2016 Year In Reflection

Lauric has spent the entire year talking about herself, literally, which is what a startup does. And if there’s one thing that Lauric’s team has discovered, it’s that you really do get to meet a lot of people when you’re a startup. You network a heck lot. From clients to potential partners to potential investors, and if you’re an entertainment content strategy consultancy, the number of people you meet triples. The funny thing is that Lauric is affiliated with Creative Coconut Animation Studio, and has been used to servicing mainly large organizations who are familiar with the inner workings of entertainment content.

It’s been quite a journey for us too, seeing how much unlearning we’ve had to do, and how much learning of startup lingo we’ve done. Some of us still can’t get over how vastly different the benchmarks of KPIs, content marketing, social media marketing and reach are.

Lauric Strategy+ Marketing is the premiere Entertainment Content Strategy Consultancy that specializes in Brand Integration. We work directly with international brands who are seeking to seamlessly integrate themselves into popular culture. 

We knew from the start that Lauric was going to work with startups, and since personal safety was one of our sub initiatives under the theme of Specialized Healthcare, that’s where we started looking. Late December last year, we signed up our first client.

Eyeprotec had a personal safety app and our role was to establish partnerships for the company for them to meet their initial goals.

Enter Shadow of Carthage: Angel’s Flight, an original graphic novel produced by Lauric, with six initial characters and a universe, in which Eyeprotec aligned themselves with and from which, they subsequently licensed its characters to promote their app.

Bangkok Jam

But we’re more than content producers, we’re also partnership brokers and for our first client, there were meetings with Lien Foundation, Shaw Foundation, and the head of geriatric psychiatry at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. The app had an online presence, but there needed visibility in the segmented market they were targeting, so Lauric established partnerships with various restaurants, cafés and public establishments.

Note: Eyeprotec has since ceased operations in Singapore and has successfully launched in France instead.

Reassessment of launch strategy or not, the message of personal safety was gaining traction both online and offline and so in early December 2016, Lauric successfully launched the Lineable smartband and app from South Korea in Singapore - with 400 bands sold so far in the first month.  

Being an entertainment content consultancy brings interesting opportunities.

That includes merchant acquisition and so there was Viro- a loyalty and community activation app, in which we were appointed to find merchants for Viro, to facilitate the sale of Viro’s packages and which included producing relevant content that would be delivered through Viro.

We got a chance to meet up with the new management team at SauceInk in the middle part of 2016. It was great to speak with ladies who understood the impact of entertainment content and desired it… except that it sounded like the senior leadership desired it all. Original licensed digital characters, an original storyline around their services with the intention to promote their services within the universe, plus unlimited changes. That was fine- Lauric does brand integration after all- but if the primary concept was going to involve a potential infringement of existing copyright, there would be significant costs if we were going to work around it.

That would mean long term, and that was something for the leadership of SauceInk to decide. We decided to revisit the recommendation at a later stage, which, well, turned out to be a wiser move for both sides, as there were leadership changes later part of the year that would have affected the concept.

Change is constant

It’s a delicate thing dealing with startup founders, we’ve discovered, and that’s perhaps one of our most valued experiences this year. There’re all these different people with different dreams and values and goals and varying levels of risks vying for the same slice of pie- and everyone has, or claims to have- a disruptive idea.

There was this one guy.

He had with him what was allegedly a disruptive idea for the fashion industry but could only afford less than $500 for the development of the fashion App. What he required from Lauric was to develop and market the app. When we told him that it was a no deal unless he could pay for the development- since we’re the marketers and content producers- he offered us a co-founder role. When we declined, he claimed that a certain VC told him that it was viable so we called up his VC on the spot and asked if he would invest. The VC said no, and that was the last we saw of this guy from NUS.

Then there was this other guy.

An E-Marketplace operator who was still in the initial launch phase. He was marketing his marketplace under the banner of a social enterprise, which was a great idea, until he tried to convince Lauric to provide services under the very same banner. We met him to discuss about Viro. What he hoped for was for us to provide Viro for Free on a donation basis, as well as creative services to be rendered on a pro-bono basis. For a marketplace with a reach of less than 500, they expected Lauric’s artists to work for free, whilst questioning Lauric’s certainty about the mass appeal of the original characters created, as an attempt to convince us on the pro-bono part. Maybe we should have said it to the gentleman then, but it’s not too late to say it now.

The organizations he relied on to come beneath his banner of social enterprise are in communication with Lauric, and if we wanted to have our artists work on content for his business pro-bono, we might as well have the same artists- who have worked on King Kong, LOTR and other motion pictures, to work directly with the organizations themselves to help further awareness of their causes.

One of them is Sunlove Home, with whom we will involve their beneficiaries in the production of one of our works, after having successfully launched the Monomano Adaptive Trike through a pilot program with them in September 2016.

This trike was developed by a student run startup from US, and is one of the deals we established on the international stage. We’ve also established marketing consultancy and licensing contracts with tech starts up in South Korea, US and Israel involved in personal safety, and there are marketing and licensing deals with startups from US, Ukraine, Poland, China, Japan, Qatar and Abu Dhabi for Shadow of Carthage: Angel’s Flight. We will be launching their products in different countries in 2017.

The volatility of local startups is a very real one. So are the risks. And funding is always a consistent issue. We saw that first hand at an accelerator- which we went undercover. ;) Fintech was all the hype in 2016, so we had a startup engage us to attend the 3-day selection and we got to understand the constraints of the accelerator as a launch pad for the startup, and the competition. Competing for the same slice of pie means that there’re all kinds of ways to reduce financial risks and whilst some would negotiate to pay by shares, others would get a co-founder and still others would try to get free services under the same co-founder pretext.

Thereby, in this one year, we’ve placed a few simple ground rules, that it does not accept payments by shares, does not provide unlimited changes for its design, and does not do pro bono work.  

What’s next for Lauric now?

We’re heading into the most critical part that every startup faces and which is essential in creating a community that needs their product and maintaining the sustainability: FUNDING.

For suitable consumer product clients who license our characters, Lauric will act as the broker for them to the wholesale distributor, for bulk purchase of the wholesale licensed products, and we will be starting a series of workshops for startups and companies with consumer products that will address the correlation between creating original content, original characters, licensing and how it all generates funds.

Launch of Licensing Workshop

Given the high volatility of strategic plans and the constant requirements for funds, Lauric will launch a unique workshop that address their need for funds as long as they are in the consumer product space.

Investment

With the increase in Licensed Merchandise that is now under the care of Lauric, Lauric will enter phase 2 of its consultancy, which is to validate the viability of the startup through a unique crowdfunding process to promote the licensed merchandise on behalf of the startup clients, before a wholesale distributor is appointed in various geographical locations.

If you are reading this, and have between $1000 and $50,000 and on a lookout for an investment that pays 20% - 25% within 3 - 6 months, hedges your principal sum against another financial asset in order to minimize your exposure to risk, while allowing you to understand and learn how financing and investment in the entertainment industry works, fill up form here and we will be in touch with you.

or if you are a business with consumer products that is looking to integrate your products into an Entertainment Property in the PRE-LAUNCH stage, with global distribution deals secured fill up form here and we will be in touch with you.

    

  

Don't Call Us Mascots!

Hello everyone,

I’m Diana. I’m an ant.

Technically, I’m a fighter ant. Or rather, I’m supposed to be one. But that only happens when something’s happening and I have to grab the weapon. If not, when I’m not fighting, I’m training. When I’m not training, I’m sleeping. When I’m not sleeping, I’m dancing.

Don’t laugh! I’m a pretty okay dancer. *giggles*

 

You guys know that there’s a workshop called “Dancing with Diana” that’ will be happening at this hotel at Cuscaden Road.

If you’re attending it, thank you and I’ll look forward to see you. If you’ve not but you’re thinking about it, hey, why hesitate? Don’t worry, you and I are not going to literally dance around the room. (The tech guys tell me they’ll need to create a 3D model of you, put lots of balls around you and import into my world if you want to dance with me.)

So now you’re wondering, then why is the workshop called such? Because, guys, you’re going to create a character of your own who will dance with me. Yup, you read it right. Whoever it is you create will be my dance partner- for the day.

Just one thing though, guys. Please don’t call the character you create a MASCOT. It hurts his or her feelings. You know why? Because your character can feel pain. I am NOT a mascot either. If I were one, I wouldn’t be a fighter ant. I wouldn’t be able to dance and I certainly would not be having a one-sided conversation with you right here, right now.

You might insist, “But Diana, you ARE one!”

Okay, let’s have a simplified theory about what mascots are from one of the most easily accessible online resources in your world- Wikipedia.

“A mascot is any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fictional, representative spokespeople for consumer products, such as the rabbit used in advertising and marketing for the General Mills brand of breakfast cereal, Trix.” 

See the last line there? See where it says, “…fictional, representative spokespeople for consumer products...”

That’s the major difference between me- an anthropomorphic character- and a mascot. A mascot is the product’s spokesperson, which means it talks well about your product, uses it, celebrates it, endorses it. But the mascot does not have a history of its own. Humans call this history part mythology. There’s no myth in a mascot. A mascot doesn’t have thoughts, doesn’t have feelings, doesn’t have a backstory. It’s just… there.

I know the wizards who created me could go into lengthy discussions and drop names and brands all over the place but there’s just a single difference between a mascot and a character. Well, actually, there’re two differences. One is Value. The other is Emotional Connection.

If you’re still raring to dispute it all, let’s just talk about someone that I admire. Born in 1974, she hails from Japan and is a white Japanese bobtail cat with a red bow. Okay! Now you know who I’m talking about.

Yup, Hello Kitty. Forty years old and she’s going strong. Two years ago, she was valued at $7 billion a year on rights alone. That’s Value. Why? Because she’s bright, she’s kind-hearted, she’s close with Mimmy, she loves homemade apple pie. She’s got a father, mother, grandfather and grandmother. She IS the mascot of friendship, no doubt, but do I love her for the fact that she represents friendship? Nope. I love her for the fact that she loves homemade apple pie. I’ve never tried that before. (We don’t get apple pies very much in the tree house…) So, in the same way, when you humans fall in love with Hello Kitty, are you falling in love with what she represents (if she was a mascot in the first place) or are you attracted because she’s not a human, but not quite a cat either? That’s Emotional Connection.

It’s hard, I know, to separate the differences between a representative and a character. But let me put it this way, if Hello Kitty were the spokesperson for a pen and that was it, she’d be way less iconic today. But she’s in such great commercial demand, and that’s because she was never created to be for a single product or a single service or to serve a targeted marketing campaign. She was created to be a character; an anthropomorphic character. Just like me.

So, like I said, coming to this workshop is to enable you to create a character of your own. With what, you ask, and isn’t that animation but this isn’t an animation workshop! I know. With your own product or service, you’ll create your character. And whoever it is, do remember, make him or her internalize your product’s attributes and abilities into themselves.

Go....Going......Gone!

Winter 2015.

A client came to Lauric to request our assistance to launch and market his service. We recommended the following:

“You have to build up you community, and continually engage them.

This is best achieved through a digital brand character.

We will do a demonstration of his services through a simulation in a mall, with his digital brand character interacting with all his users.

If proven successful, we will extend it to other areas” 

Spring 2016.

We worked with the client. But they didn’t really understand what we were saying. They went along with the digital brand character part. But they didn’t get the community part. They didn’t get what it was all about and why it was necessary and why without this character engaging the community there would be nothing to go on. Neither did they comprehend the importance of this digital brand character demonstrating what their service was about.

Strangely they weren’t the only ones.

Influencers and non-believers questioned the whole concept and laid down the assumption that this concept would not work because of… whatever. Doing this would drain the battery life, they said. Oh, no one will use this service since it doesn’t really contain the action. Oh, why would you need to engage customers with Entertainment because entertainment is entertainment and you know, we’re totally into hardware… They said.

Summer 2016

No one is questioning why Entertainment, hardware and services are now ONE. No one is questioning this very famous IP that got resurrected after a long, long time why they’re doing all the above.

They’re just totally into it now. And not only are they into it, they’re suddenly experts who can micro-analyze why it’s so successful now (like it wasn’t successful before?!) and what this will mean for businesses in the future. And do they talk convincingly, like they have went to the future and saw it.

 

Learn from the "best" Karate Expert

 

I bet they wish they could speak to those who saw this through from its development phase and know the product's roadmap. But those guys aren’t talking. It doesn’t matter whether you ask them or not. They’ll tell you that they don’t really know what the future will be and they’ll tell you in all honesty that even if they did, there’s this thing called a Non-Disclosure Agreement and so they can’t mention what’s gonna happen at all, and certainly not what this company or that company will be doing. Uh uh. Zilch.  

But what they can tell you… and that’s if you’re really, really keen, is

 

"it is possible for a tie-up if your product or service is a good fit."

We’re saying the same thing too. Because we’re an Entertainment Content Strategy Consultancy. We know entertainment. We know the opportunities that exist and we’re pretty sure that for the future of your business, you won’t want to lose out this opportunity.

After all, it’s what you’ve not seen and yet debuted it to success is what makes you a market leader. If you’ve seen it, that opportunity’s long gone.

Don’t you think so? Its not too late, as there will be other opportunities.  As long as Entertainment Content continue to exist, it will continue to drive change Its time to move beyond small content, and learn how to utilize Entertainment Content in your business.

Where Is The Human In The Age Of Data?

Numbers are a great attraction.

The core of nearly every business function is data, and nowhere more so when it comes to Marketing, Finance and Product R&D. Without the numbers, no way are we going to get our reports done. Without the numbers we don’t know where to align our financial budget for the year. Without specific consumer behavioral data, we run the risk of squirreling precious dollars down the drain researching and manufacturing a product that benefits no one. That’s why we pay agencies to work through the methodologies of obtaining the necessary information. Traditional media, social media, online, offline, one-to-one customer surveys and so on, it is all done.

All that information is valuable, make no mistake about that.

It does get easy to focus our attention to the overwhelming amount of numbers, figures, statements and conclusions. When that happens, the information is nothing more than a spreadsheet if the centre of all that is lost.

I’m referring to the Consumer.

The Consumer has to be at the heart of all the data you’ve accumulated. Because that’s what your business is really about, isn’t it? Your Consumer. Your Customer. It leads us to this next question- How then, does one marry the two together whilst achieving the required outcomes?

Through Content.

To me, Content is what drives behaviors. Content is what attracts your audience in the very first place and then makes them your prospects before becoming your customers and your evangelist eventually. Content is what keeps them with you every step of the way as they progress through the funnel.

When it comes to data collection, Content drives response- and this response- however it is, negative, positive, etc.) is in fact what consumer behavior exhibits. With audience-specific content, consumer behavior becomes predictable. Yes, predictable.

Content ---> à Response ---> à Behavior Pattern ---> à Data

Let’s say you’ve got a product that you’re about to launch and you have to know how well it is going to do in the market. You create audience-specific content based on your understanding of your customer, or as some will put it, demographic-specific content that will evoke a response.

 

From the historical data you can predict whether they will buy your current and future product, whether they will not. You can predict who will buy it, when they will buy it, why they buy it and whether they will tell others about it. You can predict how more of your product they will want to own or if they will never use it again. With these data, you know where to allocate the budget and what kind of content is required to trigger the desired response. All these predictions will translate into actual behaviors, and those behaviors will confirm the data if you release the correct content. In other words, data becomes nothing more than a tool to guide and tell the companies what kind of content the consumer is demanding, and the confirmation to the BIG data is what the consumer buying behaviors exhibit.

It’s a cyclical thing. Well-known products often go through the data mill as a form of check and balance pretty frequently too. After all, buying patterns disappear, demographics do change, buyers change their minds, whatever. You can do all the psychological and sociological predictions and there will always be an anomaly somewhere. There will always be new preferences. All of which formulates new data, which then creates further need for product development and content creation.

It is vital for brands not to over rely on the science of numbers alone though. Despite what might appear to be an overwhelming confirmation of a certain behavior, a balance between those figures and your own instinct has to be achieved. Hollywood studio executives do this from time to time. Occasionally a character in fact gets scripted in halfway during production or the movie goes for reshoots after filming completed because fans demand for it, despite the fact that the big data predictions report on the executives’ table may say its very well positioned otherwise.

Nothing replaces paying close attention to your prospects and following your instinct. Making business decisions based entirely on the numbers leaves the human element out, and with that, the experience and emotional resonance you need with your consumers themselves.

After all, if the machine after gaining self-awareness can shed tears, your customer is really, just human?

IS BIGGER BETTER?

The timeless question that everyone gets all heated up about. Some will tell you that yeah, bigger’s definitely better. It’s more impressive. It draws attention. It shows that you’ve got stuff that lots and lots of people know- and want to know. We hear numbers that can be totally mind-boggling- and frankly, they can make our mind go wow.

10,000. 100,000. 1 million, 2 million.

Whoa. That’s a lot. And it is really very impressive.

But ask them how many have joined in the last 90 days- and the answer can leave you out in the cold. Community engagement is a consistent one. It is a process that involves frequent new views, frequent likes, frequent additional members. We send them emails for primarily two reasons:

1. To serve them with content, promotions, news, updates, etc. that they want
2. To affect some greater number (sales, revenue etc.)

We want them to be excited about receiving the update. We want them to be thrilled by the fact that there IS news, that there IS something happening. When there’re no updates or content, we want them to wonder why there’s nothing happening and wait eagerly for the next news that pops up on their screen.

And if you’re finding that amongst your gargantuan community numbers there’s only a teeny weeny portion that’s reacting to your news, then it’s time to shake off that indecisiveness (cos’ we know you’d seriously thought about it before but changed your mind) and bring the chopper to the numbers. That means cleaning up the mailing list and putting aside the inactive ones.

Wait, what, you say, if I do that, I’ll be left with a pathetic few! How will I survive then? And what about those that I’ve tossed away?

Well, firstly, there are more important things than the size of your email marketing list. Yes, seriously. A smaller, higher-quality email list works better than flinging your news into the abyss. It’s not news if no one reads it. It’s not news if no one gives a shit about it. Segment your email list and provide them specific content that will engage them and you’ll find that the response is more effective than a one-way communication.

Yes, it can be a very scary thought when you compare your now-very-tiny numbers to the other small content marketer who has hundreds and thousands on his list. But not all battles are won with large armies. I love Entertainment, and since I think Entertainment Content is fantastic for illustrations, let’s look at the movie 300. (You know, that movie with the “THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!!!” line and the other famous one, “TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELLLL!!!”) 300 is based on a true story about an army of 300 Spartan soldiers that fought against a million-strong Persian army. And like all true stories of ancient warfare, we see this small VS big victory legacy repeated in Alexandre The Great and Genghis Khan.

And it’s not your fault either that the list has *painfully* shrunk. This is part of what community building and community engagement and reengagement is about. If people can break up and fall out of love, if people can get married and settle down with three kids, if people can change email providers or change jobs or move from one place to another, for a million over reasons they can stop reading your email marketing or stop getting interested in your updates.

What then, you now ask, do I do with those that I’ve chopped away?

Run a win-back campaign. Study why they left. Figure out why they ignored your email newsletters. Did they grow out of a phase? Did they discover new interests? Did they have so much else to look at that they deleted yours without even looking? Why did they stop being loyal? Did they forget you entirely?

This is the time to convince them. This is the time to reach out to the inactive ones and re-engage them with compelling content that meets their current lifestyle needs and fire up their lost love for you. (And if they don’t re-engage, well, clean the list again and stop mailing to them entirely.)

How then, you ask now, do I go about it? Here’re some questions to help it along.

1.     How many new subscribers have you had in the last 30 days?

2.    How many have joined beyond 30 days and opened an email from you in the past 90 days?

3.     How many have joined between 30-90 days and have not opened your email since they subscribed?

4.    How many have joined beyond 90 days and have not opened your email in the past 90 days?

5.    How many have joined beyond 180 days and have not opened your email in the past 180 days?

Rather technical and number-crunching, isn’t it? But so, so necessary.

Because the content to win back each of the five groups above differs from each other. Content to engage new subscribers in the last 30 days will differ (even slightly) from content to re-engage those that were your subscribers more than 180 days ago but haven’t cared about a single update of yours since.

It is all about the emotional connection with each of them. If your current content isn’t touching their hearts, you’ll have to go beyond small content marketing and pump in content that sparks off the fire at every stage as they move through the funnel.

If not, it’s no use punishing your generals either. You’ll still be, you know, dead.

EMOTIONS - THE RECIPE FOR A COMMUNITY

I’ve received a couple questions about what experience and emotional connection is about. Some of you are also wondering why it’s so fundamental to the Entertainment Content Sales Funnel. Why exactly, you ask, is it such a big deal? What really is it anyway?

First of all, let’s not get mixed up between creating an emotional connection and creating and sustaining it. It is possible to create an emotion with bright, backlit surroundings, happy colors, happy people, happy places and a close-up shot of your subject doing something that is meant to leave the viewer feeling similarly, or at least hoping to feel the same as the model. It is possible to create an emotion with the right typography, like this font and font arrangements makes me feel hipster, cool, streetwise, childlike or babyish. There is a connection, true, at that very moment, but what you want is for your content- whether it be words or visuals- to evoke sufficient emotion where those very emotions become internalized by the viewer.  

 

That’s one of the basic blocks when you’re building a Community.

Without the emotional connection- the part that connects and lingers in your audience, you don’t get a Community. It’s just that. You probably know why the Community is so important. If you don’t, ask the gamers. Or the comic book fans. Or the fan clubs of pop singers. Or the cosplayers.

 

You may think that it’s only for the big guys, you know, people with lots and lots of content and announcements and stuff happening and characters taking place and the singer’s new single release and so on. But everything starts somewhere.

All healthy communities have a story. What distinguishes one from the other is the fact that they have a history of experiences together and the belief that there will be more experiences in the future.

 

 

I’ve used examples from the Entertainment industry, but it’s definitely there in real life too. In racial culture, in cross-racial culture, in lifestyle choices, in geopolitical culture… it’s the sense of belonging, it’s the sense of having being there when those experiences happened, and it’s the knowledge that you’ll be there when new stuff takes place. It’s a familial sort of feeling, an excitement shared, a sense of “we”.

RIO Carnival

 

In Entertainment Content, the Community is what drives your content which in turn drives your product or service. Right there at the bottom of the funnel is the Evangelist and the Evangelist(s) are what form the Community. It is a result and an extremely powerful extension of our funnel. With the right members who are Evangelists making up your Community, the digital marketing and social media campaigns are “literally” running solo. How? Through user-generated content. Through questions and discussions and debates that builds a strong emotional bond between the members. Whether they be on this ‘team’ or that ‘team’, whether they agree or agree to disagree, they form the definitive element for true community. To build a community is not a walk in the park but it’s worth the effort, it’s worth the time.  

Beginning one doesn’t start at the bottom of the funnel. You don’t wait till you have one evangelist before you think, oh, okay, now’s the time to start one, because you’ll never get one that way. It starts from your content strategy itself. Think about it. If no one’s gonna be interested in whatever you put up there, if you don’t have an audience at all, how are you going to find a lead to become a customer to become an evangelist?

Here’re some questions to guide you along.

1. Boundaries- Who are your right members? How do these people become members? What is the criteria to adhere to? How do you keep others out?

2. Emotional Safety- How do you create a sense of trust amongst members? How do you prevent members from trolling other members? How do you create the sense of safety within the group?

3. Belonging- How do you make members feel like they fit in and that this is theirs?

4. Contribution- What are the avenues where members can contribute to the community?

A point to note, though, it’s wise not to invite just about anyone and everyone to your community. Each evangelist is an asset. Think about what you want your community to be about, who you want to be your evangelist and who would be able to make your community better.  

Because it is all about the experience that you manufacture for your community. Whether it be a debate where they can throw out their gauntlets and get all fired up and passionate (but become more united afterward), whether it be an event they can physically gather at- think the burgeoning year-on-year Comic Con San Diego or video game launches by Sony Playstation, it’s all about the shared experiences, the shared emotional connection that lingers in them, that identifies with them, that they can claim for themselves.

That’s the kind of content we’re talking about. That’s the kind of experience we need to create. It’s pure Entertainment Content, and it can be done for your product or your service. If you’re finding that your current content isn’t strong enough to be internalized by your audience, you need to go beyond it, and you can do it. Help is just around the corner   

 

ITS ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

Now that you know how an entertainment content sales funnel looks like, let’s delve a little deeper. Into the Why. What is the difference between one sales funnel and the other? Why is this sales funnel gaining traction amongst start-ups and renowned manufacturers? Why is this sales funnel getting marketing departments interested?


Jessica Jung in short film by JW Marriott

The past couple of years have seen a gamut of short films released by many major brands. The spectrum of product offerings is wide. From insurance companies to skincare products to hotel booking websites to anti-smoking campaigns to anti-litter campaigns to luxury fashion, all of them have released short films ranging from 15 seconds to 15 minutes, utilizing either the latest film technology or a star-studded cast, or both. Whilst it has been disruptive to film production as a whole, however, what’s more interesting to note is that this gorgeously-produced short film does little else than to keep it swimming on the upper part of the funnel.

Which means that you’ve got Awareness and Interest but your audience remains there- in the upper half. And small content marketers, truthfully, are realizing that it’s really, really hard to move it down to the lower half where there’s Decision and Action.

It’s not just the small content marketers. The major brands are too starting to find out that changes to social media algorithms are making that ‘engaging’, ‘comedic’, ‘artistic’ short film way costlier for it to go viral.

How then, does one reach the lower half of the funnel? How do we get the audience to get down to the evangelist stage? How do we turn the audience into a prospect? How do we generate leads from the audience? How will the customer become an evangelist?

Through experience. And through emotional connection.

That’s what it is. You build a universe where there is mundanity and there is thrill. You build a universe where your characters are involved in solving problems, demonstrating what your product or service is about through what they do. You let your audience become involved in the problems themselves and make them want to be that very character who is solving that one particular problem. You make them feel for the character. You make them vested in the lives of these characters. You build emotions. Whatever it is your audience feels, your character awakens an emotion and evokes a reaction. Add the algorithms possible through social media and you have an engagement with your audience which starts from the upper funnel towards customer and beyond.

The following 6 questions are great starting points to create the ultimate customer experience utilizing the Entertainment Content Sales Funnel.

Qn1:   How do you create the ultimate customer experience where price becomes secondary?

Qn 2: How can you make it special, personal, interactive and fun for your prospects and customers?

Qn 3: Do you have something to offer in your business that captures their undivided attention when customers enter your universe?

Qn 4: Do you provide your customers and prospects sufficient opportunities to spend? See if you can create new opportunities with the products and services you currently offer.

Qn 5: Do you offer an upsell in a balanced way that complements your existing product and services?

Qn 6: How can you create an upscale version or higher-end offer with your product or service?  Can you bundle in more offerings to justify a higher-value proposition?

Once you’ve got a road map down, it’s time to look at the gist of all your answers itself. The Story, the Content and the way to go about it.

At Lauric, we’re vendor neutral. There are consultants who are vendor evangelists themselves and they get insistent on utilizing this one particular tool only, that everything else is faulty and unsuitable and will not achieve your goals and your film or product will not impress, or something. Or they might say that to create this content you have to only use this one and only software- never mind your budget, never mind the actual reach it can attain, never mind that you’re gonna blow your marketing budget out of proportion for the sake of production itself. That’s not something we do. In fact, we seldom talk about specific tools because we are Entertainment Content Strategists and we place total emphasis on implementing solutions that work. After all we don’t want you to have a result that is at best 8-12 percent increase in brand awareness and purchase intent. We think you deserve more.

Meanwhile, The Two Bellmen Three will be shot at Seoul, South Korea, and the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square.

That just reminded the author of the time that he was at Olivo while at JW Marriot Seoul and wondered what would he do or say to Jessica if he had met her there that night.