ARGFest was an amazing event that brought together an insanely talented group of practitioners and players in the transmedia space. I forged some great working relationships with new folks over the weekend.

We feel real fear as Jason approaches the unwitting teenager. Terror when we hear the haunting shark melody from Jaws, without even seeing a shark. Why? We feel euphoric when the officer becomes a gentleman. The hero gets the girl. We know the whole time that these characters are only words on a page or light on a screen.

Why do we believe in these fictional beings and feel emotions toward them, even when they are as implausible as Darth Vader or Superman?

Neuroscientists are beginning to unravel the mystery. Norman Holland, author of Literature and the Brain explains thusly:

In both the act of creation by the writer and our re-creation of the work as readers and audience members, we are passive and receptive. Totally involved in perception, we shut down our systems for motor action and the planning of motor actions. For the creator, that means reduced norepinephrine.  For us, just sitting in an armchair reading or in a theater watching, we believe in fictional characters and events because reality testing is tied to motor activity. Because we are not planning to move, we stop doubting. We feel real emotions toward these fictional characters because the dorsal “where-how” and the ventral “what” systems in our brains are getting conflicting information.

Which leads us to the relatively new practice of Neuromarketing. We may try to hide our lust for goods, but our brain can’t.

Neuromarketing is using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Brain science has advanced quite a bit in the past decade and we now have a much better idea of just how people make decisions.

One of the key lessons learned from brain science is that when we ask people about their reasons for things, we’re only getting a small part of the brain processes that underlie their decision making. A lot of times the information we get is really a reconstruction or rationalization. I’ve seen this using lots of traditional primary research methodologies. We may want to avoid saying we buy things because they appeal to our sense of pride or vanity or some other deadly sin. One of the most fundamental insights in brain science is that most of the processes that underlie our decisions are unavailable to our conscious mind. They’re done on the basis of intuition or unconscious processing. This leads to research findings that are maddeningly “inconclusive”.

So what does this all mean for storytelling, marketing and branding?

In social psychological terms, anecdotes are more powerful persuaders than advertisements. The lawn mower my neighbor recommends is better than the one I see on TV commercial. As long as the source is likable and credible. What we’re really talking about is simply relationships and trust.

A story, especially a good story, allows the audience to disengage a little from reason. A great book can have us suspend disbelief and accept all kinds of outrageous possibilities. With a good brand story, if it engages us emotionally, if we like the source, if we attribute to the brand some positive characteristics, then there is a halo effect extending over the product/s for sale. The story has provided value and built trust with the brand.

All the positive feelings we now have lower frontal lobe activity, reducing critical thinking, making us more easily accept what we’re watching, hearing and feeling. We’re then more likely to engage in some active behavior; consideration set ranking, discussing, shopping, buying, recommending it to a friend, writing blog posts about it, becoming brand loyal, becoming brand fanatical.

End of story.

“The difficulty of reaching more elusive target consumers, and the transformation of personal communications due to these developments have made it more important than ever for brands to invest in strategies to engage target consumers in captive locations for extended periods of time through the power of emotional connections.”

Patrick Quinn, CEO of PQ Media

We couldn’t agree more Patrick.

ONLY 18% OF TRADITIONAL TV CAMPAIGNS GENERATE POSITIVE ROI

DM AND ONLINE RESPONSE RATES DOWN 90%

SOCIAL MEDIA #1 ACTIVITY ON THE WEB

300,000,000 FACEBOOK USERS SHARE 1.5 MILLION PIECES OF CONTENT EVERY DAY

YOUTUBE IS THE #2 SEARCH ENGINE IN THE WORLD

200+ MILLION BLOGGERS, 54% POST EVERY DAY

3 OUT OF 4 AMERICANS USE SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY.

2/3 OF THE GLOBAL INTERNET POPULATION VISIT SOCIAL NETWORKS.

VISITING SOCIAL SITES IS NOW THE 4TH MOST POPULAR ONLINE ACTIVITY—AHEAD OF PERSONAL EMAIL.

BECAUSE TIME SPENT ON SOCIAL NETWORKS IS GROWING AT 3X THE OVERALL INTERNET RATE, ACCOUNTING FOR ~10% OF ALL INTERNET TIME.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS DEMOCRATIZING COMMUNICATIONS.

“TECHNOLOGY IS SHIFTING THE POWER AWAY FROM THE EDITORS, THE PUBLISHERS, THE ESTABLISHMENT, THE MEDIA ELITE. NOW IT’S THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN CONTROL.” RUPERT MURDOCH, GLOBAL MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR

13 HOURS – THE AMOUNT OF VIDEO UPLOADED TO YOUTUBE EVERY MINUTE.

412.3 YEARS – THE LENGTH OF TIME IT WOULD TAKE TO VIEW EVERY YOUTUBE VIDEO.

100,000,000 – THE NUMBER OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS VIEWED PER DAY.

13,000,000 – THE NUMBER OF ARTICLES AVAILABLE ON WIKIPEDIA.

3,600,000,000 – THE NUMBER OF PHOTOS ARCHIVED ON FLICKR AS OF JUNE 2009. ROUGHLY 1 PHOTO PER EVERY 2 PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.

1382% – THE MONTHLY GROWTH RATE OF TWITTER USERS FROM JAN TO FEB 2009

3,000,000 – THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF TWEETS PER DAY ON TWITTER

5,000,000,000 – THE NUMBER OF MINUTES SPENT ON FACEBOOK EACH DAY.

1,000,000,000 – THE AMOUNT OF CONTENT SHARED EACH WEEK ON FACEBOOK.

IF FACEBOOK WERE A COUNTRY, IT WOULD BE THE 8TH MOST POPULATED IN THE WORLD, JUST AHEAD OF JAPAN.

93% OF SOCIAL MEDIA USERS BELIEVE A COMPANY SHOULD HAVE A PRESENCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

What are you doing to engage humans with content they actually value on an ongoing basis?

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Shows that were created for housewives with commercials for housewives.

Evolved into single sponsor “brought to you by”.

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One of the first in the “brand patronage” genre. Certainly a sandbox us humans play in as well.

And then “unpaid” brand integration which added needed realism to the story as a filmic devices.

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Which of course then became a Super Bowl spot.

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Wilson the Volleyball is actually listed as a character on IMDb (uncredited). He went on to play “himself” in several SNL skits and a documentary short entitled Wilson: The Life and Death of Hollywood Extra. Really, really. Wilson Sporting Goods manufactured a volleyball with a parody of the hand print face on one side during the film’s initial release.

Today, American Airlines and Hilton Hotels were featured prominently in the George Clooney movie Up in the Air in exchange for production dollars. That’s big budget feature films. A retro Conrad Hilton appears in Mad Men where the brand is featured in several episodes of season three. That’s TV. The Sklar brothers win the Streamy for brand integration with Back on Topps, a comedy series featuring Topps Baseball Cards, Dicks Sporting Goods and Skype. That’s the web.

This is School of Humans.

1. He sells to a very specific group of people, people who are both willing to hear what he has to say and able to pay what he wants to charge them.
2. He tells a story to this group, a story that matches their worldview. He doesn’t try to teach non-customers a lesson or persuade them that they are wrong or don’t know enough about his art. Instead, he makes it easy for his happy customers to bring his art to others.
3. He intentionally creates an experience that is remarkable and likely to spread. “What did you do last night?” is a great question when it’s asked of someone you entertained the night before, particularly if you can give the audience an answer they can give. That’s how the word spreads.
4. He’s extremely generous in who he works with, how promiscuous he is about sharing and in his attitude.
5. He’s very good at his craft. Don’t overlook this one.

At the essence of these five thoughts are three insights that are at the core of making successful entertainment properties for the social web:

1. Find your audience. Godin’s #1 and #2 are all about finding your audience where they gather and understanding the best way to connect them to the story. And while brands have done a good job of finding their audiences in meatspace (in traditional media, print, outdoor, and guerrilla), they haven’t always done as good a job in the digital social space. Which is odd, because in the digital social space it’s actually much easier to find groups of people gathering not around artificial categories like neighborhoods or jobs, but around their passions. But unfortunately, many brands stop their social presence at a Facebook and Twitter page, instead of seeking out their audiences where they gather — on an IT techs’ forum, on a news group for advertising creatives, in the blogrolls of mommy bloggers. And only a brave few have begun the process of creating compelling entertainment designed specifically with those niche destinations and audiences in mind — to, as Godin puts it, “tell a story that matches their worldview.”

2. Make it awesome. No matter how good your audience insights and digital connection planning is, if your story sucks, it’s DOA. For branded entertainment to be successful, it has to be entertaining first. Period. Because the win for a brand is not just getting another brand impression, and it isn’t just engrossing the viewer for the 3-5 minutes a webisode plays. It’s in creating an ongoing universe the viewer wants to delve in, wants to share with their friends, and can’t wait to visit again with the next episode.

3. Be promiscuous. Infectious performers like Gary Vaynerchuk or Steve Cohen encourage spreadability of their thoughts through their generosity and approachability.They make people want to share what they say. Why? Because people value what they are saying and the fact that they are the ones saying it. That’s what creates believers. People who want to see you succeed. In the syndicated, social web, it’s simple to create distribution systems that make it easy for viewers to share your story. But if you can also make it easy for them to want to share your story? Well, that’s the true magician’s secret behind spreadable media.

“A branded entertainment  series that is valued content for my social media fans/followers and can extend my digital reach to attract more fans? That sounds great, so what’s the ROI of that investment? Here at Big International Company, we have a corporate edict that we receive a return on investment from social media expenditures on an 8 to 1 ratio. For every dollar we spend we need 8 dollars back.”

We actually heard this from a very well educated person at a very large international corporation who was in charge of their social media strategy. Our reaction? Really? How nice for you and your great big company. I wanted to call my stock broker and demand the same ROI from all my investments!

Adweek recently published an article that declared a Facebook fanbase of 1 million is worth about $3.60 million in equivalent media per year. This came from social platform creator Vitrue. They applied this formula to Starbuck’s Facebook presence and determined it was worth $23.4 million per year in earned media.

AgencySpy’s Matt Von Hoven wrote a follow up article where he asked Starbucks for a reaction to this revelation. We find their reaction to be consistent with a big brand that “gets it”. Matt’s article is worth the read and us humans couldn’t agree more with the points he raises.

Now, I’m off to speak to my banker about that savings account where I’m only earning 0.2% on my money.