Ready Player One

In Ernest Cline’s novel, “Ready Player One” the reader is transported to a dystopic vision of the distant future. In it, expansive virtual worlds have become so immersive, people are rarely to be found walking around in the polluted, crowded and resource depleted real world. Spielberg is attached to direct but there’s not even a release date yet.

In a rare case of life not just imitating art, but beating it to the punch, multiple VR headsets are set to hit the shelves by 2016. Facebook owned, Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive in cooperation with Valve (Which of all the teasers vids I saw had the one that got me most excited.) And PlayStation with it’s Project Morpheus system which will operate on the PS4 platform.

Dev kits are already available for many of these. Oculus is promised on shelf by Q1 of 2016. The last build featured two 5 inch OLED displays with a 960x1080 resolution and 75 hz refresh. HTC hasn’t confirmed a date yet. But likely in the same time frame with a 1080x1200 resoloution and 90 hz refresh.

The implications for advertisers are as mindblowing as the technology itself. So it’s never too early for us to start thinking about how to craft stories in free-roaming 3D space.

In the VR core discussion, the first step was to talk camera. Understanding how that works gives us some valuable clues on how to story build in this environment. There are many players. But nobody quite as far as along with a soup-to-nuts offering as Palo Alto startup, Jaunt.

As the picture suggests, there is no camera man. He/she would be clearly visible to the viewer. There’s also no relensing opportunities. There is no close-up. Which is one of the first adjustment storytellers have to adjust to. An so, in the order they were delivered to me, here are few tips for storytelling in VR World.

1)   Story. In VR World, story is present in the act of the viewer doing things rather than us (as storytellers) telling them things. Think of yourself as more of a guide than an author.

2)   It’s helpful to cede control. You can’t be all Type A about what your viewer does. Prepare for their willfulness to contradict your tour guideness at times.

3)   Your viewer will focus on the stupidest details. They’ll obsess over stuff you don’t want them to. The implication here is to be cautious about what to include. Superfluous stuff could lead to a rabbit hole that will ultimately lead to disengagement with the experience you’ve created. Focusing your viewers attention is, for that reason, very important.

4)    Don’t put your viewer between actors. People don’t experience the world that way.

5)   Tell your viewer up-front if they are existent or non-existent in the world. It saves a lot of frustration. This will help you answer production questions like whether the actors will look right into the camera or not.

6)   Just in terms of mental construct, it’s helpful to think of it as REVERSE theater in the round, where the audience is on stage and the seating portion is where the actors live.

Another interesting permutation could prover a more successful and ultimately useful challenger to the full VR model.  Two companies, Magic Leap and Microsoft with their project called Hololens,

are working on headsets that, in very broad terms, are like Google Glass on Steroids.  

Magic Leap uses a digital lightfield technology to blend real world images and created images in an indistinguishable way. Which is both cool and eerie.  

Microsoft calls what they do “Mixed Reality” (as opposed to VR). Not clear if the technologies are similar. But what does seem clear upfront is that Mixed Reality leans toward productivity and life stuff where VR is a trippy, immersive escape more inclined toward gaming and entertainment.

Fame.

A lot of discussion this year at SXSWi about the changing nature of fame in a digital world.

But first, this little chesnut from decades past. Yes, it’s the opening credits to the T.V. series "Fame" 

NOTE: When attempting to talk to Gen-X’ers, it will bring you enormous street cred to be able to recite these lyrics. Extra points if you can tap a rhythmically tap a wooden cane like Debbie Allen in the credit sequence.

Believe it or not, this is what fame looked like in 1982. Thirty-three years later, the concept of “fame” looks radically different. 

When asked about who they regard as celebrity, this survey published in "Variety" demonstrated  that Millenials overwhelmingly favored the Youtube famous over the Hollywood famous.

Astonishing.

To call  these Youtube tyros ‘Micro-influencers’ seems short-sighted at best. They’re trouncing the Jennifer Lawrence’s and Seth Rogen’s of the world amongst this demographic, at least. Pound for pound Smosh, The Fine Brothers,  or Pewdiepie  look to be a much better investment for marketers.

Marketers are already reaching outside of their early successes in leveraging micro-Influencers. Mostly within the social media platforms they already occupy. But in an interesting twist, HP (Courtesy of 180LA and Niche) has created a very clever parternship with successful viner’s to market 2-in-1’s. Check it out here.

What’s nice here is how the physicality of the 2-in-1 lends itself to the medium and talent pretty perfectly. The spin is exporting it back to T.V. Treating Vine not just as a platform, but as source material for other mediums.

Not too surprisingly, as Millenials begin to raise families, their influencers are following suit. The "Shay-tards" (Political Correctness is no longer a thing, right?) are arguably one of the first-families of Youtube and boast north of 3 million subscribers and counting.

Also notable here is "Batdad"  who recycles the premise of impersonating Christian Bale’s Batman to startle and annoy his kids for a cool 200k followers and over 11 million hits on his most visited edit.

The last few years have seen a lot of brands go gentle. Last year at Cannes, BBDO’s David Lubars spearheaded a conversation called "Nice Is The New Black"  

His key theme was how the Dove’s, P&G Mom’s, etc. were part of a fast and growing trend of social consciousness fueling brand success. 

Not surprisingly, micro-Influencers seem to be keying on social themes as well and achieving a measure of fame that’s almost accidental.

Take, for example, clean water, which has been a persistent concern among the socially minded as of late.  The clean water moviement is elevating some of the most unlikely candidates to prominence. In a pretty brilliant maneuver, Charity Water has pioneered a growing trend to donate a calendar event for clean water fundraising. At last count, over 9 million dollars has been generated by donating an event we all have as a right of merely exisiting—our birthday.

A nine-year old named Brendan has achieved great success for the cause of clean water by marketing t-shirts with art work of his own wonderfully primitive designs printed on front.

It’s hard to say whether nice-vertising will experience a backlash. Trends seldom last forever. And the wonderfully cynical triumph of Harvey Nichols "I Spent It On Myself" could be a sign of things to come.

In close, let me pass along a few basic principles pulled from core discussions here at SXSWi on the subject of new media fame and how to work with micro-influencers.

1)     Keep It Deadly Simple. Micro-influencers typically base out on a pretty narrow and defined principles. Pewdiepie is a goofy, blurted, realtime gaming narrative. Brendan is all about getting clean water to Africa through t-shirts he designs. There isn’t a lot of the blur. And the slant is easy to absorb.

2)     The Right Influencer for The Right Job. It’s all about using the MI in the right way. Not simply as a distributor. There’s always going to be the temptation to reduce it to simple economics. (The highest amount of followers at the lowest price point wins.) But the prevailing wisdom is that it’s about matching the right influencer with the right brand. 10k of the right people outweight a million of the wrong ones.

3)     Have An Idea. I know it sounds obvious. MI’s don’t want to be shown a script that they read. Ultimately, they’ll want to concept an idea and sell it to you. The middle ground is a big idea. Even though it will be yours in origin,  they’ll be able to plug their brand into it in an authentic way while enjoying some authorship as you go.

4)    Think Like An MI. Like any new marketing device, it’s tempting to want to jump in without understanding the nature of what it is. Try to challenge yourself to isolate how MI’s arrived at their idea and, as importantly, why it succeeds. Understanding these variables will go a long way toward helping you hit your target while avoiding the stigma of an outsider just trying to buy their way in.