Mike Arauz's Blog – The Archives

Value arises [in The Matrix franchise] from the process of looking for meaning (and the elaboration of the story by the audience) and not purely from the intentionality of the Wachowski brothers. What the Wachowski brothers did was trigger a search for meaning; they did not determine where the audience would go to find their answers. - Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture

So after I put up yesterday's post, Branding for a Recombinant Culture, I came across this perfect quote from Professor Jenkins himself, the Godfather of Recombinant Culture.

This is why it's worthwhile for brands to embrace recombinant culture. Constructing your brand in many disparate pieces, as The Matrix did when they extended their fictional narrative through graphic novels, animated shorts, and video games, creates new value. Inviting your audience to have different experiences with your brand through different forms of media, gives them the opportunity to become collaborators and co-creators of the brand. This ties in to the discussion of Why is Discovery is So Much More Valuable than Interruption?

Conceiving of a brand as a loose collection of distinct experiences is now the right approach for the age of conversation. Brand success is now dependent on inspiring people to talk about your brand on the web. And the unique experiences that each participant brings with them fuel their conversation. If they both have identical experiences, then they don't have much to talk about. But, if they each have unique experiences, in different places, with different messages, then they share their knowledge and begin to create new meaning for the brand.