What is the Mediaverse Meme?

What is a mediaverse? A mediaverse is an immersive group of brand-focused media platforms. The purpose is to continue to expand a popular idea/brand by branching out with more platforms to further engage 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 soon after the launch reached proof-of-concept metrics, a variety of supporting platforms launched. As the show progressed, the platforming group evolved, grew, and became more interconnected. Here’s a dissection of the Heroes mediaverse:

Feel free to explore in Heroes | nbc

oThe main TV show Heroes.

This is obviously the cornerstone of the entire group. All the episodes are available online so that people who miss the show or are more web oriented can be drawn to the gravity of the show. The big added benefit of being able to watch it again online is that

-gave fans a reason to visit the website

-made the program shareable with friends

-reinforced loading dock for all future platforms

-provided an additional channel of advertising revenue

oGraphic Novels: The website offers users free access to serialized graphic novels about the show. The novelas began to bridge the gap between the weekly episodes. This gave eager viewers eager to see what’s next the ability to delve into the plots in between and gain additional character insights. Again, this provided an additional revenue channel by having Nissan Versa sponsored ads on all DLC.

*Side Note* Nissan in Season 1 was its own key entrant in the Heroes media verse and did a terrific 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 resonated with several of the Heroes Mediaverse channels.

oBlogs and websites

This is really where the immersive factor of the world of Heroes started to stretch out in more directions. The brand launched a series of world-related websites and blogs. Many of the characters are represented, as well as influential companies. Here is a list:

Primatech Paper

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 based on updating the fictional world. Furthermore, they chose channels that were relevant and made logical sense. For example, the Vote Petrelli site was perfect for both the media dominating this year’s election climate and Nathan Petrelli obviously running a political website. As well as a myspace page for teenage superheroine Claire it fit the bill. The site’s collections provided more ways to become deeply involved with the show.

oThe Heroes Wiki

The Wiki was another well organized idea. A good part of superhero fans love to know the obscure details of the show and the wiki provides an avenue to compile all that information. Also, anyone who wants to get summaries and relevant production information could participate and acquire those details. And since the wiki platform is open source and free, it took relatively few resources to put this piece together.

*Note: Heroes Wiki is a fan-created site that gains enough popularity to be listed on the official NBC site. See the explanation in the comments of this article.

oTutorials

The site provides a series of week by week tutorials from all seasons. The tours 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 catalogs the world’s biggest events week by week.

oHistory

The Story feature is an interactive storytelling platform for the brand that allows users to make decisions that affect the narrative 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 of the characters are story-specific, so again, fans have another outlet to get more deeply involved with the brand, and producers get feedback on what kinds of things they’d like to see happen.

oWebisodes

Yes, the platforms keep coming. Webisodes in their own right are becoming something of a marketing meme. I love this idea, as webisodes are cheaper to produce and provide valuable testing and data-gathering opportunities to push concepts to the fullest through other channels. Another example that I know of that went from the web to television is the Sanctuary series on SciFi. In any case, the Heroes webisode again creates another avenue for users to participate. Even the webisodes themselves get away, as users can access behind-the-scenes videos, photos, and wallpapers related to the platform.

oCreate your own hero

This platform directly called users to give their opinion on which character they would like to see in the world of Heroes. I love it, trying it out and launching it with the bonus of hooking the users who voted for the character in the first place with the option to bring in finalist winners. It seems that the selected character will have his own spin-off show or webisode.

oMicroseries

Santiago, the winner of the platform create your own hero, gets a microseries. I think now you are starting to see the pattern of how one platform stimulates another and creates an interconnection between other platforms in a self-sustaining mechanism.

Interactive SMS

The SMS tricks that many brands have used generally don’t count towards building a mediaverse, but live, during broadcast polls, quizzes and trivia they do. The $5000 draw is a nice incentive, and of course, the brand gets phone numbers and texting privileges for numerous fans.

oHeroes Magazine

This is a web-only edition, but since there’s so much going on within the world, it makes sense to have magazine-angle coverage of all the interconnections. The magazine also fills the gap of getting interviews with the cast that is strangely missing from all the other platforms. I guess this is because most of the platforms are working to create a fictional effect to reality and the cast interviews break the fictional dream so to speak.

oGames

As if you didn’t see it coming… All kinds of games and quizzes to immerse yourself in. Many brands haven’t gotten it right, but games and superheroes fit perfectly into the world of heroes.

oMessage boards

Some of the above platforms provide the opportunity for fan interaction, but message boards concentrate 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 another platform to engage more deeply with the brand. And what do they talk about on the boards? All other platforms and elements of the Heroes mediaverse.

oTake It – Widgets and Icons

After all of the above, you’d think 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 owns real estate from small users through various channels.

oStore

OK, you got the idea with the store, I hope…

Phew! So, looking at the long list of platforms that are lumped together in the Heroes mediaverse, you can see how it helped stabilize the brand and provide consistent content in a medium that normally thrives on eager 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 towards entertainment channels. You could also throw books into the mix, like the huge Harry Potter franchise, which has spawned a world of its own.

I think we’ve seen a lot of trying and poor execution in this area without having an overall strategy. The closest I’ve seen are some of the viral campaigns for movies like the latest Batman release.

So here’s the challenge:

Choose a non-entertainment industry or brand (no movies, TV or books) and explain your vision for a mediaverse brand or point out the one that currently exists

My choice is Nikon. Nikon has taken advantage of photo-sharing technology such as Flickr to tag images taken with a Nikon camera and launched its own site that showcases user-created content. Photo contests have long been a good marketing arm of camera companies. I think you could expand this with deviant art-like sites to produce a lot of user-generated content for Nikon cameras. Also, exclusivity marketing would be huge, like buying key photography venues at events like celebrity awards or sporting events and only allowing Nikon cameras in the area. There are plenty of mini blog possibilities here for humorous images or any other emotionally engaging topic. Just think how smart it would have been if Nikon had released something as inducing as Ihaschzburger or similar.

Let me know what you think.