Remarkable Reading #9: Frank Rose's THE ART OF IMMERSION and SOCIAL TV by Mike Proulx and Stacey Shepatin

The aim of this section Remarkable Reading is pay a tribute to the books that taught, share trends & insights into where our world in the 21st century is heading in a technology enabled world, and ask the right questions.

Bolded and italics quotes and references do not belong to myself  and belong directly to the author.  The focus is to share valuable insights and teachings from the book to win business for the authors.

A lot of changes have been happening within advertising in regards to a fast changing digital world, and the impact this has on broadcast television.  Mike Proulx and Stacey Shepatin SOCIAL TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media and Mobile is a sharp and incisive book about how to stay ahead of the latest changes happening within connected and smart televisions.   Writers Mike Proulx and Stacey Shepatin are progressive and expansive in their understanding of broadcasting and cable TV, and where we’re heading next.

Two trends I wanted to touch upon after reading SOCIAL TV are...

1. The role of the Internet and smart devices within the context of mainstream broadcast media and;
2. How to easily find the best content to watch in an ever-growing vast volume of content within mainstream media and social media

Page 3 states - “The internet has not killed TV; it has actually become its best friend”.  It is a companion for the growing masses of television viewers who are simultaneously going online while tuning into their favourite shows”

Mobile apps like GetGlue (now known as tvtag) allow users to “check-in” to a particular show whenever they are watching it around the world, and at whatever time.  This allows users to connect and congregate in one area while watching the show, discuss themes and ideas about the series, and connect and engage in discussion with other viewers.  I will be expanding on this further, but apps like tvtag and Miso may perhaps have missed a potential opportunity in their early days as far as viewer retention and engagement is concerned.  

Page 15 states - “Content can no longer be contained within time zones.  The backchannel has shattered geographical boundaries in a very open, public, and mass reach way.  A single tweet containing a spoiler could amplify and spread to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in a matter of hours, if not minutes”

This is a powerful first step in the right direction in terms of fans of a particular TV show congregating online together, and while the show is being watched on TV,  you can have entire back-channel conversations about the show.  Hashtags do a fantastic job at this now, however the opportunity for a mobile application to act as a immersive catalyst to a show online as a means to engage with other passion enthusiasts of the show still has room for further exploration in the product development arena.

Page 4 - “Although the television industry is undergoing a grandiose state of flux, it is also in the midst of its most exciting time period; the outcome of which will only make TV more compelling, more interactive, and more accessible.”

I believe we have yet to harness the proper power of smart devices with content viewing within an integrated and immersive environment.  The ability to harness “social” with “social TV” and a definitive sense of connectivity and interaction about the show real-time would be an absolute winner.  The reward to the viewer however perhaps must be of stronger value as well as a brand enthusiast for that particular TV show…

As Page 53 states - “At the end of the day, all have the same goal in helping people to find television shows to watch.  But the best “algorithm” is actually one’s friends, which is why social media will continue to grow as a trusted source for content discovery.  This represents a new level of focus around television show recommendations that leverages one’s social graph to drive tune-in using trusted sources: your friends”

Page 80 states - “The “check-in” is simply the entry-point into something more. And it is how you define the “more” that will determine your brand’s success in this space”

Understanding the complex changes happening within both, Smart TV’s, and their interaction with other smart devices within the Internet of Things is a complex area, and SOCIAL TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media and Mobile does a detailed analysis of the exciting opportunities we have in the 21st Century.

Frank Rose’s THE ART OF IMMERSION - How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories is a rigorous and methodical take on how an integrated storytelling approach, for both content, and advertising is crucial in this dynamic environment where electronic media and remix culture is changing the way we consume content forever.  This also has intense and sincere changes for advertising. Rose’s writing style is fluid and flows freely, and his ability to carefully articulate the details is splendid.

As Page 99 states - “The remix is the very nature of the digital,” Gibson writes.  “Today an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process generates countless hours of creative product.”  But mashups have no place in the way industrial-age media companies do business.  If the audience retells the story, then whose story is it”?

Page 2- “The Internet is a chameleon.  It is the first medium that can act like all media - it can be text, or audio, or video or all of the above.  It is nonlinear, thanks to the World Wide Web and the revolutionary convention of hyperlinking. It is inherently participatory- not just interactive in the sense that it responds to your commands…”

To define the exact role of the Internet within the context and landscape of established media will take time.  The impact on the roles and responsibilities of an advert, and its core purpose needs to be revisited and reexamined.  

As Page 251 states - “For me, if you look at television advertising now,” Law continued, “it’s a ballooning of entertainment at the expensive of information.  It’s a poor man’s Hollywood.”  But what civilians actually want, he argued, is information.  “That’s why they’re starting out more and more with Google search”

• The blurring of author and audience: Whose story is it?
• The blurring of story and game: How do you engage with it?
• The blurring of entertainment and marketing: What function does it serve?
• The blurring of fiction and reality: Where does one end and the other begin?

For passionate advocates of cinema & television entertainment as well as the Internet, Frank Rose’s THE ART OF IMMERSION and Mike Proulx and Stacey Shepatin SOCIAL TV are key additions to new business  books within this fast changing realm.  Topical and relevant, these are critical in helping us understand the future of our entertainment.

You can visit THE ART OF IMMERSION website here, follow Frank Rose on Twitter here and purchase a copy of THE ART OF IMMERSION on Amazon here.

You can visit Mike Proulx's website here, follow him on Twitter here, and purchase a copy on Amazon here. You can follow Stacey Shepatin on Twitter here

Thank You

Prashant aka Praz

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