You could walk down the street up to a total stranger, and say to them “A picture is worth…” and they wouldn’t have to even be prompted to finish the saying “…a thousand words”.
But if you went up to that same person on the street and said to them “A video is worth…” you’d probably get a blank stare back (or maybe worse) in response.
Let’s think about the “picture” saying for a minute. To define it means rather than I tell you a story about something, I’m going to draw a picture to describe it. Or rather than I describe something to you, I show you a picture that lets you see what condition a product is in. Or rather than I tell you about how someone feels, I show you a picture of them showing a clearly defined emotion on their face, or through their actions.
I’m sure you’ve even heard jokes rather than having to read something, someone will say why don’t you just “draw me a picture”.
Since a video production is literally a series of moving pictures, its too easy to say a video is “worth a thousand pictures”. Or the often proposed “a video is worth a million words”. Because its more than just words.
A well-produced video can not only just be visually informative, it can take you on a journey to reach a particular destination or conclusion, or make you feel or understand something that you wouldn’t have before you watched it. Video seeks more than just to show or describe, although those are two very basic and important elements. A good video can entertain, inform, prompt you into action– think about how you found a funny video online and emailed it or posted it on your Facebook wall. That video prompted you into action- to share. And we haven’t even touched on all of the audio elements- voiceover, sound effects, dialogue, music- that add to a production.
With the advent of online video and portable video, we have more options than ever to view video productions, be it from an online video-blog to a short comedy film, to the latest clips and previews from our favorite television shows. And numerous articles continue to point out the fact that we’ve probably just scratched the surface of the avenues that we’ll be able to access video as we move forward into the future. And for individuals, videos can hold different meanings and interpretations.
So let’s propose a new saying going forward: “A video is worth…what it means to you (and your customers!)”
When you hear the word “brand”, what image or words pop first into your mind? If you’re like me, when you think of a “brand” you associate that term with a larger company or image that’s probably been reinforced by a specific marketing strategy over the years. Apple, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi. And the associated images (or taglines) that go along with those. When Apple first reinvented themselves (before the iPod) it was “Think Different”. McDonald’s and “I’m Lovin’ It”. These marketing campaigns help to establish their respective brands and how you feel as a consumer when you think about these brands, and ultimately how you act toward these brands, i.e. purchasing/using their products and services, and telling your friends you had a positive experience as well.
This is what I’m going to refer to as “Branding 1.0″. Because usually to establish a brand in the consumer’s mind, that meant an extensive advertising campaign, usually launched on television and then followed up by billboard, print, radio and so on. For an example of the reach of these campaigns, imagine if the “Big 3″ car companies all of a sudden decided tomorrow that they weren’t going to run any television ads at all just on CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. Those four networks alone would be so devastated by the sheer loss of this advertising (automotive is still a very coveted advertising bracket) they’d have to rethink their whole business plan of how to operate going forward.
What’s exciting is now we’re in the era of “Branding 2.0″. It started with websites, and movements like bands being their own record label and authors being their own publishers. For an example of this check out the Time cover article on Stephen King back in 2000 ( http://ti.me/6Ldh9F ), and Time’s Person of the Year as “YOU” in 2006 ( http://ti.me/vK5y ). You’re in charge of shaping your brand, what people think of it and how they use/react to it, as long as they can find you and your stakeout online (an important element). Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails can give away one of his latest songs as an MP3 and receive a lot more downloads than a band that you haven’t heard of before. So the “reach” becomes important as you establish your own brand.
How quaint the Time article from 2006 reads now when you think about the Facebook, Youtube and Twitter popularity explosion that has happened just over the last two years up to this point. Now more than ever, companies have an entirely new set of outlets (Facebook updates, online video segments) to establish their brand without having to launch a multi-million dollar ad campaign. And the potential for “reach” becomes greater as word-of-mouth popularity moves from telling your friends in person to telling your friends online. And who’s to say what’s next in the online world that will work toward the development of a brand and a marketing message in a way that we haven’t even thought of yet? Maybe that’s “Branding 3.0″.
But for now, the excitement of “Branding 2.0″ is here. It just all depends on how you develop, market and best fit it for your own “brand”, be it yourself, a company or product, a cause, or a non-profit organization. – by Mike Madigan, M-1 Studios
Whenever we’re talking about a potential video production, one of the strongest concepts that we convey is that with video, you’re not just “telling” someone about your product, business or service (via text online), you’re showing it to them. Whether “showing” that’s through a product demonstration, customer testimonials, or a review of a service process- its the VISUAL elements (along with music, dialogue and voiceover) that help to convey a marketing message in a way that stands out from the crowd.
When I worked in the auto industry (during the brunt of economic downturn), many news articles lamented at the time how the car companies were trying to “one-up” each other on who could offer the biggest rebates for their particular brands. The thought was that there were so many ongoing rebate deals, that soon rebates would become an expected part of the overall car-buying process (you can trace the real beginning back to when GM offered the “Keep America Rolling” campaign and rebates right after Sept. 11, 2001 to spur sales). And for the most part that prediction has come true- when you go to a car dealership looking to purchase a new car, one of the first thoughts you have is what is the rebate that they might be offering this month on this model.
Now we’re seeing what could easily be described as an explosion of “half-off” websites devoted to the art of the deal, aka half-off (or another amount off as a percentage) to try a restaurant, or a service, or tickets to a performance and so on. Just off the top of my head I can name Groupon, LivingSocial, Half Off Depot (Detroit), Fox 2 in Detroit, Hour Detroit Magazine online, and new to the national game Townhog.com, AT&T / yp.com and Google Offers (beta). What is interesting about these B2C website services (and they’re all proving to be very successful so far in terms of achieving the number of sales to get the deal) is that one of their main selling points is bringing in new customers that otherwise might not have stopped by to buy/try your product or service out.
However, none of these sites have much about the particular Company’s product or service besides usually one or two pictures, some text describing the deal and the Company, and maybe a comment board where people can ask more specific questions about the deal. None of these sites employ video as a means of further describing a Company’s product or service. Some of which makes sense since a high-quality video production takes time to produce, and these sites are offering deals on an almost-daily basis. But could this help in terms of learning more about a business, product or service that you don’t know too much about, and could it influence your purchase?
Granted the advertisements touting sales in your local Sunday newspaper aren’t overly interactive either vs. having video content, but we’re talking strictly on an online basis here.
Therefore, one hypothesis we can make is that people who respond to these deals may not be responding based on the product or service or learning more about the Company and what’s being offered, but because they’re getting a deal that they didn’t have before, or wasn’t offered before. Which of course makes sense- as a society, we love deals, coupons, getting a good rate on our auto insurance, all these things! And we feel good when we get the sense that we’re saving money on something (think of the logic how itunes is 0.99 cents a song, not $1.00 even though its a penny).
And it’s worth noting that there’s been many local companies that have had great success stories with their online offerings, generating new business and new customers stopping by that hadn’t before.
But I’m just wondering, does this mean that we’ll turn into an “online society” that waits for the next big “deal” for something vs. supporting the businesses and products that we really want and enjoy? And in supporting and enjoying these products and services, we’re rewarded as customers with deals and special sales vs. trying to pull in new customers that might not be as loyal to what’s being offered/sold.
At some point with the explosion of all these sites, there’s only so many deals to businesses that can be offered before the game of supply and demand kicks in. Will parts of the service industry turn into the auto industry, where the “deal” is always expected? And if there isn’t a deal, there won’t be a purchase? And how will that affect these companies moving forward?
Maybe a somewhat big leap of logic, but interesting to think about as these service-based websites develop and grow.
So let’s say that you’re planning a wedding and you’re looking for a florist that will be able to help you out. Answer this multiple choice question below. When you first decide you want to try to find a florist in your area, do you:
A. Pick up and look through the Yellow Pages
B. Do a search on Google for local florists in your area that specialize in weddings
C. Review wedding-specific websites like TheKnot.com for recommendations
D. Search on Facebook for local florists’ facebook fan pages and read what people are saying about their services
E. Ask your friend who just got married who they went with, research about them online, and then give them a call
Sorry, this was a trick question! I bet you chose one or more of the answers above, except for the letter “A”. The reality is- we don’t use the big paper Yellow Pages books anymore when we go looking for products or services that fit a particular need we want- we jump on the Internet first thing and start searching (Google, Bing, even Youtube!).
When's the last time you looked up a business in the yellow pages?
Right now outside of my main apartment door, there’s huge stacks of lonely Yellow Pages books, just sitting there waiting for the residents to come and pick up a copy. And I bet you that in about two weeks the cleaning service will be by to throw them all away because nobody picked them up (hopefully they’ll recycle them!)
The reason I say all this is because in just the last couple of weeks, we’ve been contacted by two different agencies touting their “paper” versions of Yellow Page-like books specifically for businesses. And we’ve politely had to decline even though we were told we were doing ourselves a big disservice by not being in these directories. But guess how clients and customers many times find out about us? By the same way you came across reading our blog- by finding us online.
Now I should say that there are groups that we belong to that create directories just for their members. And that’s a great service, because as members ourselves, we get a benefit out of both being in these directories and looking for others in them.
And as part of our membership, these directories are online as well for us to use. But that’s why we pay for a membership- it’s a benefit to us.
The morale of today’s story: Yellow Pages are dead. Along with their business-related pop-ups that still exist and attempt to be “relevant”. It’s called Google now.
Full disclosure: Blumz by JRDesigns is one of our social media video clients. They are an excellent example of using direct interaction with their customers on their Facebook page. And new customers that find them online see other people’s recommendations. Can you get that from the Yellow Pages??
I tried so hard to not open this up with some tired cliché.
When life hands you lemons…
No use crying over spilled milk…
It’s a Christmas miracle!
So we’re going to pretend I’m actually good at introductory material. Moving on-
We’re excited and proud to now be working with Blumz by JRDesigns of Detroit and Ferndale.
During our first shoot for their December Social Media videos, one of the model christmas trees they’d just decorated for use in the videos accidentally fell over:
…and blew up into a million pieces:
We capitalized on the moment and shot this video of Jerome Raska, one of the owners, improvising instead:
Sometimes you just gotta play the cards you’re dealt! quit while you’re ahead, eh?
I watched a presentation this morning by Ed Marsh from Night Cry Graphics, a fantastic graphic design firm in Royal Oak, MI. I distinctly remember one thing he said that got me thinking:
“In art, there is a different message for each person. In design, there is one message for everyone.”
Print graphic design is specific to Ed, but I like that “design” can be a more abstract term. As in, as a producer, we “design” videos. And because it’s within a business context, certainly our goal is to create a singular message that everyone “gets,” not challenge each person with a personal message they have to interpret.
Excuse me for a moment while I mount my high horse and prepare to possibly alienate some of you.
What I find exhausting about art films, that is, films where there is more visual “storytelling” (think Ingmar Bergman or David Lynch) is that it the visual comes at the expense of a discernable plot of a sequence of cause-and-effect events; it is story that forms the psychological basis for interest and entertainment. I’d rather be entertained than challenged (although a calculated mix of the two is fine).
And most mainstream movies-you know, the ones that make billions of dollars combined- try to do the same thing: entertain more and challenge just a little. These movies are designed. People vote with dollar bills, and this is what the people want, apparently.
It’s identical in a business / marketing / advertising video context. Design a single message and reach more people.
I’m such a sell out. If only anti-establishment 15-year-old version of myself could meet me now. *stuffs butter and popcorn into face*
I bet you chose one or more of the answers above, except for the letter “A”. The reality is- we don’t use the big paper Yellow Pages books anymore when we go looking for products or services that fit a particular need we want- we jump on the Internet first thing and start searching (Google, Bing, even Youtube!).
