It's Here: Interpublic Unveils East Coast Media Lab

Interpublic East Coast Media Lab chief Reuben Steiger thsi week unveiled the first official plans for an East Coast version of the vaunted emerging media laboratory. Steiger, speaking at MediaPost's Re:Vision conference in New York on Tuesday, said the new lab would be operational in July, and would be located in one of the most heavily trafficked neighborhoods in New York City, Herald Square.

The disclosure came just days before Interpublic announced a reorganization of its Mediabrands and McCann WorldGroup units that puts the Lab at the center of its Mediabrands' operations (see related story in today's MediaDailyNews).

Steiger showed a rendering of the lab, which will be on the corner of 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue, and said it will focus on the "transmedia future."

That's appropriate, because Steiger was moderating a panel at Re:Vision on transmedia storytelling, which can be viewed here.

Noting that it is still a soft and heavily debated subject that is the stuff of "coffee bar" arguments, Steiger, defined it as "telling stories across many media" - hyper fragmented stories that "involve the audience in the creation of the narrative."

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Steiger indicated the focus of the East Coast Lab would be very different from Interpublic's Los Angeles-based original Lab.

"What we're designing is a physicalized environment that allows brands to see what the transmedia future is going to look like," he explained, adding, "By that I mean, what the future of the multiscreen world is going to be."

Effectively, Steiger said the Lab will be "creating a canvass" to look across screens, and location-based media, all the way through to retail, to understand how conversations around brand stories evolve.

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