Results tagged “twitter” from experiential thoughts
So the MadMen characters' Twitter accounts were turned back on after a bit of confusion last weekend. It appears that AMC's online marketing team at Deep Focus chatted with the AMC team and convinced them that "everything was cool". As much as it is being argued that these are "fan generated" they do seem to have an amazingly coherent voice with the show and one wonders if they might not in fact be agency/production/marketing generated. No matter, they are an interesting experiment/extension and I'm interested to see how they evolve and survive over time.
That all said, there does seem to be an expansion of the number of characters twittering, including several that one has to question the "reality" of them actually using twitter. Would Betty Draper (@bettydraper) or Francine Hanson (@francine_hanson) have really used twitter? One of the nice things about the usage within the agency was the rate of adoption and difference in usage patterns. To suddenly have the crew of characters from outside that community join and adopt in full force makes me wonder about the faithfulness of the adoption to the character profiles. Betty's character is not exactly prone to discussing things in public -- at a minimum her account should have been set to private, a bit of a party line that you'd have to ask to join.
But this is a grand experimental world we're all playing in, so I can't fault those behind this experiment too much. It will be interesting to see how this all resolves.
The other odd thing from this is the appearance of several Twitter accounts of real but deceased individuals from the MadMen era. Bill Bernback has appeared as (@billbernbach) with tweets referencing Don Draper. This is a bit of a tread into dangerous territory, especially if it is agency/marketer conducted, as the estate of Bernbach and the current DDB Legal team probably have some serious issues with this.
So where does the line get drawn?
All things to ponder for the lawyers and practitioners...and all things I will ponder here in the coming weeks.
Thoughts?
That all said, there does seem to be an expansion of the number of characters twittering, including several that one has to question the "reality" of them actually using twitter. Would Betty Draper (@bettydraper) or Francine Hanson (@francine_hanson) have really used twitter? One of the nice things about the usage within the agency was the rate of adoption and difference in usage patterns. To suddenly have the crew of characters from outside that community join and adopt in full force makes me wonder about the faithfulness of the adoption to the character profiles. Betty's character is not exactly prone to discussing things in public -- at a minimum her account should have been set to private, a bit of a party line that you'd have to ask to join.
But this is a grand experimental world we're all playing in, so I can't fault those behind this experiment too much. It will be interesting to see how this all resolves.
The other odd thing from this is the appearance of several Twitter accounts of real but deceased individuals from the MadMen era. Bill Bernback has appeared as (@billbernbach) with tweets referencing Don Draper. This is a bit of a tread into dangerous territory, especially if it is agency/marketer conducted, as the estate of Bernbach and the current DDB Legal team probably have some serious issues with this.
So where does the line get drawn?
- Is impersonating fictional characters as a fan "OK" in the name of audience engagement?
- Does it matter if there is a formal agency or producer approval?
- Does said approval need to be public?
- What about impersonating figures from history?
- Is the situation different if the impersonation is related to a commercial project vs a non-profit or personal project?
- Is it any different if the figure is from long ago vs recent history (think Charlemagne vs JFK)?
All things to ponder for the lawyers and practitioners...and all things I will ponder here in the coming weeks.
Thoughts?
So it turns out that AMC was not behind the MadMen Twitters - or at least in any kind of approved methodology. They've sent Twitter a DMCA complaint about the accounts, and several are already pulled: @don_draper & @peggyolson.
I think that this is an epic FAIL on the part of AMC...the presence of the characters had created an interaction with a selection of fans on Twitter, and more importantly had lead to nothing but positive buzz. Said buzz has likely already impacted search and other marketing mediums outside of twitter. Once again a company seems to have made the knee jerk legal team reaction when they could have brought the fan efforts into the fold. That is assuming that it is a fan effort and not from a member of the content team that failed to inform legal or marketing.
Heads up came from venture beat: http://url.ie/n5w
I think that this is an epic FAIL on the part of AMC...the presence of the characters had created an interaction with a selection of fans on Twitter, and more importantly had lead to nothing but positive buzz. Said buzz has likely already impacted search and other marketing mediums outside of twitter. Once again a company seems to have made the knee jerk legal team reaction when they could have brought the fan efforts into the fold. That is assuming that it is a fan effort and not from a member of the content team that failed to inform legal or marketing.
Heads up came from venture beat: http://url.ie/n5w
The team from MadMen is bringing some of the characters to life on Twitter... @don_draper, @joan_holloway, @peggyolson, @pete_campbell & @bertram_cooper have all joined over the last few days...
The interesting thing is not just that the twitters are very well done and in character, but that the order in which characters have joined, and the way they tweet is very much in line with the way that Twitter seems to grow through groups and organizations. Having been the first one at my last agency on Twitter, and then having followed the ebb and flow of usage throughout the organization over time, the SterlingCooper twitter adoption rate seems spot on.
To me, this is a perfect example of how to bring the art of storytelling to life in interactive space. Study the medium you are going to work in, and use it the way that real people use it. You wouldn't shoot footage of someone doing something completely unreal in a TV or Movie Drama, don't force your characters to behave in an unreal way on Twitter or any other social media platform.
And just like in any form of entertainment -- the more attention you pay to the little details, the more real it will become to your audience, and them more engaged they will become. The medium changes what those details should be, but not the fact that there should be details, and that they need to be right.
The interesting thing is not just that the twitters are very well done and in character, but that the order in which characters have joined, and the way they tweet is very much in line with the way that Twitter seems to grow through groups and organizations. Having been the first one at my last agency on Twitter, and then having followed the ebb and flow of usage throughout the organization over time, the SterlingCooper twitter adoption rate seems spot on.
To me, this is a perfect example of how to bring the art of storytelling to life in interactive space. Study the medium you are going to work in, and use it the way that real people use it. You wouldn't shoot footage of someone doing something completely unreal in a TV or Movie Drama, don't force your characters to behave in an unreal way on Twitter or any other social media platform.
And just like in any form of entertainment -- the more attention you pay to the little details, the more real it will become to your audience, and them more engaged they will become. The medium changes what those details should be, but not the fact that there should be details, and that they need to be right.
After seeing a recent group on Facebook looking to develop a community funding movement for Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21624136569 I was inspired to create a similar group calling for the Open Sourcing of the Twitter platform (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18865061654). The idea being that Twitter will become stabler much faster if the base platform is open sourced rather than built with a limited paid group (no matter how much money is raised.)
What does Twitter stand to gain? A stable platform, continued dominance in the space, and the ability to focus on $$ making aspects much faster -- for example corporate implementation and closed networks.
This is a similar concept to a recent open source distributed microblogging platform movement that Joe Cascio (@joec0914) has been leading the charge on. Again, the idea is that a community supported and built open source project focussed on the platform level would be more adaptable and scaleable.
It would be great to see either of these projects take off, because the twitter concept is great, and because I'd love to see twitter succeed and don't think that they need a proprietary base platform to do so.
What does Twitter stand to gain? A stable platform, continued dominance in the space, and the ability to focus on $$ making aspects much faster -- for example corporate implementation and closed networks.
This is a similar concept to a recent open source distributed microblogging platform movement that Joe Cascio (@joec0914) has been leading the charge on. Again, the idea is that a community supported and built open source project focussed on the platform level would be more adaptable and scaleable.
It would be great to see either of these projects take off, because the twitter concept is great, and because I'd love to see twitter succeed and don't think that they need a proprietary base platform to do so.
