“I know this is meant to be the ‘Shay finds new friends and is happy in Vail’ blog that reassures all my friends in old haunts that all is good, but I’m gonna have to skip that song and dance. Something weird is happening. Or else I’ve just developed out-of-control paranoia.”

Something weird, indeed, was happening. Shay begins documenting the unsettling discoveries he makes at his new home and shares them through a series of Facebook updates, blog posts, and videos. The first video introduces Shay and his new home: his uncle’s mansion. It also contains a clue that Shay’s paranoia isn’t out-of-control.

The reaction of Shay’s friends and followers was immediate and sympathetic. They posted drawings of Shay on his Facebook page, commented on his video posts, and gave words of advice and encouragement. Many offered their own explanations regarding the strange happenings at the mansion.

In response, Shay encouraged his supporters to help him solve the mysteries of the mansion, posted drawings of their Facebook avatars on his own Facebook wall, and continued to reveal more about the unusual world in which he found himself.

While the online interactions were entirely factual, Shay was as fictional as they come: he was a character from an upcoming novel called “Nightshade” by Andrea Cremer and published by Penguin. Working with a marketing firm named Campfire, Cremer and Penguin rolled out a highly interactive, multi-platform marketing campaign to build awareness for “Nightshade,” the first of a trilogy from Cremer.

Unlike traditional marketing approaches, this campaign explicitly sought input from fans and incorporated their feedback into the experience. In a way, the audience became part of the team, working collaboratively with each other, Cremer, Penguin, and the Campfire team to discover some of the puzzles in the “Nightshade” world and learn about one of its characters in a very personal way.

“With ‘Nightshade,’ we wanted to create an interaction and dialog between the audience and the content that went beyond the confines of the book.  We gave the audience the opportunity to play with the story and to actually be a part of the story, rather than just consume it.  We wanted a more meaningful level of involvement.” – Emily Romero, VP Marketing, Penguin Young Readers Group

Additionally, the campaign was meant to guide fans through parts of the “Nightshade” world not contained in the novel. The full vision involved publishing content across multiple platforms in an integrated approach to produce an experience for fans that ultimately walked them right up to the release of “Nightshade.” To achieve this, Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire had to work incredibly closely. They also had to balance the need for coordination and planning with the need to remain flexible as they responded to fans and created content in real time over the course of the campaign.

“We didn’t have a huge budget to surround people with a variety of media so we decided the feeling of immersion into the story we wanted to create would have to come from Shay being quick to respond to people. To do that authentically you need to work closely with the author. Andrea and Brian Cain, Campfire’s creative director on Nightshade, clicked immediately, and I knew we had the right team for this kind of experience.” – Mike Monello, Partner, Campfire.

The genesis for this experience started with an idea to use alternate reality game frameworks for the campaign. This meant Shay would interact with fans in character. According to Romero, this aspect initiated with Mike Kelly from Brand Value Advisors. “[Kelly] originally conceived of the alternative reality gaming approach, and he brought us together with Campfire. Campfire conceived of the campaign and executed it. It was a great collaboration.”

Making this kind of experience work required faith and support by Penguin as well as the right kind of author. Lisa Kelly, Assistant Director of Trade Marketing at Penguin, saw Cremer as the right fit for this kind of experience:

“Andrea was completely integral to this campaign and was an enthusiastic contributor. She volunteered to write up a ‘Bible’ of the world of Nightshade, a lengthy synopsis of the story arc of her trilogy with detailed descriptions of the main players in her world. This enabled Campfire to create a fully realized character to become the face of the campaign.”

Furthermore, Cremer’s ability to write quickly, coupled with her background, made the campaign possible. As a professor of history, Cremer sees many similarities between solving mysteries and her professional field of interest. Additionally, she’s a self-described gamer girl who was raised on Dungeons & Dragons and plays World of Warcraft.

“I like interactive world-building experiences, and it was a natural step to go from loving mysteries, role-playing games, and video games to working on an alternate reality game as an author,” Cremer said. “Penguin approached me and asked if I would be willing to work with a unique marketing firm [Campfire] to create original content in real time for a campaign.”

Cremer met with Campfire to share her vision of the “Nightshade” world and its characters. Based on what she shared, Campfire proposed using Shay as the face of the campaign and suggested structuring the campaign to help fans understand what led Shay to the circumstances he found himself in at the beginning of the novel. Interestingly, Shay isn’t the central protagonist of the novel.

According to Monello, “Shay was the best character to use as the center of the prequel because he enters the story as a newcomer to the Nightshade universe, putting him at the same level of knowledge as new fans entering the experience.”

Cremer soon found herself writing content for Shay’s Facebook Wall, the weekly video series, and “Shadow Days,” the prequel for “Nightshade.” The prequel explains how Shay ended up at his uncle’s mansion, as well as includes references to people who participated in the campaign. Amazingly, Cremer wrote the prequel during the campaign. While this proved challenging at times, it also gave Cremer the ability to tightly integrate and cross-reference content across mediums and platforms. The result proved to be a success (the second novel in the trilogy, “Wolfbane,” was released in 2011, and the final installment, “Bloodrose,” was just released).

But how, exactly, did Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire create an enthusiastic community of fans weeks before the release of “Nightshade?”

Ultimately, there were several components to the campaign proposed by Campfire, the company hired to work with Cremer and Penguin on the marketing campaign. Campfire’s Mike Monello explains why certain platforms were chosen for the campaign:

“Given the intended audience of “Nightshade,” we knew we needed to be on Facebook, but Facebook is not a great platform for serialized storytelling. Shay’s blog and the webisodes were intended to make it easier to join in while the campaign was in progress and give it a long afterlife. The physical objects are something we at Campfire incorporate into almost everything we do. When our digital and physical worlds collide in surprising and unexpected ways, it creates a strong emotional connection to the story. It’s very powerful when done well, and it’s unique to transmedia storytelling.”

How did these various platforms and content mediums work together to create an immersive experience for consumers?

First, there was the social media component: Shay Doran’s Facebook page and the Shay Doran website. These platforms allowed fans to comment on Shay’s exploration of the secrets hidden in the mansion. Conversely, Shay was able to respond in real time, giving the experience a sense of extended verisimilitude. Not only did fans post their original art of Shay on his Facebook page, fans found their own Facebook avatars turned into works of art that Shay posted in return. While it’s unlikely most of the fans took Shay to be a real person, their suspension of disbelief allowed them to interact directly with a fictional character in much the same way they interact daily with their own friends and family.

Second, there was the puzzle presented to fans in the form of some mysterious books Shay found in the mansion’s library. These books had intricate designs and patterns that Shay felt held the key to understanding the unusual occurrences he encountered in the mansion. A few lucky fans received these books in the mail and, after spending some time deciphering them, posted their findings on Facebook for the rest of the fan community to see.

Third, Campfire and Cremer worked closely together to write and produce the series of blog videos for Shay Doran’s website. Cremer would write the scripts each week in order to be able to reference fan activity on Facebook (e.g., finding clues in the books, responding to particular posts, mentioning certain fans by name). This increased the sense that fans were participating in a meaningful way.

Next, fans could text Shay at a particular number, though legal restrictions prevented Shay from texting back in character. Instead, Shay would often respond to texts on his Facebook wall.

A fifth component, was the behind-the-scenes efforts by Cremer to finish “Shadow Days,” a prequel novella that incorporated some of the “Nightshade” campaign fans who were very active. Cremer wrote the novella during the campaign, so it had a live, somewhat improvisational nature. The novella was released for free just before “Nightshade” went on sale.

By the time the novel was finally available for sale, not only did fans already know about the world behind the book, they had established a connection with one of the main characters in the novel. Some even got to see themselves as a character in the novella.

How well did the marketing experience work?

As of October 1, 2011, the official “Nightshade” Facebook page had over 3,000 likes, and the series of videos posted in late 2010 garnered thousands of views (and continues to gain more). According to Cremer, she regularly hears from new fans who just discovered the videos, prequel, or blog posts from the campaign. The content created for “Nightshade” continues to act as marketing for the series, even though the campaign is no longer active [note: since my interview with Cremer last summer, the content originally created for Shay’s personal website, http://shaydoran.com, is no longer available].

Penguin, Cremer, and Campfire are all pleased with the success of the campaign, though it didn’t completely work out as hoped.

“We learned it’s hard to generate pre-orders on a debut author’s book. One of the goals we set with Campfire was to achieve a certain number of pre-orders and we did not meet that goal. Even though we had plenty of engaged fans online talking about buying the book, many of them waited till they could touch and feel the finished book in person before placing their orders.” – Erin Dempsey, Executive Director of Trade Marketing – Penguin

However, the success of “Nightshade” positioned “Wolfsbane” to perform well. Six-week sales of the second installment were 250% ahead of its predecessor, and pre-orders were dramatically higher for “Wolfsbane,” according to Dempsey.

And Cremer notes the campaign is still doing its job.

“There are people just now finding the webisodes and are desperate because they want the puzzle books. The people who received the books and helped Shay solve the mystery had an extraordinary experience.”

With the recent release of “Bloodrose,” it would appear that Penguin’s willingness to try a non-conventional approach to marketing – by inviting consumers to be part of the experience through participation and contribution – proved to be the right call. The effectiveness of the “Nightshade” campaign positioned the series for greater success.

What separates this experience from traditional marketing is the explicit nature of the invitation for fans to participate (“Please help me!” is, after all, an arresting call to action). Rather than just produce free, static content for passive consumption – think teaser trailers, art, a short story – Cremer, Penguin, and Campfire designed the experience to include open doors for fans to walk through. Once inside, fans became part of the creative team: solving puzzles, providing content which was integrated into the official campaign experience, etc. And they were rewarded for their efforts by being named and/or recognized in the “Shadow Days” prequel (i.e., a parity of value exchange, something I’ve talked about before).

Can this model be replicated by other publishers? Absolutely, but it will require finding the right mix of internal resources willing to commit to this kind of experience, an author with a willingness and ability to engage with fans online, the right team to design the campaign, and a compelling story rich enough to support a robust world.

That’s not as daunting as it sounds, and I’m hoping to see more examples of this kind of value co-creation between authors, publishers, and audiences.

before reading my response below, and be sure to check out

Carrie Young’s expanded thoughts on the topic!

Earlier this year at the StoryWorld Conference, Andrea Phillips approached me and proclaimed, “You know, I really, really, really hate the term, ‘value co-creation!’” It was not the first time a female had approached me unsolicited and delivered a scathing remark, but it was the first time anyone had directly attacked this phrase.

A phrase I’ve taken to use a lot in the last two years (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

I know Andrea and her work. I like her, and I respect her creative instincts. Hearing her trash a term I’ve embraced and promoted for two years was a bit of a shock. Bruised my ego a bit, even. Why did she hate the phrase so much?

I replied, “Well, you know, I’m really, really, really going to keep using it, but I’d love to know why you think I shouldn’t!”

We had a quick chat about our different opinions on the term but ran out of time. Then I suggested we take the conversation to the streets (and by streets, I mean the Interwebz), as I thought it would actually be a constructive experience worth sharing with others. Might even encourage other creatives to weigh in.

As I told Andrea, I’m working with the best models and vocabulary I can, and I’ve spent a long time searching for the just the right phrase and just the right words (as proof of how far I’ve come I submit the following abandoned phrases: “renewable entertainment properties,” “collaborative property model,” and “evergreen entertainment models”). I don’t claim “value co-creation” is ideal in every case, but it’s the best I’ve come across so far.

Andrea was kind enough to take up my challenge, and she wrote an eloquent, thoughtful post about her objections to the term.

I still disagree with her conclusions, but she raises valid points about the issues surrounding frameworks where fans, UGC, and money mix. In fact, I acknowledged this thorny situation in a post earlier this year at Shared Story Worlds.

So where, precisely, do we disagree?

Andrea’s post takes aim at two things. The first is the phrase, “value co-creation,” and the second is the question of whether you can allow fans to profit from their UGC without creating an unpleasant community culture.

First, the phrase.

Andrea says value co-creation “glosses over what it actually is, and worse…misleadingly implies an equitable balance of power where there is none.” She suggests either of the following as better alternatives:

• Fan-curated profit-sharing
• Creator-curated audience collaboration

I disagree that the first option accurately describes what I mean when I say “value co-creation,” as it implies fans are doing all of the curation, which is not the case. Furthermore, it explicitly includes the phrase profit-sharing, which is not a requirement for all value co-creation scenarios (some do not involve money changing hands or are non-commercial – see my post here).

I reject the second one because it’s clunky and not much more accurate. As I read it, “creator-curated audience collaboration” doesn’t explain the role the creative has, and it doesn’t differentiate whether the audience is collaborating together or with the creative. Besides, others have been using value co-creation for a while (C.K. Prahalad wrote an entire book on the topic), and it nicely conveys what I mean when I use the term. I could have called it “super awesome audience play time” and defined it how I preferred, but I thought it best to build on an existing term.

As for value co-creation implying an equitable balance of power, well, that’s Andrea’s opinion, not an objective fact.

“Co” doesn’t mean or imply “equal.” Together, jointly, mutually – yes. But it doesn’t imply equal (if it did, why would we need the word “coequal?”).

I still don’t see a compelling case to abandon “value co-creation,” though Andrea is making me aware that I maybe haven’t done a good job of defining the phrase.

Fans are perfectly capable and willing of co-creating value. They already have the power to do so, and they exercise it every day. Each fanfic story, each fan art piece on Deviantart.com, each mashup, video, etc. based on someone else’s IP *is* value co-creation, whether the intellectual property (IP) owners acknowledges it or not.

Said actions do not, however, translate to commercial rights (ever had your YouTube-hosted video remix taken down via a DMCA notice?).

I see the concept of value co-creation as recognition that fans can create things of value based on others’ IP. The shared story world model I advocate builds a bridge between fans and IP owners, with value co-creation being a cornerstone of that model. It acknowledges the critical role fans play in commercial entertainment, and it offers a non-traditional way for fans to contribute to commercial entertainment (by recognizing certain UGC as official/canonical work and/or monetarily compensating fans for their UGC).

But we can quibble over terminology ad nauseum. Vocabulary alone is rarely the final stumbling block, and it isn’t Andrea’s underlying contention.

Andrea’s post reveals her true concern to be this: introducing a framework where fans can make money from someone else’s commercial IP and where the IP owner retains full commercial control over the IP will automatically result in an “unpleasant community culture” that becomes “toxic to the fan culture overall” (the implication being this kind of culture will have a fatal effect on the success of the IP).

Andrea then offers two solutions to avoid this situation: (1) never invite fans to contribute, but if you do select UGC for inclusion, do not pay fans for it; and (2) remove the IP owner as commercial gatekeeper (essentially stripping the owner of all rights to limit others’ commercial exploitation of the IP).

I agree with Andrea that these two options would limit what she calls “a community of freelancers all doing spec work in direct competition with one another.”

I disagree with her view that value co-creation models where fans are paid for their work (i.e., commercial shared story worlds) automatically create a toxic community which will necessarily lead to the failure of the IP.

Could it happen? Sure, just ask the people behind Fanlib’s spectacular demise. It’s sooooo easy to screw over your fanbase and reap the rewards of eternal derision and mistrust. So easy.

But not inevitable.

The kind of train wreck Andrea warns about isn’t a foregone conclusion due to some inherent flaw in the value co-creation concept for commercial shared story worlds. I just haven’t seen that to be the case. In fact, with the exception of Fanlib, I haven’t seen a fractured fan community destroy a value co-creation entertainment IP (and Fanlib’s failure is arguably a result of their disrespectful and tasteless handling of their target audience).

Andrea applauds the co-creation concept but hates the idea of seeing it fail due to terminology. I fear failure, too, though I suspect it takes a very different form.

Failure of value co-creation in a shared story world model is more likely to be a result of poor execution (mediocre storytelling, bad world design, ineffective marketing, missing legal components, etc.) or inappropriate community outreach. To paraphrase Whitman, “fandom is large, fandom contains multitudes.” Creatives should, indeed, tread lightly when dealing with large multitudes.

I guess my glasses are a bit rosier than Andrea’s when it comes to value co-creation and shared story worlds. I see shared story worlds surfacing in increasing frequency over the next few years, and no single phrase or injection of money into the mix is going to stem this tide. My optimism is buoyed by new projects like Angry Robot Books’ Worldbuilder project, where fans will be compensated for their creations.

How did the fans react to this news? Well, if the comments are any indication, the fans find the concept anything but toxic.

And notice how Angry Robot doesn’t mention shared story worlds or value co-creation? They don’t label it at all, actually. Just like when a new ARG is launched, it’s not plastered or marketed as an ARG? The people playing in these spaces don’t care that the rabbit hole they fell in to is an ARG any more than fans care about whether their favorite transmedia property is explicitly marketed as a “transmedia” experience. They just want to have fun.

We can have the internal debate over value co-creation just like we’ve been having for transmedia (and hasn’t that turned out wonderfully?), but our efforts really ought to be channeled towards creating cool, fun experiences for audiences. I doubt Andrea would disagree on that point.

So, yeah, I’m damn optimistic on value co-creation and shared story worlds. Color this typing monkey very optimistic, indeed.

The genesis for this started innocently enough with a few Skype calls to Emma Beddows, an Australian PhD candidate studying transmedia, pop culture, and fandom.

We talked a lot about value co-creation and fandom, and somewhere along the way (I couldn’t tell you exactly when), we decided we should start a website devoted to Star Wars fans – a site that invited them remix their world into something from the Star Wars universe. Something that puts our mutual passion for Star Wars in a context perfectly suited to our interest in fandom and creativity.

Here’s how it works: just take things in your ordinary world and remix them into the Star Wars world, then send us a picture. The emphasis is on ordinary and remix, so please stay away from digital designs/art, fan art, and using manufactured toys in your remixes.

Why?

Well, there are a ton of sites with great, curated collections of fan art and digital creations. No point in reinventing that wheel. And, we wanted the remixes to be really textural and tactile, where the remix produced both an end “product” but also a true “hands-on” experience.

Finally, we chose to use a Creative Commons license for all of the images. Because, you know, it just seemed right for this kind of project. Right?

Once Emma and I had the overall concept in place, we reached out to Noah Scalin (the creative behind Skull-a-Day) and Mica Scalin to help us get things off the ground with some initial remixes, a header image for the website, and help with spreading the word.

I’m thrilled as much to be working with smart, talented people like Emma, Noah, and Mica as I am to see how the creative community has already responded to our invitation (I’m truly impressed with the submissions – can’t wait to share them!).

And if you’re a Star Wars fan or just a very creative DIY/crafter, please head on over to Star Wars Remix and check out the remixes. You’re probably a lot closer to a galaxy far, far away than you think…

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/co-creating-value-with-customers/

http://turnstylenews.com/2011/04/14/shared-story-worlds-scott-walker-artist-series-podcast/

This interview could have easily gone on for hours – so much to cover, between transmedia, fandom, shared worlds, religion, education, the ‘Transmedia, Hollywood 2′ conference, etc.

Plus, Noah’s got some cool creative ideas of his own (which he couldn’t talk about yet), and I’m looking forward to seeing his projects (some will be shared worlds, too!) get launched.

http://turnstylenews.com/2011/04/14/shared-story-worlds-scott-walker-artist-series-podcast/

A lot of ground is covered, including the philosophy behind Brain Candy, LLC’s projects, my thoughts on bridging creatives and audiences, and how publishers can benefit from embracing a transmedia approach to content and intellectual property rights.

http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/01/rethinking-rights-in-a-transmedia-world/

We talk about new models of commercial entertainment, participatory entertainment, and (of course!) transmedia storytelling, and Haley Moore and Dee Cook give a rundown of the latest ARG experience from NoMimes Media, Webishades.

Wait, what? 2.0? Aren’t we still figuring out transmedia 1.0?

Yep.

But I’m already looking beyond most of what we’ve seen in transmedia storytelling to date, which has been ‘more of the same’ in the sense that the legal and creative lines between content creators and content consumers are still very much intact for commercial entertainment properties.

The core content (mothership, tent pole, etc.) has continued to lead the way, forcing core narrative extensions (e.g., the related comic, game, etc.) and the narrative marketing extensions (e.g., the ARGs and social media extensions) to be subservient to the core content. Sadly, most of the transmedia marketing is created after development of the core content, eliminating any chance for highly integrated, cohesive transmedia extensions from the core content.

[Note: at the risk of offending the ARG community, I'm labeling ARGs as marketing extensions for two reasons: they are not directly monetizable, and they have mostly been used as pre-launch marketing efforts for a directly monetizable product/service. This is, happily, changing, but to date most ARGs have been relegated to the marketing side of the house, not the creative side of commercial entertainment properties]

And there are pitifully few examples of commercial entertainment properties that possess a legal and creative structure to allow for the meaningful integration of consumer-generated content (CGC) into the official canon of the property.

I believe that will change, though, and I believe transmedia offers the perfect framework for allowing content producers and audiences to achieve the Holy Grail of entertainment: the co-creation of value.

I humbly submit that all CGC is, in fact, value. Some more so than others, to be sure, but value nonetheless.

Traditional entertainment is passive consumption of content. It’s a monologue of static content.

Transmedia 1.0 supports audience interaction with content. It’s a conversation of dynamic content. It’s engaging in a way no previous form of entertainment has been able to achieve.

Transmedia 2.0 invites audience participation and contribution of content. It’s a collaboration of content, a co-creation of value, supported by the rich, pervasive structure of transmedia 1.0.

Content producers who ignore CGC are like people walking across a floor covered in money. You can choose to walk past it, or you can choose to make the effort to pick it up.