The Walking Dead’s New Multimedia Magazine Gives an Inside Look at the Most Iconic Walkers
February 1, 2012
Greg Nicotero describes creating the most iconic walkers from Seasons 1 and 2 in this new multimedia magazine with photos and video.
http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead/walker-gallery

ZAP TO IT exclusive

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/02/the-walking-dead-zombie-making-101-with-greg-nicotero.html

HOMEPAGE

BLOG

Fully 88 percent of people who own tablets such as the iPad say they use them at the same time that they’re watching TV, according to research released last month by Nielsen.

Basically if someone owns an iPad, they may have it handy during couch-time TV. Possibly to hunt down what to watch next, or even more likely, to spend time with the iPad rather than watch adverts in the TV program.
Ideally if an advertizer wants to capture that, then they want to entice the iPad owner to see what they have as opposed to what they chose to ignore. This is a very real opportunity since targeting a TV Ad is not anywhere near as possible as targeting an iPad user for both locale and preferences that the user can identify and select interactively.

Now Yahoo is keen to make the most out of that trend, while iAds fails miserably, Yahoo IntoNow connects.

Discover what your friends are into or tell your friends what to discover. Push of a button, No effort.

Use IntoNow to discover new shows, discuss your favorites with friends, and learn more about whatever you’re into! IntoNow is a great source of recommendations for what’s on right now for you, based on what your friends are into. Find out what shows you share in common, get notified when you’re watching the same thing, and easily get more information.

More fun and a bit of magic

http://www.intonow.com/ci

IntoNow makes sharing easy and fun. Just tap the green button and IntoNow will identify what you’re watching—even if it’s being aired for the first time. That’s where the magic comes in. If you want to know more about how it works, check out SoundPrint, it listens to the audio, finds the show and hooks up your social world.

Basically it listens to the audio and search-matches it for you. Below shown is an AMC show detected and found in 5 seconds.

From here you can visit content related, best off having that in a facebook iframe engagement. We can do that in a way that works for the mobile device that will get used.

YAHOO LIVESTAND

This solution is relevant to the existing promotional needs in the market, but it first requires a download in the app store, then a signup, then connecting to people in your social groups… the user of this livestand experience has a lot of hoops to jump through. Traction metrics unavailable at this time.

Unlike most competing newsreader apps, Yahoo is building advertising into Livestand from the outset. The main attraction is the “LivingAd” unit that rolls out with the app. The oversized format produces a visual effect similar to the dynamic newspaper photos of the Harry Potter films, suggesting motion in otherwise static images.

The ads, which run as full-page interstitials or on the right rail, also incorporate motion-sensing capability and allow users to zoom in and interact with different parts of the ad using the touchscreen. Advertising options for the app also include more standard rich media and display units.

Charter sponsors for Livestand employing the new custom ad are Toyota and DreamWorks Pictures. The Japanese automaker will be running a Living Ad execution along with a rich media unit to promote the new Prius v launching in November.

DreamWorks will kick off a rich media campaign for its upcoming holiday release, “War Horse,” opening Dec. 25.

Yahoo is asking advertisers to pay as much as $500,000 for buys centered on the new unit, according to an Advertising Age story Tuesday. A Yahoo spokesman Tuesday said ad packages for Livestand will range in price from $200,000 to $500,000.

Third-party publishers, as well as Yahoo, can sell advertising against their content on Livestand. Yahoo did not disclose details of revenue-sharing agreements with publishers, however.

CTNDIGITAL Does the immediate low-friction access webapp solution.
No need to download, just click, from anywhere to here. Loads quickly. It is a CDN delivered custom webapp that tracks just like a regular page, links like a regular page. Thats the massive benefit of a WEBAPP over a Native app in the app store. Try linking into an iPad native APP to directly reach your desired placement. You cant. The Apple APPSTORE is your gatekeeper. The user has to know about the app, visit the appstore to locate, download, undergo signup process friction, things that do not suit the moments of tv consumption very well at all. Conversely, the short quote and link features of Facebook and Twitter already handle that nicely.

Getting a clean desireable engagement treatment for your entertainment property should not cost the numbers Yahoo shows. Leveraging Social should be baked-in and work for you. Extension is a very low cost endeavor with just a few Brand Ambassadors ( freelancers with a great rolodex of contacts and placement skill ). You make the rules. We create and enable it.

Social commentary is designed into the experience and intended to complement the TV show content, extending both engagement and eyeball time, gain the participation investment that is lacking in much of what is available now. Auto Targeted. This is a good option and the good news is its not alone, there are more and they can all easily be administered to converge on your WEBAPP show promotional property. Gain the Likes, followers, subscribers and give them something to share about it.

AN EFFECTIVE SOLUTION COULD BE:
Use these existing systems effectively for a well crafted outcome, augmented with display ads, in site blogs, Huffington Post Entertainment section blog, EW, GetGlue, MISO, existing facebook and twitter show properties that need something “extra” to talk about, and a few other tools all added to focus on any given TV property will tend to generate a promotional buzz and increased discovery / share.

CTN builds the dedicated engagement targets, WEBAPPS that launch with a link click and deliver to the device that your viewer is already holding in a way that is touchable by design, purpose built, Sticky-time.

Thus, a single ipad / iphone mobile webapp can be discovered and present its influences and opportunity for promotions and sponsors to pursue. Build one nice engagement user experience and hook it up to systems already there and hungry for something unique and different.

Rise above the average noise level.

Make something different and cool and worth talking about and sharing… thats what we exist to do. Think of your CTN webapp as more fuel for your fire, the tool that lets you tinker with your marketing playbook right where the best people are , and your efforts are effective, and have your audience grow and share the heat. Do that repeatedly. Every week, using the same tools that are already there and always on. Build once and add, augment, embellish going forward ( Swap pages in/out on demand )… and while you do that, maybe on occasion have it open to include sponsors that may want in on this…:

CUSTOM AD INSERTIONS
Lets say you want to make use of this wide angle social engine and, Remove the need for an Adserver, the service and its placement costs, by doing it in-house with us. ( Code name CTN/MOVE ) For example have a Behind The Scenes or Cast Interviews, or Sneak Peek, or re-live 30 seconds of a pivotal moment in our PageBlend or Pageswipe webapp that is made for the mobile device that is in their hands…, promote that, and include sponsor messaging that fits the moment in a careful and graceful integration of creative, interaction and design. Link it into a Facebook wallpost or a tweet, its seen by the viewers of the show into posts that live well past the moment.

IPAD auto detect pageswipe gallery mode – landscape with html5 video

Link

iPhone 4s IOS5 as Homescreen WEBAPP

FEATURES SPECIFIC TO THIS NEWEST 3 Screen promotional marketing target:

1) Full Spread Treatments – Starts open ( no half screen coverpage )

2) Startpage Background music ( 1/4 volume )

3) Page insertable, autoscale to fill iframe dimensions, served for bloggers ( as shown )

<iframe height=”440″ name=”box” scrolling=”no” src=”http://cdn.ctnhd.com/hbo” width=”640″></iframe>

As Seen in Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/exclusive-bored-to-death-season-3_n_997972.html

4) Autodetect and deliver iPad  ( with Webapp Homescreen Icon mode )

• Ten iPad compatible m4v  CDN delivered Videos
• 14 panels momentum swipe and Illuminated bottom navigation

5) Autodetect and deliver iPhone  ( with Webapp Homescreen Icon mode )

• Auto scrollup of Address-bar on initial load and on every orientation change.
• 3G Speed optimized loading, All files performance tuned, all high resolution.
• Ten full screen Apple iPhone-specific m4v Edge CDN delivered Videos,  with end-of-play screen restore.
• Short URL available tab.io/hbo   ( tuned to properly support iPhone 3 on IOS4 thru 4S on IOS5 )

6) All versions delivered from a single target LINK http://cdn.ctnhd.com/hbo

HUFFINGTON POST WRITE-UP

HBO HOMEPAGE LINK

Blogger insertion ( example typical )
http://seriesandtv.com/bored-to-death-premieres-season-three-monday-october-10-9pm/7308

HBO made a Marketing Outreach page that authorizes use and provides links/embeds/Key Art/ Trailers. CTN augments that with scale to fit engineered presentation on 3 devices profiles ( Laptop & desktop / iPad / iPhone ) and one-click social sharing.

FACEBOOK ONE CLICK SHARE

Congrats to Julianna Margulies and CBS for top nod with the Academy win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama.

This domain has auto -detect for each device profile and runs on L3 edge origin highspeed cache. Below: auto flip Leanback mode initiated. Click Fullscreen. Click Lower right arrows “Expand” button for full spread at 720p.

This edition is PageBlend3, a Lookbook with video for each character, and a longform leanback video play mode.

LIVING DOCUMENT publishing model.

PageBlend 3  is specifically crafted to be a “Living Document” Magazine model, with weekly update versioning, page swapping, sponsor placements and fresh clip handlers with social target linking, capable of well over 1000 hits/sec on CDN.  Curated content is crafted to encourage repeat visits with fresh nuggets of on-going arcs, catch-up drill-downs and followups.

LEANBACK MODE: is a no-click-required play method for viewing with auto flip at video play completion for 5 pages distributed across the magazine. Can be interrupted at any time with a page turn.  http://www.tgw.tv/mag.htm?page=4  initiates the functionality. FULLSCREEN is crafted to be perfect on HDTV with a 720p h.264 fast start video.

150,000 pageviews gathered from 70,000 unique PV on Sunday Sept 4th, marketing promotion was limited to a single Facebook entry and single link twitter post. – low key marketing with a high yield in 4 hours laborday weekend.

Sept 16th: a simple blog post on the homepage of The Good Wife on CBS.com http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_good_wife/

Some of the Buzz:

FACEBOOK REACTIONS

iPad HOME ICON:

Longform Player… 4 segments thumbnail launcher with html5 video player for 1/2 hour special – 12 placements of video total 35 min video engagement

Special Version for iPad with an inset video for each Character, lit thumbnail page navigation at the bottom, momentum glide pageswipe.

Runs auto-detected to all 3 screens of device profile. ( flash and Html5/IOS)

video overlay launcher for character videos and promo “Addicted to Love”

PRESS on TVGUIDE:



FORUM POSTS

EMMY

Turner Chose CTN for a 10 show “For Your Consideration” EMMY Video Lookbook to connect to their ad campaigns featured on Variety.com , The Hollywood Reporter, etc.

Each Show has a dedicated page and target URL – with detect and redirect to iPad & iPhone compatible video playback.

For a PC user on the websites, an ad click loads a PageBlend Book,displays the cover for less than 1sec while it preloads the page request, the desired page turns, arrives and autoplays a video , with the option to play in full spread.
FAST LOADING on arrival is done with careful timing, CDN and load broker code in the PageBlend engine system.

For iPad, iPhone, iPod, Google TV and Android devices, a video or book is presented, and that is managed from a single target URL at the CDN, keeping the delivery process fully capable, robust and simple to track and manage.

These are the Ad Target Links for a 10 show book:

http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/conan.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/lopez.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/hawthorne.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/leverage.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/closer.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/moaca.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/southland.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/rizzoli.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/memphisbeat.html
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/emmy/moguls.html

Each Page has tracking at the granular level of fullscreen chosen, full spread video played, video played to completion, time spent.

For speed, IOS device detection directs to optimized video playback.

From PC, to iPhone, iPad, Google TV and tablets … ALL all supported from a single target url that goes direct to the desired page within the book or the proper configured content.

Unlike other systems, there is never a “no show” outcome.

Augmenting the paper and DVD delivery of engaging content is now quite a normal an powerful option, on all devices and at any point in the daily interaction of a screen clicked or touched, in the world.

Heavy use of the page specific linking system brought a lot of first look traffic directly to Falling Skies.
http://cdn.ctnhd.com/turner/summer2011?page=2
The linking copy to clipboard seems to have been quickly discovered, as was the facebook wall post and Twitter link.

This set of video frames around the “skitters” scene just past the middle of the clip attracts a lot of attention.

Direct tracking of icon clicks in this edition show a high percentage use of the icons below, it seems the self-service self-evident usages are well understood.

The first 1000 visitors were measured granular for analysis in the first few hours. This delivered massive views and 20% repeat visits – average greater than 10 minutes screen-residence time means that screen-time-eyeball total was over 10,000 minutes ( viewer eyes time spent.)

These should look identical until you get on a device that allows zooming.

the bottom image should look better at 2x

… Life, work, whatever… one gets to deal with a lot of inbound noise, shallow stuff of the moment.

There is a specific tactic that is really ineffective. Marketers that act as though they can tell you what to think.

Its shallow water to avoid when there is so much deep water around to play in, and it simply telegraphs a lack of respect for the intellect of the viewer.

We have a Do Everything Right / DO THE DO-ABLE FIRST goal-set here, its one of those moving target aspirations that enforces a seeker kind of mindset, since to get there you have to actively determine what Right is and look at Everything while DOing it as more and more of what needs to happen becomes more and more enabled and do-able.

Properly done this way of going at things encourages moments of realization that should be born from a healthy respect for all the cause-effect cycles involved.

Do the do-able.

DO NOT TELL PEOPLE WHAT TO THINK

instead

SHOW THEM SOMETHING that they will instantly BELIEVE

Do that in a way that engages enough to want to tell others what they think.

The idealized win-win begins when your audience is actively believing in sub-second increments of each reveal you do and acting on the opportunity to share that.  Seeing and believing always works when done well … This is the start point of anything you need to happen next.

Leads to http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/season-4-fashion-gallery/

This is an example of inserted in-place PageBlend Look Book with:

video and thumbnail views, automated display ad cycle on each page turn, full spread video expands and more.

Feel free to use the facebook link icon and post to your facebook Wall with a single click.

FEATURED

OPENING PAGE

Full Spread Video

This is also an iPad LOOKBOOK of over  30 pages and over 2 dozen Videos – 460 megabytes. ( Very Large App ) The purpose for this was to create best-of class international executive presentation for TV show properties at MIPCOM 2010 – without needing any WiFi or 3G connectivity, fast and  highly interactive.

Video

All  videos were re-processed to fit iPad desktop m4v format play and audio was Normalized for maximum levels on the built-in iPad video player accessible to native application code. Since the amount of  video in the file-system was unusually high, a special memory manager was required and created to support play of m4v “desktop” files.

HD VIDEO: To satisfy higher resolution viewing and add  last minute  video ( Yes, Virginia )  all videos were also prepared and re-rendered to HD 1280 x 720p and made playable from the std iPad VIDEO player icon. Best-effort upscaling was done in the CTN editing suite.

Look and Feel

Simulated page-turn was coded to present the book to be nearly identically to the print and  flash PageBlend Application. This project used our single finger landscape page turn with dynamic shadow-drop left and right, fast and finger placement responsive.

B2B applications in Apple Products

Apple does not support private B2B applications. This is a difficult problem to get around, we needed a private APP Business Presentation Solution in less than a week, and it can only install via iTunes which is a customer facing store with a specific credit card on file that matches one device to each iTunes installation. We had 10 devices. Therefore all such applications not in the Apple App store ( intended for  for nonpublic use and B2B ) must be installed as private, compiled to run on declared and specific device ID’s, from within an XCODE environment and installed via iTunes on a single, certified developer system.

This means all such instances of B2B  Applications are sourced coded individually from and  tied to the Developer’s iTunes Account. This is the only way to craft applications in ways Apple seeks to control  with a rigorous validation and certification process available only to  Apple Approved developers.

At this time, CTN does not use or endorse “jailbreak” methods and is the developer of record and code-rights holder of  this iPad framework. In short, Apple works very hard to make what we had to do, into a very complex process that required our best people 24/7.

Touch Screen Interface

Interface design was intended to be as simple and robust as possible. The INDEX page launches all Show pages. Each show page contains a Synopsis, Production and cast credits and launch to video placed in the Key Art area. For the iPad this video is played fullscreen ( upscaled in the built-in video player ) … the  page drops down, plays video to completion and pulls back up automatically. Double-tap to bring up a bottom navigation bar to return to INDEX or the first page of any section. Fast page turn by quickly tappping corners.

Device-optimized custom display reformatting.

The print  version was for 7 x 11 inch landscape pages. No device screen is that shape, and that required all pages to be reformatted to fit fullscreen 16:9 custom PageBlend  for PC and HDTV full spread and then again to fit iPad 1024 x 768 fullscreen. Design layout look and feel was preserved to reflect a consistent presentation on all 3 screens. This also meant a new codebase was created to support cross-page text flow, column justified. Total project time  from Final Plan Adoption for Production, to Delivery was accelerated with managed team man-hour load for 24/7 production and code. PageBlend book was done in under 5 days, iPad was done in 4. For pre-show email support to a global recipient list, the PageBlend book was promoted to CDN, 1.3 gigabytes of on-demand edge-origin video.

Standalone / offline presentation.

MIPCOM is in Cannes France where Internet connection quality could present difficulty, all content was prepared to be available as application software, and included a Memory Stick version of the Flash PageBlend version for offline support of PC and HDTV presentation. This assured there would be no reliance on network support, presentation venue location or screen availability constraints

All PageBlend LOOKBOOKS are crafted to beautifully support high definition screens, large scale video projection systems and easily operate from keyboard or mouse control.