NORTHERN PLANNER

Before I go on, brand essences, visions, positionings, onions, ladders and God knows what have their place. Sometimes you need a box full of ticks to give you a common frame of reference with clients, especially at board level. There, I’ve said. But you’ll find it hard to get something interesting enough for today’s mediascape if you stop there.

That goes for tone of voice too. This is an old rant, but the embers are still warm. More than once, I’ve been furnished with a hallowed huge tone of voice document from some brand consultancy,expected use it to inform the verbal and non-verbal bits of creative work. In other words, take the useless thing the ones a galaxy away from the creative did and make it relevant for the poor sods who have to actually execute something.

Now, to the bit I want to talk about. If you haven’t read Faris’ thesis on transmedia thinking, you should. If you still can’t be bothered (shame on you) simply consider that brand communication needs to be both complex and coherent accross a myriad of media, for a myriad of audience groups, who will mould the story in their own way, and talk to different people about in in different levels. That’s life I’m afraid.

And don’t scoff, that’s how  popular culture is going. The Star Wars films my have ended, but there’s a cartoon spin off coming this summer, and the next ”game’ is actually another prequel instalment in its own right, with a conclusion that turns the series on its head. Of course, you can stick with the films if you like, or maybe read a couple of books, or you may have read some of the comics as a kid – engage as much as you like. Not to mention the compexity of Lost, The Dr Who spin off series’ or even how you’ll neverf truly get Donnie Darko without some time on the website.

It’s not as hard or incoherent as it looks. George Lucas has a back story for Star Wars long before he wrote the first script. Jk Rowling had a core Potter timeline in place well before the first book. Tolkien created language and mythology for his world long before he wrote the Hobbit…depth, history….back story.

That’s starts with a film pitch quality for brands…something concise, but rich enough for lots of sub-plots (evolving tactical objectives), character arcs (different reaons to enage for different fans) and spin offs (brand extensions). Like Buffy’s ‘horror in high school’ the X-Files ‘paranormal FBI departement, the Bourne films ‘Crack assassin with amnesia’ and of course, the great Heroes ‘People with superpowers but not in comic book land’.

Write a back story first, look for the story arc, then look to compress it. As long as you know it’s generous enough for lots of episodes/chapters, it makes planning for brands at once consistent and liberating. It becomes, "Where should the story go now, based on what we know we need to achieve".

It’s only one way of doing it, but it seems to help me. Have a go, see what you think.