My Cross-Media Image

This graph I drew shows my opinion of what Cross-Media is. As you can see, Cross-Media is different from multimedia, new media or social media. In other words, Cross-Media is at the intersection of new media and traditional media.

But as a new way to deliver messages, Cross-Media is also about communication, strategy, storytelling and much more.

My Cross-Media Map

What is a Cross-Media deal?

A typical example of a Cross-Media deal can look like Michael Franzini's One Hundred Young Americans. According to the Publisher’s Comments, the purpose of the book is to capture ‘first-hand accounts of youth culture in America from 100 teenagers in 50 states’, although the key is that this generation is the first to have ‘grown up with unprecedented access to media and information’.

It combines a book publication with a gorgeous web site containing elements such as image galleries, video elements and blog articles, from which you can get an in-depth account of their story, as well as participating in the community through social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

Through this case we can tell that a book is not only a book anymore, when it is enhanced with other media to become a kind of social network.

Press releases, advertising and PR campaigns are all about telling a story. Cross-Media is a new way to telling your story and a big opportunity in the PR industry can be found in the emergence of Cross-Media storytelling using different platforms.

Visit 100youngamericans at:
http://www.100youngamericans.com/

A very interesting video'The Break Up'

In the short video ‘The Break up’ (available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8), a man and a woman meet up in a restaurant, where the woman announces that she wants a divorce from him, although he has no clue what the reasons are for the divorce.

It shows the relationship between the advertiser who has gone off and done his own thing and the client who is not impressed that the things he is doing doesn’t seem to be in the best interest to her.

In my opinion, PR practitioners and agencies need to be careful to take into account the client’s view of things in a Cross-Media world. The quote ‘I’ve changed, but you have not’ sums up the fact what the PR industry needs to be able to adapt to client requirements as well as keep up with new media, otherwise it will end up just like in the video.

It also reminds me of Mark Borkowski in his talk last month. He claimed that a ‘generation of PRs will die if they do not accept the new media’.

This leaves us to think about the importance of new media in the PR industry, as well as what clients want and whether it is possible to sell them ideas using the Cross-Media way.

The Break Up Video sent by geertdesager

Welcome to Cross-Media – A new way of thinking!

With the emergence of new media, people may say that ‘TV is going to die’ or that ‘newspapers will disappear in 20 years’, but in my opinion, the information contained within traditional media can be combined with new forms of media (Web, Streaming Video, E-mail, Instant Messaging, Social Networking etc.) to enhance the value of PR campaigns through the effective use of Cross-Media.

A definition of ‘Cross-Media’

According to Wikipedia, Cross-Media (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_media) ‘is a media property, service, story or experience distributed across media platforms using a variety of media forms’.

The part that relates directly to PR is that the effective use of Cross-Media ‘invites the receiver to cross-over from one medium to the next’ and that it can enhance the value of communication through targeted and personalised distribution of a message or campaign.

In my opinion, using traditional and new media in any combination allows the content and meaning of work to be transmitted in one form.

As a term, it did not exist several years ago and came from the publishing industry using the motto: ‘Produce once, publish everywhere’.

This blog aims to explore this trend and expand on it by exploring the different areas that it might develop into.