Understanding IP Asset Management in 21st Century

By Pickle June 15, 2021

Understanding Intellectual Property Asset Management begins as “Trans Media”, wherein multiple media products are manifested as individual brands that cross promote each other while providing multiple income streams.

By Omar Kaczmarczyk
Motion Picture Producer, Sharecroppers Media
By Hilary Clay Hicks
Trans-Media Producer, Sharecroppers Media

Indian motion pictures are increasingly popular around the world. Movies either made in India or featuring Indian characters have been doing excellently at the box office. To be competitive, movies from the subcontinent need to be marketed using the latest and most effective marketing systems—and that means online.

Today, the potential market for any idea or Intellectual Property is almost unlimited and easier to reach than at any time in history.

For example, the potential global motion picture market has never been larger. The marketing methods, distribution systems, and media of the past are no longer effective. In just a few years into this millennium, systems for the development of entertainment media have taken a quantum leap thanks to brilliant digital applications that serve to globally aggregate audiences online.

Targeted audiences can now be contacted with the single push of a computer key. There are 4.33 billion active, intelligent, media literate, aware internet users (56% of the people on the planet) who have expanding horizons and discretionary income.

The internet is the ecosystem for proactive promotional efforts and reiteration to create awareness. Today’s tools include websites, social media, and net-friendly content. Personalized online branding is built on a solid foundation that multiplies relationships and expands exponentially around the world.

This bears a superficial resemblance to the legacy model of vertical integration, but rather than
consist of separate divisions operating within one business structure, multiple income streams
are manifested as individual brands created to exploit a master intellectual property (IP) brand.

Psychographics is the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests and lifestyles
(not be confused with demographics, which are statistical data relating to the population and
particular socio-economic strata). Today, target audiences can be identified psychographically
thanks to the abundance of personal interest online communities found throughout social media and websites in all languages.

Simply put, the Intellectual Property Asset is the Brand Name, Identity, and Logo.

Trans Media Marketing is the multi-platform exploitation and development of the Master Brand Name, Identity, and or Logo.

Think Star Wars, Marvel Comics, The Simpsons (the first adult animation on TV), and Steam Boat Willy (also known as Mickey Mouse) now over a hundred years old and still growing across all media. Next, think the Mahabharata, the great history of the human race and the stories therein. Trans Media provides a library of copyrights that can be extended with each adaptation.

A Trans Media/Multi Platform Constellation consists of hard and/or soft cover book or books, movie(s), a TV broadcast series, video streaming media, original music, graphic novel(s), comic
books, serialization online or in print media, special events, licensing, merchandising of sportswear and souvenirs, and whatever else the imagination provides for which an audience can be identified.

The purpose of the Trans Media/Multi Platform model is to provide a cascade of products, publicity, sales, and revenue. A Multi Platform Cascade results when an IP’s Trans Media brands on various platforms with individual interactive websites are marketed via social media, streaming media, electronic news and information media, print news and information media, and cable news and information media all work together producing multiple revenue streams and cross-promotion. These are synergistic systems that adapt to current and evolving media platforms to assure a Master Brand identity that lives forever.

Trans Media audiovisual properties may be distributed to the seven screens: theatrical motion
picture, broadcast TV, streaming platforms (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.), cable and satellite TV, Pay-Per-View, DVDs (retail and rental), and hand-held devices including smart phones and tablets.

Social media campaigns for most IP brands are a “blue ocean,” that is, there is no competition. The purpose of a social media campaign is to create online brand awareness for “sales” of transmedia value. It also serves as a public relations/publicity vehicle. Social Media Distribution includes social media channels with visual assets and copy (content) connecting psychographically consonant affinity groups.

The base effort includes establishing and promoting personalized channels (groups), niche email marketing, central blogs, and social communities. These efforts foster optimization of organic content, that is, user created content as opposed to the IP owner’s content: These efforts are more about volume than quality, in that they foster interactivity and metadata growth.

The process is aided by expert or even celebrity participation or “social proof” and the support of
influencer marketing (referrals to social media audiences), the “low hanging fruit” of social media
marketing. Special attention is paid to ongoing management (“hand to hand combat”) interacting
with groups and communities. PR contacts are “scraped” or data mined for application to
templates and then automated. Special software exists for performing these tasks. IP managers,
on behalf of the content creators, are tasked with “hearing the market” (tracking) in order to create momentum to estimate and adjust to reach goals.

We are to be scientists experimenting in the lab to come up with the special formula to implement our goals. To be certain, everything mentioned in this article is a beginning for Intellectual Property Asset Management as a script becomes a motion picture. This is preliminary work, organizing and planning every aspect to enhance the story’s impact. Every language and every culture will embrace a powerful story. A perfect example is Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, the beginning of the ApuTrilogy, which is still seen in cinemas and on television in almost every country on the planet. Proper IP Asset Management will make certain that all showings of this wonderful work of art are still providing global revenue to the copyright holders.

It is the science and complex omni-experiencing of 21st Century communication processes with
which we can simplify and co-create a vibrant experience of storytelling in a way never possible
previous to this moment.