I love Monmouth College. I’ve been there and my wife is a proud alum. It’s a small Illinois school that doesn’t think small, and its leaders understand the power of video.

The school’s YouTube channel is loaded will all sorts of good stuff, but my favorite has to be this… 1993 Monmouth College Admission Video.

LOVE… IT!

By 1993 standards, I’m sure it was terrific. Not so much by today’s standards, but that’s not the point. I love that they posted this on YouTube and then shared it via Facebook. It’s kitschy… and kitschy is fun.

Why not post it!? School leaders clearly aren’t trying to use this as their current recruiting video. The school’s “revolutionary classroom… utilize sophisticated computers.” Hilarious stuff when you see the images that accompany those lines.

Companies could even look at this another way. Dust off any outdated video and include it in the next project. Sort of a… look how far we’ve come… example.

Regardless, the main lesson here is that the Monmouth video is cheesy… school leaders know it’s cheesy… and it puts Monmouth in a good light.

Don’t be afraid to by a little kitschy.

–Tony Gnau

Not every video has to be a masterpiece, and amateurs shouldn’t try to fake a professional production. Sometimes it’s enough just to give people a look behind the curtain.

Are you launching a new product? Did you hire a new employee? Are you extending a promotion? Pull out your FlipCam and shoot us 30-seconds.

Sure, a video pro can do it better, but if you can’t afford one, I rather see a short glimpse at what you do rather than a poorly edited amateur production.

–Tony Gnau

You don’t always need words to tell a story, but if you have them… make sure to use them well. Content creators and business leaders can certainly learn that lesson from watching a Chicago tourism video that starts with a great concept but falls a little short.

The video uses the written words of Daniel Burnham. For those of you non-Chicagoans who might not be familiar, Burnham was the architect and urban planner who created the city’s blueprint following the Great Chicago Fire.

His words… perfect for this video. The problem… the video is too long, edited to include long musical breaks between Burnham’s well-written lines.

The breaks are so long you completely lose the flow of what Burnham wrote. Tighten up the edit and all of a sudden the story starts to make sense.

This is a mild critique. The video is shot well, and has one of the world’s great city’s as a backdrop. It’s hard to go wrong with that imagery. Adding Burnham’s words in a more efficient way would have put this video over the top.

Your content may have words, but does it tell a story?

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Chicago Tourism

I was admiring the new Volvo Station Wagon the other day. Don’t judge, I’m a new dad. Suddenly finding Volvos cool is like a right of passage.

Anyway, I wanted to learn more so I went to the Volvo website and I found a fun video. It highlight’s Volvo’s overseas delivery program, and it’s a good video marketing example for other companies.

Basically, you can order your customized vehicle, then Volvo will fly you to Sweden where you can tour the factory and take your new car for a spin around Europe before they ship it to you in the U.S.

Now, I’m not in the market for a new car. I’m a big believer in quality used cars… thank you Dave Ramsey… but the video really captured my imagination. I consider that a win for Volvo.

A nice video about a program I may never use enhanced the whole brand for me. That’s the power of video.

Find something about your company that captures the audience’s imagination and the same could happen for you.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Volvo Overseas Delivery

CEOs, COOs, CMOs… no matter the letters, one of the toughest calls you may have to make if you want a great PR/marketing video is to exclude those people.

A key to producing a great video is selecting the right people to participate. Now, if you have a charismatic CEO, maybe he/she is the right choice. If they’re not, it may be time for a heart-to-heart to let them know they didn’t get the part.

Who should you pick? I don’t know. Who’s the person at your company everyone loves to be around? Who’s the person who puts a smile on everyone’s face? That’s the type of person you need.

If it’s the CFO, great. Maybe it’s the receptionist. It could be the janitor for all I care. Happy, likable people are infectious. Those are the people you want representing you company.

–Tony Gnau

Southwest Airlines clearly understands social media. I found their latest YouTube video when it popped up in my Facebook feed… only to watch and leave unfulfilled. A shame because they missed a real opportunity to educate their customers, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rangers Trading Place is about some members of the Texas Rangers baseball team trying out different Southwest jobs at Dallas Love Field. As a producer, this has all sorts of great storytelling options.

The only problem… they really didn’t tell much of a story. I mean, you get the gist of what’s going on, but there’s no real storytelling technique here. The result as an audience member is leaving the video apathetic. Some baseball players scanned some tickets. Big deal. How does this impact me as a traveler? It doesn’t.

Or does it? Here’s one quick idea. Really feature the Southwest employees teaching the players their jobs. Make sure the employees emphasize why they do things certain ways and how that benefits travelers.

Apply just a little storytelling technique like this and you have an entirely different experience for the audience.

Having the technical ability to put together a video isn’t enough. Businesses need real storytelling to make their videos relevant so the audience has the opportunity to connect with what they’re watching.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Rangers Trading Places

I was cheering-on Gini Dietrich yesterday as I read her post at Spin Sucks. In short, she wrote about how difficult it is selling change-resistant business leaders on the ongoing digital revolution.

It’s something we often face as well since the majority of our videos are bound for the web. One of the consistent arguments Gini hears is one I’ve heard a time or two myself. Company leaders say they don’t need online videos because their clients aren’t 20-somethings surfing the web.

Oh yeah? Right after reading Gini’s blog I came across this little ditty at eMarketer.com. A recent study shows Gen-Xers (34-45 year-olds) are watching more online videos than any other age group. More than 74% will watch online video at least monthly this year.

After I got over the fact that my fellow Gen-Xers and I are now in our 30’s and 40’s, I realized how important that information is for business executives. This notion that only 20-somethings are surfing the web, using social media, and watching online video isn’t based in reality.

If Joe or Jane CEO isn’t willing to accept it, maybe their competition will be interested.

–Tony Gnau

I was excited to see one of my doctors doing some work on a Hollywood A-lister… Jim Carrey. Dr. Ramin Modabber works out of the Santa Monica Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Group and the Surgery Center of the Pacific.

SMOG and SCOP are T60 clients, and on a personal note… Dr. Modabber is the man I trusted to repair a damaged nerve in my left hand.

My hands are crucial to my profession… manipulating a camera… working an editing keyboard… so I flew halfway across the country to put my hand in Dr. Modabber’s.

Carrey had some work done on his elbow, and he shot a video for his fans. Pretty funny stuff. No big critique here. It’s Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey. You can count on it being funny, right?

Kudos to him for being proactive and taking his fans along for the experience. How much more effective is this video than simply writing about it? Words are tough to capture a guy like Jim Carrey, so I love that he turns to video.

I’m sure his elbow will heal as well as my hand.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: http://www.jimcarreytrulife.com/video-post/james-and-giant-peach

Do-It-Yourself marketing videos are a double-edged sword for a video producer like myself.

One the one hand, I love the fact that someone has recognized the power of video and wants to make it work for their company. One the other hand, there’s only a slight chance a non-video-pro is going to create something good enough to grab an audience’s attention.

That means they’ll probably spend lots of time creating something people won’t be interested in watching, and they won’t get the PR/marketing benefit from having produced a video.

I’m not discouraging you from trying, but I don’t want you to get discouraged if your DIY video project doesn’t work out as intended. The power of video is an amazing thing, but sometimes it take a professional touch to get the desired result.

–Tony Gnau

Know your target audience. Don’t buy email lists. Do your best to practice permission-based marketing.

Why? So you don’t send your mass marketing email to your competitors.

Yes, I just got a mass email at my work email address (tgnau@t60productions.com) from a video production company telling me about how high-quality video can help my business. It’s even a Chicago-based company.

I love my fellow video producers. We’re competitors, but we also network with one another. I’m happy to recommend others if I feel like they’re a better fit for a project, but this really irked me.

No, I’m not going to tell you the company. This isn’t a personal attack. It’s just a great reminder how blind marketing can backfire.

–Tony Gnau