Article

All about the content: Content across the digital landscape

The latest installment of the "All about the content" series talks about creating content to cross channels.

December 6, 2010

by Keith Kelsen

This is a follow-up piece to an article that I wrote for this series in April called "All screens all the time...Transmedia." I believe that this is where media is going and is accelerating.

When one looks at the digital landscape, we now have five screens. The Silver Screen, Television, PC/Internet, Mobile/Internet and DOOH/Digital Signage — and then of course there is print.

In the path to purchase this used to be a very simple solution. Place an ad in the newspaper or on TV and viola, sales go up. In tests in early 1940's television commercials consisted of one advertiser supporting a single show, and Booz Allen worked for the then-RCA subsidiary, National Broadcasting Company, conducting studies of NBC's young television industry and watching neighborhoods react. This path to purchase has changed with each addition of each screen and the digitization and socialization of media.

So how does one take into account all screens and even print? The challenges are threefold:

• Seamless Transfer of Assets and Design Elements
• Managing Campaigns and their Elements
• Moving that Content Across all Channels of Media

Remember, each screen is a different medium: The thinking is different, the content is different, but the results are the same.

The solution is simple; the implementation is complex.

First one must look at the organization of the company and the organization of media creation. The silos in everyday companies must be broken down between media and marketing channels within the company itself, including print. Normally these budgets and media creation units have in the past been separated and even the messages are commonly different. Today, those individual divisions need one single person who makes the decisions, follows the message continuity and utilizes digital assets across all platforms.

This fundamental change in the organization will fuel cost savings and create consistent media campaigns and communication across the entire digital landscape. This is by far the most difficult step in the process of becoming up to speed in the digital/social revolution.

In this plan, one needs to consider how one creates media. Creating full complete media one-offs (e.g., TV commercials) is a something that is no longer cost effective. One can create media as a holistic exercise. The planning process is more cumbersome, but the results have longevity and consistency. Taking a bite-size approach to media will allow one to see the bigger picture. One can look at the entire landscape and make decisions around which platform the content will play. When creating media to play across the entire digital landscape, one must break down each scene, each bit of copy, each graphic, each shot, into granular and modular content objects separate from the media channel. For example, one may have a graphic that will be used in training, a magazine article, TV, Web, Mobile, a kiosk touch screen and on DOOH. This single graphic needs to be created in a high enough quality so that it can be transcoded to any media easily. By creating a matrix that includes platforms, stories, assets and messages, one can then break all campaigns and communication messages down to these bite-size modular objects.

One can create a database of these content objects and meta-tag them with campaign information, intended use and keywords that will allow any author of any media platform to grab the object they need easily and cost effectively. The author of each platform can now pull any of the content objects into their campaign with consistency of image and copy that will run through all media channels.

Has media has reached beyond the simple and into the complex, or is it that it has become complex simply because of a path of evolution over the last 100 years and it now needs to be simplified?

Keith Kelsen is the author of "Unleashing the Power of Digital Signage – Content Strategies for the 5th Screen." More information about the book and the book's companion website can be found at www.5thscreen.info. Follow him on Twitter @KKelsen.

"All About the Content" Series links:

All about the content: A strategic blueprint for DOOH networks

All about the content: New technology will change engagement through digital signage

All about the content: Aspect ratios: How content 'shapes up'

All about the content: Automated content and templates

All about the content: Screen zones, to subdivide or not to subdivide?

All about the content: Creating relevance with viewer types

All About the Content: Engagement through Touch