Multimedia & Transmedia: The Minions

The difference of multimedia and transmedia is a small but extremely important point that could be the deciding factor of whether an idea would go viral or not. In today’s market, success is measured by how well a product or an idea sells. One could say the goal which is aimed for is to get the message or product to reach people around the world and not just in one country. Using a multimedia approach, I believe one could achieve that goal, especially in today's social network generation.

Multimedia would be the path chose to sell/spread an idea simultaneously on multiple media outlets. Some outlets that would be used would be through the usage of the television, phone applications, video games, comics/books, and movies. Multimedia utilizes all of these outlets in order to reach audiences who may only get their dosage of the newest trends from one form of media. Once those individuals are targeted and successfully reached, many times they are lead through the use of advertisement to access more content on what it is they like on another outlet. It is here where the reach and the impact expands and begins to make the mark of whether something is successful or not.

I see transmedia being a little less effective than multimedia. I also tend to see it in a sort of negative connotation. When I think of transmedia, I see it as a transfer from one media to another. This usually happens when the idea/product is no longer profitable or lost its value on a specific outlet but still has a heavy following from a fan base. Though the product has been transferred onto another media outlet and is targeting a new audience, only the people who held onto the product/message from the beginning would most likely continue to follow it.

In modern entertainment, I cannot think of another image that has successfully used the multimedia route to gain fame and dominate the animated film industry like The Minions. After their unforgettable entrance into pop culture in the movie Despicable Me and then with their return in Despicable Me 2, the world could not get enough of those tiny yellow balls of fun who no one understood what they were saying. It was an instant attachment with them for children and adults alike.

Unexplainable love for the Minions lead to the obvious next step of making a movie that was centered around them. The movie Minions was instantly a crowd favorite and is now one of the most successful movies of all-time after they made more than $1 Billion in the worldwide box office (Variety). The minion was the ultimate pop culture symbol and they soon after that began jumping into other media outlets.

The Minions then became the center of a new app game where the player can control one of the minions and run through maps that resembled the locations in the movie. This is just one example of how the image and the face of the minion reached out to people around the world. Movie-goers and gamers were now presented with the same message and were now connected by their love for the minion.

King Bob lived up to his name as he and the other minions reigned as the most popular animated character in the industry today. Today, in any children's store or gaming store, something with a minion on it will be on the shelves and would most likely be a hot item for sale. 














Citation: McNary, Dave. "‘Minions’ Hits $1 Billion at Worldwide Box Office." Variety.com. August 28, 2015. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://variety.com/2015/film/news/minions-billion-worldwide-box-office-1201580727/.