TV and Digital Promotion: Agile Strategies for a New Media Ecology

这个项目调查了数字媒体时代电视行业出现的新的宣传文化，与英国领先的媒体和广播设计公司Red Bee Media以及其他媒体和传播公司合作，探索英国关键创意产业部门的优先事项和挑战。多频道、多平台电视环境的发展给电视频道和媒体品牌带来了新的挑战。随着观众能够在各种各样的数字频道、平台和在线服务之间进行选择和切换，电视行业不得不寻找新的方式来接触和吸引日益分散的观众。在此背景下，出现了一个新兴的创意产业部门，专门从事品牌传播、推广和设计。在寻求在竞争激烈的媒体环境中吸引和管理注意力的过程中，宣传已成为电视输出和广播设计的主要组成部分。这可能包括跟踪个别节目的宣传，以及为频道/网络打上品牌的标识，也可能是新形式的品牌和互动内容。电视和数字推广已经成为英国创意产业实力的一个特殊领域。然而，作为一个领域，它在艺术和人文研究中被明显忽视了。红蜂传媒是世界领先的广播和数字媒体设计公司之一，为国内和国际市场的电视公司和媒体品牌创造标志、标识、预告片、宣传、屏幕图形和互动娱乐。红蜂以前是BBC的一部分，在为广播公司和品牌所有者提供技术和创意服务方面是独一无二的。在本世纪头十年，它负责BBC One和UKTV的品牌标识，众多国际和数字频道，以及中国中央电视台2008年北京奥运会的整个奥运品牌。红蜂的战略定位--以及自身定位--是一家特别有能力应对媒体环境快速变化的公司。该项目致力于与红蜂进行知识交流，以解决数字时代媒体推广的一系列共同研究关切。通过分析红蜂的创意工作实践(其中包括公司2012年的BBC奥运工作等案例)，该项目促进了业界对推广工作和红蜂在该领域的创意领导地位的自我反思。更具体地说，该项目探索了在促销方面寻求和追求“敏捷性”的方式。敏捷性已成为电视/媒体品牌和向其出售专业知识的公司努力引导观众通过丰富而复杂的媒体领域的方式的一个术语。这一点将通过研讨会活动进一步探讨，研讨会将学者、电信和数字媒体公司聚集在一起，专注于“社交电视”这一新兴(且灵活)的推广形式。最后，该项目将与BFI共同策划两项活动，将红蜂与Crystal CG(负责伦敦奥运会数字宣传的公司)以及其他电视宣传材料制作的关键人物聚集在一起，展开关于电视宣传和数字媒体设计的艺术和文化价值的公众讨论。奥运会提供了一个主题相关的视角，通过它来探索宣传屏幕文化，因为数字和多平台战略是伦敦奥运会宣传的核心。这个项目将在之前资助的AHRC关于电影和电视行业品牌和推广的研究的基础上，鼓励学者、行业从业者和公众观众之间的一系列互动，产生关于电视推广作为一种专业学科、一种屏幕内容形式以及作为英国创意行业领导地位的来源的知识和理解。

This project investigates the emergence of new kinds of promotional culture for the television industry in the digital media era, engaging with Britain's leading media and broadcast design company, Red Bee Media, and other media and communications companies, to explore the priorities and challenges of a key UK creative industry sector.The development of a multichannel, multiplatform television environment has created new challenges for TV channels and media brands. With viewers able to choose between, and move across, a wide variety of digital channels, platforms and online services, the television industry has been obliged to find new ways to reach and engage increasingly fragmented audiences. Within this context, a burgeoning creative industry sector has emerged, specializing in brand communication, promotion and design. In seeking to capture and manage attention within a competitive media landscape, promotion has become a major component of TV output and broadcast design. This can range from promos that trail individual programmes and idents that brand channels/networks to new forms of branded and interactive content. TV and digital promotion has become a particular area of creative industry strength in the UK. However, as a sector, it has been conspicuously overlooked in arts and humanities research. Red Bee Media is one of the world-leading companies in broadcast and digital media design, creating logos, idents, trailers, promos, on-screen graphics and interactive entertainment for TV companies and media brands in national and international markets. Formerly part of the BBC, Red Bee is unique in combining technological and creative services to broadcasters and brand owners. It was responsible in the 2000s for the brand identities of BBC One and UKTV, numerous international and digital channels, and the entire Olympic branding of the 2008 Beijing Games for the Chinese broadcaster CCTV. Red Bee is strategically positioned - and positions itself -as a company particularly able to respond to rapid changes in the media environment. This project engages in knowledge exchange with Red Bee in order to address a series of shared research concerns about media promotion in the digital age. Through analysis of Red Bee's creative work practice (following the company's BBC Olympic work in 2012 among other case examples), the project facilitates industrial self-reflection about promotional work and Red Bee's creative leadership in the field. More specifically, the project explores the way that 'agility' is being sought and pursued in promotional terms. Agility has become an operative term for the way that TV/media brands, and the companies that sell them expertise, are striving to navigate viewers through a rich and complex media terrain. This will be further explored through workshop activities drawing together academics, telecommunications and digital media companies focused on the emergent (and agile) promotional form of 'social television.' Finally, the project will curate two events with the BFI that bring Red Bee together with Crystal CG (the company responsible for the digital promotion of the London Olympics) and other key figures in the production of television's promotional materials to open out public discussion about the artistic and cultural value of TV promotion and digital media design. The Olympics provides a topically relevant lens through which to explore promotional screen culture as digital and multiplatform strategies are central to the promotion of the London Games.Following on from previously-funded AHRC research on branding and promotion in the film and television industry, this project will encourage a range of interactions between academics, industry practitioners and public audiences, generating knowledge and understanding about TV promotion as a professional discipline, as a form of screen content, and as a source of UK creative industry leadership.