chapter explores the origins of transmedia branding with a focus on its emergence in the entertainment industries, definitions of the concept in brand communication contexts and articulations of the construct’s benefits in the contemporary media landscape. Our analysis of perspectives offered by scholarly researchers in this realm enables our development of an evolved definition for the concept under the name “transmedia brand storytelling”.

This Chapter considers transmedia storytelling in terms of its creative and strategic principles. It begins by considering emerging approaches to understanding the concept of “the brand” in the digital media era to foreground the perspective that progressive contemporary brands exist in a more fluid and less “top-down” controlled state. In terms of messaging approaches, we trace the efficacy of emotion in the storytelling process as identified in existing research to, in turn, highlight the importance of empathy as a crucial means of fostering ongoing audience relationships. From this point, we analyse scholarship on how brand narratives are created and extended into expansive brand storytelling across platforms to identify the dominant perspectives.

This chapter begins our analysis of practitioner perceptions and experiences of transmedia storytelling in brand communication contexts. Our analysis of survey data and in-depth interviews allows us to understand the terms used (and the extent thereof) in everyday practice. Next, the chapter identifies reasons why social storytelling across platforms has emerged as a core practice and the benefits of the strategy. Our consideration of the “why” of transmedia storytelling highlights the central goal of achieving an emotional connection with audiences.

This chapter reveals that a confluence of factors shapes practitioners’ development of surprising and unexpected narratives and storyworld content. These include resolutely focusing on the audience, illustrating brand values and “leaning into culture.” Our analysis includes findings on whether some product categories are better suited than others to applying the strategy and insights into how platforms are selected. The consideration of findings through the lens of existing theory helps us to identify novel aspects of social storytelling practice that are being successfully applied as well as established narrative constructs that may assist practitioners when implementing social storytelling approaches.

This chapter concentrates on how brand storytellers motivate audiences to engage in a cohesive brand narrative told across platforms. This chapter presents findings on how practitioners have learned how to plan and create this emerging form of brand communication and if they apply any formal theories in practice. And lastly, the chapter considers what interviewees wished they knew at the start of their journeys as brand storytellers to draw out key themes on the triumphs and challenges of those who make these campaigns.

This chapter presents and critiques a range of transmedia storytelling campaign evaluation approaches identified within the literature. The chapter begins by providing readers with a detailed explanation of the complex nature of campaign evaluation that extends much further than traditional campaign goal and objective performance measurement and the collection and analysis of platform vanity metrics. Accurate evaluation of transmedia branding and immersive audience experiences requires careful monitoring of the audience journey across platforms and recording of co-creation and prosumer activities. The purpose of this chapter is to identify similarities and discrepancies between theoretical evaluation methods and contemporary industry practice.

The first case study in this section investigates a deeply immersive branding experience developed by the children’s hospital SickKids Foundation in Toronto, Canada. The SickKids team pledged to raise an impressive $1.3 billion dollars, one of Canada’s largest-ever fundraising goals, to completely update the infrastructure of the hospital which had not been changed since the early 90s and achieved their goal. Their story is analysed in this chapter.

The second case study explored in Section 3 examines an Australian tourism campaign through a Transmedia branding lens. Wander Geelong and The Bellarine is an annual campaign delivered by the regional Victorian tourism body, Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine (TGGATB) to increase local area knowledge and visitation from people living within the state of Victoria.

The final case study focuses on a transmedia brand storytelling campaign for global travel accommodation brand Airbnb. The campaign, which launched soon after Airbnb’s rebranding in 2014, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It aimed to increase brand awareness by deepening the audience’s understanding of and relationship with Airbnb to showcase its brand mission with a large focus on the European market.

The final chapter focuses on the future of transmedia brand storytelling by first exploring past predictions from the literature, and comparing those with our findings from the practitioner interviews in this study. The authors then make our own predictions based on our analyses and their possible impact for scholars, practitioners and brands. This chapter concludes with the presentation of a Transmedia Brand Storytelling model for practice, a culmination of the research and analysis undertaken throughout the book and a representation of the practical application of theory to practice. The main aim of this “end-to-end” model is to provide scholars and practitioners with a methodology to underpin the creation of a transmedia branding project that has evolved from the comparative analysis of theoretical concepts and primary research undertaken with creatives and campaign managers. This model for practice can be used by industry practitioners to underpin and guide the development, implementation and evaluation of immersive transmedia branding campaigns.