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Whether you're using electronic media to
enrich users' experiences or sell them
something, you must learn to harness the
strengths of all available media to reach your
target audience. Learn here how to integrate
digital media harmoniously and effectively.
Other articles by Chaz
Austin. | | |
Attention Getters: Integrating Digital Media
Whether for good or ill, electronic media are pervasive in
our lives and will continue to be so for the foreseeable
future. Whether we're looking to enrich the user's experience
or sell him or her something, we need to learn to use all the
media available to our target audience to reach them by using
each medium in a manner appropriate to its strengths and so
that each medium we use operates in a symbiotic way with all
the others.
The concept of digital media integration can be defined in
two ways, although the two are not entirely unrelated:
-
Various media (film, Web sites, CDs, etc.) being used
together in an effort to enrich the user's experience of
creative content (for example, a movie that has both a
soundtrack and a Web site)
-
Various means of distribution (newspapers, television,
radio, the Internet, etc.) used in concert to deliver an
advertiser's message to targeted consumers
We'll begin with the first definition, which in the old
days in this business (10 years ago) was called simply
multimedia, or interactive multimedia.
Interactive Multimedia
The definition of multimedia has changed since then and has
taken on a more market-driven coloration. Those of us who
survived the dotcom meltdown learned that, with the exception
of eBay and one other company, businesses can't make it on an
Internet-only play. eBay is an anomaly; it could not have
existed before the Internet. Virtually all other businesses
need a bricks-and-mortar presence to reach their consumers and
maintain consistent profitability.
NOTE
The "one other company" was inspired by Ulysses S. Grant,
our 18th president (1869–1877), who, when asked to name his
two favorite songs, said that one was "Yankee Doodle" and the
other one wasn't.
In the "Good Old Days," it was about the immersive
experience one had when text, stills, video, audio, animation,
and so on were used in a coordinated manner in a presentation.
That "stew" has been replaced by a media buffet. There is a
tacit understanding that no one medium—not even the mighty
Internet—can substitute for other media. Nor can the Internet
fully incorporate the experience that the user has with other
media. You might have video on a Web site, but it's not the
same as watching television; you might have audio, but it's
not like putting on headphones to focus on enjoying a
song.
So, the current thinking is to use appropriate media side
by side, so to speak, and have them piggyback on each other.
For example, Spider-Man has trailers that are seen in
theatres and on television, which, in turn, seek to drive you
to the movie's Web site. Commercials for the movie drive you
to the Web site and may also invite you to enter a contest,
the clues for which will be revealed in the trailer, on the
site, or in the movie. Presuming that you like the movie and
are a fan of the concept or the actors, your "experience" of
the movie (or, more precisely, the movie's "environment" or
"world") is heightened beyond what you feel by just going to
see it. The experience can be part of your life, both before
and after you've seen the movie; you can bathe in a sort of
"preglow" and afterglow. It doesn't have to go away after the
movie's over, like the lingering scent of someone's perfume or
aftershave after that person has left the room.
No one medium can do it all. No medium can be said to be
the best or ultimate medium. Each has attributes that make it
unique. For example, television at its best has great picture
and sound, yet it's not interactive. The Internet is
interactive, yet the quality of the images is vastly inferior
to those on a large, flat-screen TV monitor. Films are
immersive, with the finest audio and image quality currently
available, yet they lack the intimacy of television and the
interactivity of the Net. It's a matter of understanding what
each medium offers, what each of their strengths and
weaknesses are, and packaging together for the user.
A good analogy is building a team to tackle a project. No
one is great at everything; the best teams integrate the best
qualities of their members to achieve the desired result. A
good leader harnesses the strengths of each member of the team
to produce the desired objective.
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