startupi

I spoke to Jeff Gomez recently.  He is CEO of Startlight Runner Entertainment and was one of the speakers at the I Congresso Internacional do Livro Digital (First International Congress on Digital Books). As a creative consultant Jeff serves Fortune 500 clients like Disney (Pirates of the Caribbean), 20th Century Fox (Avatar), Microsoft (Halo) and Coca-Cola.

Jeff spoke about cross-media narratives, how it is really necessary to be where the client is, and how it’s possible to create products in multiple formats and languages. This is a lesson not just for the publishing industry, but one that can be useful to startups that are developing in a context that is very competitive and innovative.

To understand how cross-media narratives work, check out this post (in Portuguese) by consultant and Brazilian university professor Vince Vader. Below you’ll find Jeff Gomez’ thoughts with examples of how cross-media narratives can help businesses:

• in popular culture, cross-media narratives have been embraced and carry a lot of weight for brands, products and businesses;

• we are seeing an emergence of this trend in medicine, advertising, Hollywood, and the games industry. The publishing industry is still discovering the potential of cross-media, but there are many challenges in the execution;

• going digital is difficult for publishers. It’s been the case that the publishing market is focused on selling physical books, and I think they forget that the real vital part is the story, which is contained in the book. With that content - the story - now being transmitted by mobile devices, the publishers have not been well prepared. But they are coming around;

• the price of digital products is usually much lower, and this is a challenge because the publishers incur costs in production, distribution, etc.;

• I think the publishers are adapting more rapidly than the record industry did;

• I was invited here to offer ideas about how to make digital content, not just in terms of distribution - there’s always a new device, like the Kindle, iPad, iPhone. I think what we need to understand is that content is an important good, and we need to change the business model, invest more in the development of content, in order to make it easier to adapt it for the cinema, music, games, etc. For this reason we need to change the relationship to the author, the reader, and the rest of the chain;

• digital products won’t kill business! Remember  with TV: in the beginning no one paid to receive it;

• there will always be great literature and a desire to read good books;

• radio is not going away;

• what excites me about Brazil is the willingness to listen and understand. I see much more rapid movement here than in the US.