Every Thursday and Monday for the next two weeks,  we’ll walk you through short, simple exercises – complete with case studies and success stories – intended to spark transformation in your company or division with overall corporate and business goals; digital capacity; market niche and fan engagement strategies.

With more than two decades of experience in digital media, FanTrust can help you grow your digital lines of business. Our hope is to leave you inspired and invigorated for a happy, healthy digital business in 2009.

All the best!

Session One: Define Your Aspirations

What are your motivations for getting into the digital space? What do you hope to achieve?

Perhaps, as a television producer, you simply want to maintain a competitive edge when pitching or developing TV treatments for broadcasters. Others may have more ambitious goals – eyeing additional revenue streams (e.g. sales of video online) or new partnership models (e.g. production underwriting from online video destinations and/or brand sponsorships).

The men of Monty Python are blatantly, unabashedly aspiring to additional revenues with their just-launched YouTube channel. In their comic, absurdist style, the group admits the channel is a direct ploy to sell Monty Python DVDs and merchandise through YouTube’s new partnership with Amazon. And it appears to be working – the three-year-old best-of Monty Python DVD set went from being the ten thousandth most purchased item on Amazon.com to No. 5 one week after the comedy group started posting videos on YouTube with referral links to Amazon.

Web studio NextNewNetworks signed a deal in July 2008 with Starburst. The characters of NNN’s animated series Nite Fite talk up its candy company sponsor – alongside “sell-out” quips – in return for sponsorship revenues. Though terms were undisclosed, this type of deal is helping studios create and seed their series to online audiences.

Many game companies are stepping into the digital space in pursuit of audiences, financing and new revenue streams. We’ve previously blogged about Nexon generating $1.2 million in sales of virtual MiniCooper cars within Maple Story. Talk about printing (or in this case, digitally rendering) your own money!

Former Capcom VP of Marketing Nique Fajors is now working with a new online games company. He explained in a recent GameDaily article that he believes online games will continue to lure funding from the traditional console space – why would investors put up big dollars to see two console game produced, when they can spread their dollars (and risk) across one hundred casual games, he asks?

While there will continue to be a market for console games, companies and producers including EA and Take-Two see microtransactions and downloadable content as untapped opportunities, and a necessary investment, even in tight economic times.

In short, you need to know where you want to go if you ever hope to get there – begin mapping your digital future today.

FanTrust runs strategy sessions that help you and your team ask the right questions and drill down on the right answers and decisions for your company’s digital business, with our Digital Brand Snapshot brainstorm process.

Talking exclusively to FanTrust, Capcom Corporate Officer/ Vice-President – Strategic Planning & Business Development Christian Svensson said, “The feedback is largely positive. No other video game publisher has gone this far synching up fan activity.” Designed to let fans take their Capcom ID on the road, play across multiple devices and communicate across multiple user accounts, the new community hub has been in the works for about a year and sets the stage for the next level of fan engagement. “A lot of this is a very un-Japanese approach,” says Christian who notes that the global company with Japanese HQ had to push the limits of corporate culture for a deeper engagement with fan culture.

The new community site enables media sharing (which along with search is not yet fully developed) and received about 5000 uploads in the first 48 hours. In the past, says Christian, “fans fostered community in spite of Capcom’s inability to support them. Our goal now is to enable fans in all ways up to the point of making money.”

Evidently even that rule is meant to be broken. Capcom helped one die-hard fan of Mega Man monetize a music tribute to his favorite game, signed him for a Comic-Con appearance and gave him a license deal. The Philadelphia-bred rapper Raheem Jarbo, known to indie-hop fans as Random, was recently interviewed by Wired’s music blog, The Listening Post, about the love for Mega Man that inspired his Mega Ran album, and praised Capcom’s policy of encouraging fan content, instead of sending in the lawyers.

Looking ahead, fans can expect more from Capcom, everything from improved search within the community hub to what Christian calls “the most robust digital distribution strategy in the PC space, with up to 150 sites carrying our stuff.” And next month look out for what he promises will be the “world’s largest global digital launch” for the game 1942, when this classic shooter returns with better planes, bigger bosses and even sicker weapons.

At this point it is still hard for the company, which has inspired about 25 active niche communities, to ascertain what comes first, the strength of a game brand or the strength of a game community. But coming soon, says Christian, are some “explosive new products where the community will be the force directly attributed to their success.”

What’s Christian’s take on Fans and Trust? “Trust is the foundation of interaction. The more voice fans feel they have early on, the more they trust us. Trust is a funny thing… it’s not easily earned, but it’s easily lost.”

Thanks, Christian, FanTrust couldn’t have said it better.