ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802

Transmedia Consumption Experiences (Tce): Patching As a Narrative Consumption Practice Behice Ece Ilhan, Purdue University, North Central, USA Cele Otnes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Robert Kozinets, York University, Canada

Transmedia storytelling is the systematic dispersal of narrative elements across multiple media to create unified and coordinated consumer experiences. We introduce transmedia to consumer research by exploring how consumers engage with interrelated cross- media marketing narratives. The results offer implications for understanding consumption in a complex, media-driven, and social- media socialized world.

[to cite]: Behice Ece Ilhan, Cele Otnes, and Robert Kozinets (2013) ,"Transmedia Consumption Experiences (Tce): Patching As a Narrative Consumption Practice", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 41, eds. Simona Botti and Aparna Labroo, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research.

[url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1015429/volumes/v41/NA-41

[copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. Transmedia Consumption Experiences (TCE): Patching as a Narrative Consumption Practice Behice Ece Ilhan, Purdue University, North Central, USA Robert V. Kozinets, York University, Canada Cele C. Otnes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

EXTENDED ABSTRACT media platforms, but because of space restrictions, focus on one Consuming media narratives has been an interest of socio-cul- emergent key practice – “patching.” This practice describes a unique tural branding, consumer culture theory, and literary theory scholars and customized consumer perspective, as people co-create their own (e.g., Brown 2005; Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry 2003, Scott 1994). versions of a particular transmedia world. Over the years, both within marketing and consumer behavior, stud- To understand the lived, complex, and rich phenomena of TCE, ies have explored individual or communal entertainment-consump- we adopt a qualitative research approach. We collected data in three tion experiences and consumers’ media-related meaning-making transmedia contexts, Obama For America, the Coca-Cola Happiness practices. This study contributes to the extant literature by exploring Factory, and the franchise (an ABC show)—all understood as the consumption of transmedia narratives. transmedia narratives by transmedia experts. This study draws upon Developing Jenkins’ (2006) notion of “transmedia storytelling” data collected from in-depth interviews, netnography (Kozinets (20) and translating it to the realm of consumer behavior, transme- 2002), and participant observation in these three contexts. Our data dia consumption is herein defined as the consumption of diverse, dis- set helps us identify issues and meanings that are shared and that persed narrative elements across multiple media for the purpose of resonate among consumers. co-creating unified and meaningful story consumption experiences. Our findings reveal how consumers weave together disparate We consider transmedia storytelling and its consumption to be direct media elements into a single narrative stream. Although consumers consequences of the combined and intensifying socio-cultural, techno- interact with interrelated transmedia narratives and the worlds they logical, and economic changes that affect the ways marketers produce depict, they do not necessarily engage with every media platform and consumers experience media and entertainment (Dena 2004). that producers disperse the story. Patching describes this idiosyn- Within the highly fragmented contemporary marketscape, cratic and unique world-consuming process. Unlike Jenkins’ world- transmedia storytelling creates value for consumers by facilitating building concept, our findings reveal consumers engage in these nar- participation and proliferating potential touchpoints where brand rative worlds by fixing them together. The process of “patching” engagement can occur. Also, it generates economic prospects for describes a unique and customized consumer perspective that entails producers by fostering synergy, reducing costs, and expanding the uniting, joining, and affixing story elements together to produce nar- audience base. Adapting and extending the idea of transmedia sto- ratives whose elements are drawn from different media platforms. rytelling by grounding it in consumer culture theory, we initiate the Our analysis reveals that patching involves four permeating study of transmedia consumption experiences (hereafter, “TCE”), types of practices: mapping, dipping, digging, and stitching. Con- exploring two related research questions: “What constitutes TCE? sumers identify the elements of the transmediated Lost, Obama, or and How do consumers co-create a unified and meaningful consump- CocaCola worlds, interpret them, and then re-construct their own tion experience with transmedia franchises?” individually-tailored versions of each world by stitching multiple Differing from many popular Hollywood marketing strategies stories together. Mapping details consumers’ explorations of the ter- (e.g., sequels, story adaptations from one platform to the other, prod- rain to establish and learn the elements, features, and details of that uct placements), transmedia is characterized by and relies upon three particular transmedia universe. Dipping is a limited consumption of interconnected elements that in turn help produce the effects that the secondary texts or media via reading recaps, synopsis from blogs, drive its consumption: (1) media coordination, (2) world-building, forums, or Wikipedia, or through other personal resources. Digging, and (3) negative capability. On the production side, transmedia is on the other hand, refers to consumers’ first-hand experiences with not simply about redistributing the same content across different me- the secondary texts and intertextual popular titles to find clues, inter- dia, but it represents a systematic and coordinated dispersal of narra- pret mysteries, and make sense of the transmediated world. Stitch- tives across platforms that support each other. Media coordination in ing describes how consumers put clues together and make their own transmedia franchises seeks to create a universe composed of inter- versions of transmedia worlds from them. To create a cohesive and related characters and stories as in Star Wars (Brown et al. 2003) or meaningful experience in a transmedia universe where stories are American Girl (Diamond et al. 2009). Jenkins (2006) calls this “act dispersed across multiple platforms, consumers rely on these narra- of creating compelling environments that cannot be fully explored or tive consumption practices. exhausted in a single platform” as “world-building” (116). Consum- Our paper offers four important implications to help spur con- ers are encouraged to explore across these expanded story worlds sumer research in this area. First, by formulating the idea of TCE via some strategically and intentionally placed gaps and mysteries as an “experience,” we suggest transmedia consumption is broader in the narrative that are called negative capability (Long 2007). This than the consumption of entertainment-related narratives like read- exploration and exhaustion, we hold to be acts of consumption; as ing, playing, or watching. Secondly, we place the consumer front they transcend single “media” platforms, they become transmedia and center within transmedia research, by focusing on naturalisti- consumption. cally-embedded practices of “world-consuming” to complement the Exploring this consumption side, these unique characteristics of producer-focused “world-building” of prior research (Long 2007). transmedia demand not only consumers’ involvement, but also their Third, we discover and discuss individualized practices of “world- motivation, affection, and engagement. TCE are practices through consuming” in which a complex narrative universe encourages con- which intertextual, connected, and multiple media vehicle-dispersed sumers to develop idiosyncratic narrative experiences and custom- commercial narratives are consumed. We explore how consumers ized brand practices (Schau, Muñiz, and Arnould 2009). Fourth, we engage with these interrelated marketing narratives across a set of detail four important interrelated practices that guide the individual

Advances in Consumer Research 529 Volume 41, ©2013 530 / Transmedia Consumption Experiences (TCE): Patching as a Narrative Consumption Practice Table 1: Summary of the Results I think Lost is definitely… probably on purpose connected with all the other forms of media. Awareness of the It cannot be just a TV [show]. It would be too difficult to keep up. Or they would have made Mapping existence of the much simpler. The books didn’t mean as much or the Easter eggs and the representation secondary texts wouldn’t have been there. There is no way they could do that. Maybe they could but probably… most people knew what that meant aren’t watching TV. [laughs] (Larry) I read the first one (ARG) that was about what was going with Dharma and theVanzetti equation and all that stuff. And then I played … I didn’t complete but I played pieces of Where is 815. The second one. …..I was so busy at the time that I appreciated being able Reading the recaps, to read a recap. …For Lost at that point everybody was very thirsty for answers. And there synopsis of the seems to be some information in ARG about the Vanzetti equation and those numbers. And secondary texts so I appreciated being able to get those answers. Same way I appreciate to be able to get from other resources to the next episode when I was going through season 1. It is the same kind of connection Dipping like forums, blogs, to the next one. So I liked being able to read the recap on the first one. I liked playing the or hyperlinks (e.g., second one but now I didn’t have the time to do both. So, other people were figuring out consuming without stuff out before I was even catching up. Then because I was so religiously reading Lostpedia playing) every source I can get to anyway. Enough solutions were being provided as the game went along that I played some and then I ran across some solutions anyway. I was like” ok, screw it, I am gonna read it over”. ARGs are the … when I have time for, I think, it’s the best marketing tool ever. What I did, I appreciated reading it afterwards. (John) If this IS differential calculus, which I understand to be the math of momentum under the laws of motion (in relation to physics), then that might help draw a connection somewhere.... Though, the hint could be VERY broad in regards to what it’s “referring” to (meaning, which field of study) I think it gives us a revealing insight... Patching Quote: “In physics, the derivative of the displacement of a moving body with respect Consume the to time is the velocity of the body, and the derivative of velocity with respect to time is secondary texts, play acceleration.” ARGs, read books, Keep an ear out for any names popping up like Liebniz, Lagrange, Newton, or Euler as Digging etc. and try to solve they were major contributors to the study of calculus. There’s also a “Jacobian Matrix” mysteries and find in calculus which makes me wonder (though, it’s a bit of a different TYPE of calculus) extra information (Paperknives, ARG: Find 815, 2008) “This is what my science professors would call misleading. 1) It’s not possible that no jobs were created during the period from 2008 and 2009; 2) The chart excludes the unemployment rate which grew from 3 to 9% in the same period of time; 3) given what is said in my comment 2 -- what exactly is a negative job creation if it IS NOT an unemployment rate?” (OFA, Facebook, 2012) The rule of thumb for ancillary stuff like this is thus: The characters themselves are not important or canon to the show, the information they uncover however is. Here’s an example: In Find815, there’s a long character arc about someone who finds the fake 815 crash with Combine all the underwater probes. In the show, this event/information is canon. We see the probes even. info from the But the person behind them is not the same. The character wasn’t there or important, the consumption of information revealed through him was, and was included. See what I mean? Some stuff from Stitching secondary texts, the ARGs actually has been referenced to in the show. In “The Constant” we see Widmore make an overarching buying a book, and the auctioneer says it was from a man “Magnus Hanso” and contained analysis information on the Black Rock. Previously, this information was only referred to in TLE. But mostly, the information won’t make it in episodes, but it is however canon to the mythology. They do these ARGs for the reason of getting out info or plot details that can’t be fit into the show itself well. (Garmonbozey, ARG The , 2009) construction of a new narrative universe and foster deeper engage- Dena, Christy (2004), “Transmedia Narrative: Diverged ment with media narratives: mapping, dipping, digging, and stitch- Technology, Converged People, New Stories,” Podcast. http:// ing. As the text is woven into a variety of different forms, these meta- lamp.edu.au/2004/11/08/podcast-new-stories phors help guide our understanding and further research into this Diamond, Nina, John F. Sherry Jr., Mary Ann McGrath, Albert increasingly important area of media and brand consumption. Muniz, Stefania Borghini, and Robert Kozinets (2009), “American Girl and the Brand Gestalt: Closing the Loop on REFERENCES Sociocultural Branding Research,” Journal of Marketing, 73 Brown, Stephen (2005), Wizard! Harry Potter’s Brand Magic. (May) 118-134. London: Cyan. Jenkins, Henry (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Brown, Stephen, Robert V. Kozinets, and John F. 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