E-Book Overview
What do Elvis Presley, Dungeons and Dragons, Agatha Christie, Coronation Street and Star Wars have in common? They are enduring and successful business properties - transferring through time, across media. Whether it's a book, TV show, computer game, film or song, and whether it's 50 years old or was created last week, some stories, characters and phenomena are fleeting in our collective conscience and some pass the test of time. Just how have these stories adapted as the years go by? What works? What doesn't? And why? And just what's in store for new content as it competes to build a loyal audience? Creative Business takes a broad view of some successful media content, digging beneath the surface to uncover the themes of the enduring and the serially successful. These are the creative, addictive stories brought together in a must-read book for anybody trying to create a successful creative property.
E-Book Content
C R E AT I V E B U S I N E S S In an increasingly competitive world, we believe it’s quality of thinking that will give you the edge – an idea that opens new doors, a technique that solves a problem, or an insight that simply makes sense of it all. The more you know, the smarter and faster you can go. That’s why we work with the best minds in business and finance to bring cutting-edge thinking and best learning practice to a global market. Under a range of leading imprints, including Financial Times Prentice Hall, we create world-class print publications and electronic products bringing our readers knowledge, skills and understanding which can be applied whether studying or at work. To find out more about our business publications, or tell us about the books you’d like to find, you can visit us at www.business-minds.com For other Pearson Education publications, visit www.pearsoned-ema.com C R E AT I V E B U S I N E S S The making of addictive stories PA U L N E R O N E E TA PAT E L P E A R S O N E D U C AT I O N L I M I T E D Head Office: Edinburgh Gate Harlow CM20 2JE Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Fax: +44 (0)1279 431059 London Office: 128 Long Acre London WC2E 9AN Tel: +44 (0)20 7447 2000 Fax: +44 (0)20 7447 2170 Website: www.business-minds.com First published in Great Britain in 2003 © Pearson Education Limited 2003 The right of Paul Nero and Neeta Patel to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN: 0 273 65671 6 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. THis book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the Publishers. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset by Pantek Arts Ltd, Maidstone, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Henry Ling Ltd, Dorchester The publishers’ policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable forests. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An awful lot of evenings in front of the television, nights at the cinema and days filled listening to music have gone into the production of this book. So have some serious thinking and much discussion with practitioners of creative businesses. Those with whom we spoke had great stories to tell, and we trust we have transferred their insights faithfully. The book was conceived as dotcom mania spluttered its dying b