SXSWORLD

Lessons Learned From Mad Men: The Evolution Of "Brand Fiction" By Jason Levitt T rewards in both personal and professional ways. Her role as the twit- tering character Betty Draper has allowed her to not only become an active member of a TV series she adores, but also to engage in an ongoing conversation about "Brand Fiction," a term she coined in response to a question at her 2009 SXSW Interactive panel, "Behind the Scenes with Mad Men on Twitter." "I introduced it in answer to someone in the audience who wondered Though she receives no direct financial compensation, Ross has found wittering as a character from the AMC series Mad Men may not be as glamorous as starring as one of the actors for this popular show, but for seasoned creative director and writer Helen Klein Ross, it is a natural fit. if Mad Men on Twitter was fan fiction," explains Ross. "I wanted to make the distinction that, while all of us Mad Men tweeters are fans of the show, some of us intend our fiction to serve as promotion of a brand we feel passionate about." increased followers on Twitter (now at a respectable 23,000 for her @ BettyDraper character and a reasonable 16,000 for @PeggyOlson). Notably, this Twitter audience was built without official support or funding from AMC. The twittering Mad Men exploits also gained recog- nition as a finalist in the SAMMY Awards, "the first time an advertising awards show acknowledged the marketing power of a branding cam- paign created completely by fans," notes Ross. While fan fiction is, by definition, created by fans, Brand Fiction may with the show and a way to bond more deeply with their favorite char- acters," says Ross. The participatory experience is still, according to Ross, "largely untapped by marketers," but the popularity is readily visible in shows such as American Idol, where viewers can dictate the outcome of the shows they are watching. To gauge the success of this "twittertainment," Ross can point to or may not be. Obviously paying attention to this emerging fictional twittering trend, Fox Broadcasting has given some of the characters Helen Klein Ross, who twitters as Betty Draper from Mad Men. According to Wikipedia, modern fan fiction started in 1967 with the publication of the first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia. Today, fan fiction can be found in much more sophisticated forms such as the fan-made Star Trek video episodes, "Star Trek Phase II," or the fan-made Star Wars episode, "Revelations." The distinction between "fan fiction" and "Brand Fiction" is a subtle in its popular Glee series their own Twitter accounts, which are linked from their character's page on Fox's Glee wiki, though these may be Fox employees twittering, not the Glee actors themselves. On her upcoming 2010 SXSW Interactive panel, "10 Rules of Brand stay "rigorously consistent" with the details and settings presented in the actual episodes so that their twittered stories follow naturally from the broadcast episodes. "Suddenly, fans have a new way to become involved one. Both involve creating (or extending) storylines using the original characters but are not penned by the original authors. But Brand Fiction, as Ross sees it, can be an integral part of a marketing campaign, enhancing a brand's visibility and uptake. A key differentiator is the interactivity offered by services such as Twitter, which create a natural platform to engage consumers directly and let them interact with the characters and storyline. "Brands traditionally told their story via broadcast advertising, but now consumers aren't willing to sit back and have the story pipelined to them; they want to be an active part of the narrative," notes Ross. To keep the twitterati engaged, Ross and her fellow Mad Men tweeters 22 SXSW ORLD / F EBRUAR Y 2010 new currencies of the digital age, then Ross and the other Mad Men twitterati are indeed onto something. The promise of Brand Fiction is for brands to extend their reach to interactive services and engage con- sumers directly. While it may seem like a natural progression for marketeers, not Fiction from Mad Men's @BettyDraper," Ross will formerly introduce Brand Fiction and how it fits into a marketing campaign. "The lessons I've learned tweeting Mad Men can be applied to all brands," says Ross. If "attention" is, as Wired Editor Chris Anderson opines, one of the everyone is jumping on this new boat. "Many brands are afraid of doing so, afraid of the consequences of ceding control of their message," cau- tions Ross. "What they don't realize is the far greater loss of ceding a claim in this new frontier to competitors." n The "Rules of BrandFiction from Twittering MadMen" panel will take place on Saturday, March 13.

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