Gabriela Schonbach, Omni Film partner and executive producer on Ice Pilots NWT fills Realscreen in on the unexpected success – on-air and online.

To read the full article, please visit Realscreen

Welcome to the FanTrust guide to digital success – Setting Your Digital Resolutions for 2009. December is traditionally a time for reflection and goal-setting, both personal and professional. Though you know what it takes to reach your goals for, say, losing weight (less eggnog, more yoga) or having fun (more eggnog, less yoga) –what if you’re venturing into uncharted business terrain?

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. Set your sights on overall digital 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!

Week 2: Know Your Audience

Last week’s Digital Resolutions post set you on the path to outlining your digital goals with motivating examples from Monty Python, Nexon and others. We asked, “What are your motivations for getting into the digital space? What do you hope to achieve?”

It’s also important to look outward – to get to know your fans. More specifically, to understand your fans’ online lives. This doesn’t require anything nefarious – such as creating a Second Life avatar and spying behind virtual bushes. As with any relationship, getting to know your fans simply requires that you ask the right questions, listen, observe, and draw the correct conclusions.

We recently blogged about trends in women’s and men’s online behavior. Tracking trends is important and can be incredibly valuable. But to be a real online success, you must drill down and understand your own fan base. What experiences and value are your fans seeking online?

The TV series Reality Obsessed follows the adventures of Murtz Jaffer, the most dedicated and obsessed fan of reality television. In each episode, Murtz enlists the help of reality TV stars-cum-friends to answer a burning question about the genre: Do participants really experience connections or sexual chemistry with the reality cameras rolling? How do you produce a fail-proof audition tape? What’s it like to “work” at the business featured in a hot reality TV show?

Producers Peace Point Entertainment enlisted FanTrust’s community-building expertise for Reality Obsessed. Peace Point had clearly defined goals – they wanted the Reality Obsessed blog, penned by the host, to serve as marketing for the show – attracting international fans and sparking interest in the series.

FanTrust created a two-pronged strategy: develop a blog that would fill an untapped need for reality fans online; and roll out targeted weekly promotions.

The blog, like the show, was designed to expose the reality behind reality TV – an insider perspective, but free of the snark found on many popular TV gossip blogs. Polls and questions at the end of each blog post facilitated fan participation and discussion.

To promote the show online, we reached out to fans in their natural habitat – on fan/ gossip sites, forums, and popular social networks. We sought out fans of reality TV franchises that were airing concurrent to the show’s rollout (e.g. Big Brother, Survivor) – reasoning that these show fans would be online in droves – buzzing, chatting and searching about the latest scandals and vote offs. And of course reality stars, and the fans who love them, were promoting themselves and connecting on MySpace, so Reality Obsessed joined the fray.

The host, Murtz, parlayed his reputation to serve as reality TV expert on the Survivor Panel of National Post’s arts & culture blog, The Ampersand (owned by CanWest, the parent company of Reality Obsessed’s broadcaster, TVTropolis).

What if your property is still in development phases, with no existing fan base? Study the digital offerings of your stakeholders and competitors. What are the best offerings already on the market, and why?

FanTrust provides digital strategies, deal-making, competitive intelligence, fan tracking, online community building and social networking campaigns – establishing the best strategic partnerships, digital properties and platforms for our clients.

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.