Recently my mum visited me in London. After a long day of touristy happiness we ended up watching an episode of the American TV series ‘Lost’ on my couch, completely satiated and unable to move our racked feet. Maybe my mum was just exhausted after all the miles we made by foot that day but she was literally lost: “This is confusing”, she said.

‘Lost’ may be the most complex example of its kind, but my mum definitely had a point there. During the last thirty years, the entertainment industry has massively changed. The way people want to be entertained today has changed. And the way stories are being told has changed. Compare ‘Dallas’ with its one-dimensional, linear and predictable storyline with few characters and a simple narrative structure to ‘Lost’ – a constantly evolving, massively complex transmedia narrative with countless layers and the intent to leave the audience in the dark. Now you know why she was confused.

The gaming industry illustrates and has been the driving force behind this shift like no other. During the last thirty years, gaming has massively outperformed movies as the most successful entertainment industry: According to Nielsen, the US revenue of movie theatres was $10,46bn in 2010 (-6%). In the same timeframe, the US gaming industry grossed $25,1bn (+8.5%).

Why are they so successful? And what can we learn from games for our brands? 

The answer is: Today, the gaming industry tells stories differently. We can see a shift in seven dimensions:

1)     Non-Linearity: From a closed-down, linear, start to goal based gameplay (‘Super Mario’) to an open playground with multiple entry points, multiple goals and no necessary end (‘GTA’)

2)     Expandability: From simple level based stories (‘Tetris’) to downloadable extensions and add ons for an endless experience (‘The Sims’)

3)     Complexity:  From simple and one-dimensional storylines (‘Sensible Soccer’) to rich (and hard to manage) usability and contents (‘FIFA 12’)

4)     Diveability: From finite, superficial stories (‘Space Invaders’) to deep, open and multi-optional storylines, offering you a space for identification (‘World of Warcraft’)

5)     Individuality: From playing a character within a fixed narrative (‘Sonic the Hedgehog’) to playing yourself in a ever changing story based on your individual decisions (‘Heavy Rain’)

6)     Interactivity: From passive controlling via devices (‘Pac Man’) to interactive controlling with your body (‘X-Box Kinect’)

7)     Relativity: From engaging with one closed, equally relevant narrative (‘The secret of Monkey Island’) to engaging with a single story strand/character/subplot most relevant to you (‘GTA’)

It is a more personal and intuitive, more interactive and open-ended approach of telling stories. I believe that brands in today’s digital landscape need to learn from the entertainment industry and dare to take that step towards richer, non-linear and expandable marketing solutions.

But it seems that these new paradigms aren’t applicable to all brands in the same way. A clear signal that you should be thinking this way is when you’ve got entertainment at the core of your value proposition. You can learn how you can earn time with people by providing them with deep, long life span narratives. Think of Red Bull who constantly renew and interpret their ‘Gives you wings’ proposition with new entertaining stories to explore (from niche skateboarding events like ‘Red Bull Skateshot’ to big mass market events like ‘Red Bull Air Race’).

Secondly, when having a distinct shared passion point between you and your audience you can benefit from transmedia storytelling. Think of Nike Football with their ‘Write the Future’ campaign: The brand leveraged the anticipation (= shared passion) ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa through a rich story around their assets, loaded with cultural references and insinuations across different channels, each telling one part of the story. This makes the case a model for integrated comms, too. ‘Write the Future’ shows how you can see a story as an ecosystem of non-linear stories with multiple and individual entry points: Each channel with a defined role within a bigger narrative scheme, a marketing program map, enabling your brand’s multiple engagement needs across multiple segments.

So, you could say “Write the Future” is advertising’s ‘Lost’ – what comes next?