Tag Archives: Corporate video

I hope everyone had a nice New Year’s celebration, and I thought I’d keep the party going by starting 2012 with a look at a good video.

General Electric has all sorts of stories at its YouTube channel.  This one jumped out as a perfect example of a couple of things I wished more businesses did… highlight employees and give viewers a behind the scenes look at the company.

I love the way the video is about GE but doesn’t reek of self-promotion. It’s about an important job and the people who get it done. Every business with passionate team members can produce this sort of video. You might not build jet engines, but you do something your customers value.

Show them how much you care about your products and/or services by telling your stories.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau, T60 Productions

T60 is excited about the new year, and we hope that you are as well. In 2011, we churned out 16 client videos, four newsletters, 184 blog posts… and who knows how many tweets and Facebook status updates. That’s a lot of content!

Guess what… we’re just getting started.  We have all sorts of plans for 2012 and they start this month.  We’ll be sharing a series of videos we’ve produced for you… our friends and followers.  Each video will feature a T60 client who will talk about their PR and marketing strategies for using video.  Why they produce them, who they’re targeting, and how they deliver them. Good stuff.

And since we’re toasting a new year, we’re going to start with some thoughts from the C.O.O. at Goose Island Beer Company.  You’ll hear from him in the coming weeks.

Don’t want to miss it? Just sign up for our monthly newsletter and you’ll have it delivered right to your email inbox (Newsletter Signup).

Happy to have you with us in 2012!

–Tony Gnau

Wait a second!? It’s Archive Friday. T60 usually doesn’t post a blog on Friday. It’s a day to unabashedly promote its past videos!

Well, today we can serve you as well as our shameless plug. :-)

All week we’ve been highlighting Christmas videos and how they can serve companies in their PR/marketing efforts. In most cases, it’s simply putting a holiday spin on the same types of videos businesses should be doing all year-long.

Demonstrating company culture, focusing on charity efforts, highlighting standout employees, and now… promoting company events.

T60 has done a couple of videos in the past for NBA All-Star Chris Bosh. While he was playing for the Toronto Raptors, we were hired to document his annual Christmas party for local kids.

• VIDEO: Bosh Christmas Bash

Businesses hold all sorts of holiday events. Having a video produced like this allows them to share the experience via social media, and also provide a terrific promotional tool for the next year.

–Tony Gnau

Great example today of a storyteller versus a corporate video production. Both center around the same story, but they are not created equal.

American Airlines produces a lot of videos for its YouTube channel. Some are clearly done by pros… others… not so much.

On this occasion, they produced something on their annual charity… The Snowball Express. WTVF Newschannel 5 in Nashville also covered the story. What a difference!

WTVF’s story is well-shot, well-edited, and tells an excellent story. The American Airlines version… well… you be the judge. Watch the WTVF story first…

• VIDEO: WTVF-Snowball Express
• VIDEO: American Airlines-Snowball Express

This is a missed opportunity for American. They had the right idea to highlight their charity effort. It’s a wonderful cause, but they fail to tap any emotions.

Shooting and editing some video isn’t good enough. This is a great example of why businesses need to find quality storytellers for their content.

–Tony Gnau

CBS’s Steve Hartman is my favorite features reporter. He also happens to be one of the generous journalists whom I consider a mentor… offering a young reporter all sorts of critiques to improve their storytelling.

Every year Steve follows around Secret Santa. You can see the 2011 story and a few from past years at the following link to cbsnews.com. All of them are AWESOME!

Here’s the thing to keep in mind while you watch them… you have generous people like this working at your company. Whether they donate their time or money, your employees are giving back at this time of year… so help them.

Producing a video that highlights their efforts can help their cause. Your business can share the video with its followers, the employee can share it with their friends, and the benefiting charity can share the video with its supporters.

Today’s video serves as your reminder to spotlight the people doing good at your company.

–Tony Gnau

I blogged yesterday about how video helps stir emotions. While the holidays are a natural for tearjerkers, just wait until tomorrow’s post… yup, that’s a TEASE!… they also provide an opportunity for some goofy fun.

Do you decorate your office? Do workers dress up their cubicles? Producing videos on these things give customers and prospects a behind-the-scenes look into your company culture.

I found a perfect example from the UK. Chapman Entertainment clearly has a sense of humor and decided to share it at Christmas time.

–Tony Gnau

No Lords ‘o leeping… no maids a milking… and no partridge. Instead, this week you’re going to get T60’s Five Days of Christmas Videos.

Some may be corporate videos, others might not, but the idea behind all of them is to demonstrate how video is about stirring emotions. The holidays provide a perfect example. They tend to stir emotions by themselves, so tapping video as a medium to communicate their stories brings out the best in us producers.

I can’t think of a better video to start with than Brad Houston’s “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” Brad shot and edited this Emmy award winning TV news story while working at KUSA-TV in Denver. It’s flat-out, one of my favorite stories of all-time. I watch it every December.

I’m not sure what year it was created… certainly pre-911… so probably the late 1990’s. Regardless, this is a timeless example of stirring emotions through video.

–Tony Gnau

Video is art… not a science. That’s an important thing for business leaders to consider, and something important for PR and marketing pros to help them understand.

Being clear on that fact will make your company’s production run much smoother.

We received a piece of regular ole’ mail at our home the other day that caught my attention. My wife is a Monmouth College grad and they sent us a mailer encouraging donations to the school’s annual scholarship fund.

What caught my eye was the image of an online video player and a QR code.

You know video has come a long way when it’s even being incorporated into standard mailers. The QR code sends you to a YouTube video of a student talking about getting a scholarship to Monmouth and what it has meant to her.

The video itself isn’t anything special, although I applaud Monmouth for producing it. I much rather hear from the student herself than read a short and sanitized snippet about her.

Where Monmouth really scores big points is recognizing how powerful video is as a medium, and then looking for creative ways to get their videos in front of people.

Traditional mailers will continue to hit our mailboxes, but there’s no reason you can’t give them a modern twist. Monmouth’s leaders found a great way to do it.

–Tony Gnau

Happy New Year!

This is a natural time to start planning for next year, and mapping out a video strategy should be part of that discussion.

One of the beauties of the medium is that the more quality video an audience sees, the easier it is for them to connect with the brand. That’s why a single video might be nice, but a series of videos will make an even bigger impact.

You’re certainly welcome to do something every week. Social media make delivering that amount of content possible, but if you’re not ready for that type of commitment there’s an easier way to go.

A monthly video would be a great thing to do along with a e-newsletter campaign. Still too much? How about quarterly?

The idea is simply to get videos in front of your audience on a regular basis. The more they see you, the more you become a part of their lives.

–Tony Gnau