Tag Archives: marketing video

I received a call yesterday from a potential customer. No surprise I was happy about that, but the project is especially interesting.

It’s an internal communications video for a major brand and company… something I’m surprised more leaders don’t do.

Video is a great way to communicate with team members, especially if there are lots of them and they work different shifts. This particular company’s leadership wants to share their vision for their factory with the staff.

I love it! Business leaders in the C-Suite wanting to make sure the front line workers understand the mission. That’s good stuff, and if this particular video goes well they’re thinking about producing one a month.

Communication… it’s a good thing.

–Tony Gnau

I was recently listening to Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership podcast about his no gossip policy, and it really hit home for me.

The discussion turned to company culture with podcast moderator Chris LoCurto interviewing best-selling author Jon Gordon. Not only have I worked in worked in good and bad cultures, I’ve also seen how a company can leverage its culture as a sales tool.

Case Study

Electri-Flex is a suburban Chicago-based company that specializes in producing electrical conduit. The leadership and employees there are passionate about their product, but maybe even more so about their culture.

We produced their company video. They wanted something their sales team could carry with them to show prospects what they’re all about, and culture is the focus of the video.

My initial reaction to their pitch was skepticism. Then they started telling me how important their culture is to sales. It’s a family business. They treat their employees like family, so the employees treat customers like family.

Everyone has bought in, and it fuels the entire company.

It has been a while since we produced that video. Since then, I’ve pitched the idea of featuring company culture to a few other prospects, but nobody has been willing to bite. I wonder why more business leaders aren’t willing to put their culture front and center for customers to see?

Maybe it’s because they need some work on that end of their company.

–Tony Gnau

Last Monday, I basically declared it “Video in Public Places Week.” Then, I went on to completely blow-off the idea and not write about video in public places the rest of the week. Today, I’m writing about video in a public place, but I’m not declaring it “Video in Public Places Week.”

I know, right? Get it together Tony!

Well, this was one of the posts I was planning last week before the last Twinkies got in the way.

It’s a video kiosk I noticed while walking to a Chicago-AMA (American Marketing Association) event. I spotted it outside a realtor’s office, and it featured videos of all sorts of apartments for rent around the city.

I stopped to check it out and was pleasantly surprised. The videos weren’t anything special, but they were decent. Just video of the apartments set to music, but they shot actual video. A lot of real estate videos are simply slide shows of still photos attempting to pass themselves off as video. These were the genuine article.

I’d be curious to hear from the realtor as to how effective the kiosk has been. If the idea was to catch my attention and get me to interact with their listings, I guess it’s mission accomplished because that’s exactly what I did.

It’s no wonder. That’s where video excels. It catches the audience’s attention, then reels them in. The key is to find the right type of video and make it work for your business.

–Tony Gnau

Here’s a recent email from my wife you might find interesting…

Honestly, you’d think as your wife I’d be fully sold on the power of video, but I’m still a little skeptical at times.  This experience has perhaps pushed me over the limit to understanding “the power”.

You might be asking yourself, “What ‘experience’ is she talking about!?” Well, I’ll tell you.

It started last year

Last year, Mrs. G’s alma mater sent out a holiday email that contained a fun video. It made quite an impression because she said when she got this year’s email she opened it excited to see what they put together this year.

Only problem… no video. In Mrs. G’s words…

Just a longish note (didn’t even read the whole thing).

What we can learn from this experience

First, look at the impact last year’s video had on her. She told me flat-out, she was looking forward to this year’s email. That’s the power of quality video. Do a good job connecting with your audience and people will crave your content.

Second, look at the negative impact when you produce a good video, and then don’t follow it up with more. She didn’t even read the rest of the email. It was discarded.

This is why I constantly encourage businesses to look for opportunities to produce a series of short videos instead of one long video. The more quality videos you produce, the more likely you are to build a following… people craving your content.

Mrs. G “gets” it now. She was hooked after one good video. Imagine the impact when you produce a whole series of good videos. Imagine the brand loyalty you can build when you make video an important part of your marketing strategy.

That’s the power of video.

–Tony Gnau

Monday, I basically declared it “video in public places” week. The next day I passed on posting anything due to an early shoot. Today, I’m not posting anything on video in public places.

Someone clearly needs to teach me a lesson on following up on my promotional teases.

Well, timeliness… breaking news… they trump promos!

My shoot yesterday was familiar and unusual all at once, and it was certainly good lesson material. It was a b-roll shoot for  big company… familiar. But it also involved shooting video of something I never imagined I’d ever shoot. Twinkies. Possibly the last Twinkies ever purchased.

Hostess is bankrupt and closing shop, so that means the iconic treat is going away. Monday afternoon I got a call from a PR pro working for the agency representing JEWEL-OSCO. The grocery chain had just found out it was selected to receive the last shipment from Hostess, so they planned to put the snacks on the shelves the next morning at 5:30 a.m.

They knew this was going to generate media interest, so they wanted a b-roll package they could send to the TV folks. Picking up on the lesson?

They found out about the shipment, and one of their first instincts was to make sure they shot video. In JEWEL-OSCO’s case, it’s big time local and national media coverage, but it doesn’t have to be that to warrant a video shoot.

Is your company doing something noteworthy for customers, your industry… heck… for your own employees? Video is a great way to highlight it. You’d be hard pressed to find a medium that brings things to life better than video.

JEWEL-OSCO and their PR people know it. Now you do too.

–Tony Gnau

I feel like I should declare this “video in public places” week. I’ve been noticing video in some interesting places recently.

The first one I’ll highlight is a video I saw playing at a restaurant. Now you might be saying to yourself that isn’t all that unusual. You can walk into tons of restaurants and see TVs everywhere. What made this particular restaurant interesting was that I wasn’t at the restaurant. I was walking by.

It featured some flat screen TVs in the windows facing out, and they were playing video shot inside the restaurant. Shots from inside the kitchen, the dining area, and of course, shots of the food.

Standing out in a crowd

I have to admit, it caught my attention. The restaurant is in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. For those of you unfamiliar with Chicago, this is in the heart of downtown and one of the city’s main nightlife districts. There are restaurants on every street, every corner.

Pretty easy to get overlooked in a place like that, but the video made the restaurant stand out. At first I thought it might be a tacky indicator that this wouldn’t be a nice place to eat, but after peaking inside it looked like a nice, high-end restaurant.

My point is simple. Video is an attention grabber. The owners could have put up a giant photo of their food, but I would have walked right by. Instead, they chose video and it worked. They got my attention.

You can do this too

This isn’t just a tactic restaurants can use. Any business wanting to grab prospects attention can use video to do it. Whether it’s someone walking by, or surfing through the internet. Good quality video stands out.

Now, I’m sure the restaurant’s owners would have loved for their video to inspire me to stop in, but I had already eaten dinner. Video can only do so much.

–Tony Gnau

I was talking with a prospect the other day about how we would shoot interviews with his people when he asked if we have studio space. I said, “No.” He was confused and wanted to know where we would shoot the interviews, and I told him at his offices.

Not what he wanted to hear. In his mind, his offices wouldn’t look good, but I assured him we were capable of making almost any space suitable for an interview.

This is a common concern for a lot of business people… the interview location. Which is funny to me because when you’re a production pro and know how to light and shoot an interview, you can do it pretty much anywhere.

You have to be kidding

Here’s my favorite example. One of our first clients is California-based Sovereign Healthcare (watch their video). During our first shoot with them, we had a tough time scheduling the CEO for his interview… CEO’s tend to be pretty busy… so we agreed to meet him at his home one night.

It was a beautiful house, plenty of options for the interview location, only there was one problem. High ceilings and hard tile floors meant lots of echos. We did some audio testing and it was a mess, so we moved to the backyard. It was backed up to a road, so we heard cars going by.

Finally, we walked around to the driveway out front and it was silent. I picked a spot and started setting up. The CEO came out for the interview and was shocked. He said, “You have to be kidding.” I told him to trust us, and to his credit he did.

Take a look at the photo above. That wall behind him is a privacy wall for his garbage cans. Not only did he love the end result, he had a great story to tell people about the making of the video. Sovereign remains with us to this day.

I’m telling you… production pros can make just about anything work.

–Tony Gnau

It’s apparently day two of wife-inspired blog posts. She pointed out the video I blogged about yesterday, and here she is doing it again.

This one came via her employer. She teaches at a local college and school leaders sent an email encouraging everyone to support a recent grad competing for capital funding for her business.

The campaign features a video that caught my attention. Now, don’t get your expectations up. The video is pretty basic. What I loved though is the young entrepreneur and her storytelling.

Already storytelling

She doesn’t rely on facts and figures. She doesn’t talk about P/L or ROI. She tells her story.

Quality video will come later.  For now, she’s laying the foundation for storytelling success by simply telling her story.

–Tony Gnau

I love creativity, and in some case creativity can actually be when you steal… err… borrow… err… pay homage to another person’s idea.

My wife sent me this video the other day. One of our favorite shows is HGTV’s House Hunters. It also appears to be a favorite of the folks at Disney because they created a short parody of the show set to Beauty and the Beast.

Take a page from disney’s playbook

Businesses can use this sort of thing as inspiration. What are your favorite shows? Check that… what are your audience’s favorite shows? You don’t have to do a straight-up parody. Sometimes using the same production techniques works as well.

One of T60’s videos that jumps to mind is a recruiting video we produced for the Bloomingdale Police Department. The opening sequence is a total homage to the opening for each episode of the FX series, The Shield. We produced the video years ago, but I still love that opening to this day.

It just goes to show you, never underestimate how other people’s ideas can help drive your own creativity.

–Tony Gnau

I met with a new client last week who’s suffering from the same problem many businesses and non-profits suffer from. They do a lot.

This particular client sat in my office and told me all about their organization and what they do. It was a nearly two-hour explanation. What they wanted to know is how they can break all of that down into a 60-second video.

The answer can be uncomfortable for some people… you can’t. In most cases, you can’t fit everything about your business into a short video. Here’s the silver lining… you shouldn’t want to.

Video is about emotion, not facts

Video is a great information delivery tool, but so is print and digital. What sets video apart is that it can elicit a powerful emotional response. Video isn’t about listing off everything you do, it’s about convincing people you’re good at what you do, that you’re a quality organization, that you’re going to deliver.

Too much information clouds your audience members’ minds. It disconnects them from their emotions.

BREAK IT DOWN

So while many people try to cram as much as they can into a short video, I tend to narrow the focus as much as possible.

After listing to what this particular client does, I broke down their services into three core areas. Once you do that, the story becomes more manageable.

That’s one of the hidden benefits to hiring a professional storyteller. It’s the whole seeing the forest through the trees analogy. Sometimes people who work at a company are too close to it. It can take someone from outside to provide a fresh perspective.

Narrow your focus. It works almost every time.

–Tony Gnau