The lovely DFC illustrators have put together some brilliant tips on how to draw their characters for worksheets for festivals etc. Sarah McIntyre, author and illustrator of one of my favourite DFC strips, Vern and Lettuce, has posted hers on her blog. I can’t even manage to draw a stick man, but I just about managed it!
Categories: work
Tagged: How to draw Vern and Lettuce, Sarah McIntyre, the DFC
Piracy can no longer be thought of as a nuisance. It is the paradigm through which people obtain music. This panel will discuss specific tactics on how piracy can be harnessed to our advantage and why it is a positive thing for the music industry.
Jason Schwartz Prod Mgr, AngelsoftRandy Saaf CEO, MediaDefender IncI was one of the few people who didn’t make it to Jane McGonigal’s keynote, which sounds like it was excellent. But, I thought this panel might have some insightful parallels to publishing. Especially as recently there has been a lot of talk about piracy increasing the sales of books. The panel consisted of two guys who took very different approaches to piracy online. One worked for a company who, together with record labels, promoted bands by seeding albums on torrent sites. The other, who also worked in conjunction with labels, spent his time filling torrent sites with as many corrupt files as possible in an attempt to bury any actual pirated material. Jason Schwartz from Angelsoft explained how piracy can be a positive marketing tool:
- When seeding content you can track the number of downloads but also geographic data. Every IP address is logged. That information is then used strategically to plan tours etc.
- They are using piracy channels to distribute music freely.
Randy Saaf from Mediaedge really only had one point:
- Piracy is stealing. We want people to buy music legally instead and hopefully if we make it harder to find people will.
- He was behind the Madonna campaign to try and get one up on pirates.
I suspect Randy is fighting a losing battle. People will just find other ways and different channels to distribute pirated content. The guy did get a bit of a hard time at the panel. But I was really interested in the idea of piracy as a valid marketing device. I initially thought that no publisher would be willing to experiment with this, in my experience agents are wary of putting a few sample chapters online, so going the whole hog and encouraging piracy probably wouldn’t be met with a favourable response. But I was pleasantly surprised to read via Teleread that
No Starch Press is using P2P sites to
distribute a couple of their titles. They then hope that people who like will buy the pbook. Teleread also has an article suggesting that ebook publishers could use file sharing sites
to their advantage.
Categories: sxsw2008
Tagged: how piracy will save the music industry, sxsw, sxsw2008
A look at how interactive gaming, storytelling and puzzles can engage users with your brand. Movie and TV producers are increasingly using these tactics to promote their entertainment but is it possible for other brands to provide such experiences for their adorers or to attract new customers.
Rachel Clarke, Bibrik Ltd
Dan Hon, CEO, Six to Start
Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher, Penguin
Roo Reyolds, Metaverse Evangelist, IBM
Notable campaigns using games
- Rather than interruption marketing, games offer a way to interact and converse with consumers.But, Jeremy did point out that Penguin’s treasure hunt game for The Malice Box [Jeremy I'm assuming it was this, correct me if I'm wrong] didn’t work as a marketing tool. But paying bookshops for space did.
- Know your audience and know that there are multiple levels of players. Distinction online between Hardcore and Casual users. But no one ever talks about the Hardcore television audience, the kind of people that are really into LOST or a soap and then go online to find out more.
Convincing brands to use games
- Penguin has an ‘innovations fund’. So projects like ‘we tell stories’ aren’t paid for by the marketing department.[All publishers should do this, the larger ones can certainly find the money. It makes far more sense than using marketing budgets for digital projects as many marketing departments are set up for traditional marketing and really only plan far enough ahead to put together outdoor marketing. Whereas a good digital campaign, whether it's a game, blog or a user-generated project needs a lot of time to plan, execute and fix the inevitable issues that will unexpectedly crop up.] Penguin want to explore the future of the story.
Metrics
- Need to think about how you can use metrics to measure the depth of involvement. Are the traditional results of unique visitors and page views enough?
Games vs traditional marketing
- It needs to be relevant to the core of the brand.
- It’s all about collaboration. The sharing of knowledge and working together to solve a game is a powerful medium.
- Short term campaigns don’t necessarily make sense when you’ve spent time fostering a passionate user base. The Office Max Christmas Elves game was brought back each Christmas and has increased in success year after year. 1 million users first year, 11 million the second year.
- Niche success has an impact, it doesn’t have to have a mass appeal.
Are there brands that can’t use games as a tool?
- Definitely. The game has to be tailored to the campaign and brand.
Points arising from the Q&A
- You have to offer something to the consumer and community, two-way relationship.
- Jeremy made a good point that other publishers aren’t our competition, games are. We need to engage people with other ways of storytelling.
- Educational games can have the same objectives as the classroom. If a child reaches a certain level, or completes a task then we can prove that they have achieved specific learning objectives.
Categories: sxsw2008
Tagged: Dan Hon, Jeremy Ettinghausen, Rachel Clarke, Roo Reynolds, stories games and your brand, sxsw, sxsw2008
