Tag Archives: marketing

You don’t need to find inspiration for your corporate videos in other corporate videos. I was reminded of this yesterday when I was posting a few things to our Pinterest board.

This is my favorite video from last football season. It was produced by the University of Southern California, and it’s an inspirational speech delivered by the Trojans’ defensive line coach Ed Orgeron prior to defeating the 4th ranked Oregon Ducks.

Don’t look at this as a football video. It’s simply an inspirational message. He’s trying to motivate his players, and the video was meant to fire up fans leading into the game. These are things I hope our business leaders are doing everyday.

Give your employees a pep talk. Fire up your customers. Be an industry leader.

Video is your way to deliver those messages.

–Tony Gnau

Has authenticity become cliché? Creating authentic content is the mantra for a lot of social media experts, but I’ve been hearing more and more about some feelings that “authentic” has become an overused word.

Seriously? Authenticity isn’t going out of style. I don’t care how many people use the term. The reason it’s being used is because it accurately describes how businesses need to conduct themselves online.

It’s especially true when creating videos. Audiences can sense right away when a message isn’t genuine. Keeping it “real” is crucial if you want to connect with viewers.

Once they sense you’re trying to pull a fast one… you’ve lost them forever.

–Tony Gnau

I’m constantly amazed at the innovative ways people are using video, although in this case I guess I shouldn’t be.

I shot an interview last week at Prophet.  They call themselves  “a strategic brand and marketing consultancy.”

Anyway, I interviewed Andy Stefanovich, and his book Look at More is all about innovation. After we finished, he and the company’s social media guru asked if they could have a copy of the raw interview. My client was along for the shoot and didn’t have a problem with it, so I said sure.

Their response, “Great. There was some real Tweet-able stuff in there.”

What a great idea! The interview was probably about 10-minutes long. The video will be less than 2-minutes. A lot material that would normally end up on the cutting room, resurrected for social media.

Talk about a great way to generate content.

–Tony Gnau

You don’t know it all. Seriously. You don’t know it all and neither do I. That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with people you admire.

These are people who can point you in the right direction when you need help. I try to surround myself with people like this in multiple areas, and I’m never surprised with how it pays dividends.

The most important person is my wife, Katie. She’s flat-out the best. I turn to her for advice on pretty much everything.

When I need some shooting, editing, or storytelling advice, I turn to a pair of videographers… Murrow Award-winner Jeremy Nichols and Emmy-winner Mike Loomis.

Finally, when it comes to marketing and public relations, Gini Dietrich, Stephanie Krol, and Dyana Flanigan.

I started thinking about this after lunch last week with Gini. Her blog spinsucks.com is a must read, but as good as she is in cyberspace she’s even better in person.

An hour later, I left with my head spinning… all sorts of great ideas! It really made me appreciate all the great people in my life who are willing to help.

–Tony Gnau

If you want to create content and drive engagement, you have to realize something. You’re a media company now.

I know… “We’re not a media company. We make widgets. We provide a service.”

That’s right, but you’re also a media company. That is… if you’re interested in using social media to help your business.

Don’t believe me? Check out what major corporations are doing these days. They’re creating tons of videos, and not just talk-to-the-FlipCam videos. Highly produced, professional videos that tell great stories.

Their YouTube channels are just that… channels that they’re programming the way a TV station does. Companies are producing videos that will appeal to their specific audience.

Is it worth the money? Every business leader has to decide that for themselves, but Fortune 500 companies… corporations that rarely do anything unless ROI is involved.. are out there producing quality video content right now.

Are you ready to join them?

–Tony Gnau

One of the most frequent questions I get from clients is… how long should my video be?

There are all sorts of theories behind the answers. Yes, that’s answers with an “s” at the end. I don’t think there’s a single magic formula that’s always right, but I do think there’s some guidelines you can go by depending on where you’re showing the video.

• Social media campaigns… try to keep the video to 60-seconds or less. Social media equals super short attention spans. Give this audience something sweet and to the point to share.
• Your website… 2-3 minutes tops. Ideally, 1-minute 30-seconds. In this case, the viewer has sought you out and wants to learn about your organization. This means you get a little more time to communicate your message. Not too much time though. They’re still web surfing, so they’re just a point-and-click away from leaving your site if they lose interest.
• Live events… 5-minutes or less. Here I usually shoot for something in the 3-minute range. This is a captive audience, so you can flush out your story more than you can with a web video.

–Tony Gnau

I love that the airlines put out a lot of videos. I don’t always love their videos, but this is a billion dollar industry that clearly gets it. Travelers are watching so they give them video content.

Today, I get to share one that I like from Virgin America. If you travel at all, you know about Virgin. They do everything they can to cultivate their hip image and they posted a video oozing with style yesterday on Facebook.

It actually serves as a valuable lesson. Lots of businesses have videos produced. A frequent problem is that they stuff them with too much information. Yes… too much information.

Audiences tend to subscribe to the “less is more” adage. Virgin does a great job here. The video is simple… a day at their terminal inside San Fransisco International Airport.. and the message is clear. It’s all about the airline’s style. Watch it once and you know this is an airline with its own unique style.

Virgin provides a really good flight plan to follow.

–Tony Gnau

Think about the last corporate web video you saw. Now give me the first few statistics you remember about that business.

If you’re struggling to remember, you’re not alone. We might remember the occasional fact and figure after seeing a web video, but those aren’t the things we typically retain.

Now… think of that same corporate web video. How did it make you feel? Happy? Interested? Confident in that company?

I sure hope so because that should be the goal for most corporate videos. While we don’t retain many facts and figures, our feelings stick with us.

That’s why organizations that produce their own videos need to focus on hearts first, minds second.

–Tony Gnau

It’s been fun this week looking back at our 2012 Telly Award-winning videos. We think every project provides some valuable insights for anyone producing a video, so we’ll give you one more from the METROsquash shoot.

The lesson isn’t about what you’ll find in the video, it’s about what you won’t find. We interviewed four adults and two kids. The boy and the girl we spoke with were great, and kids tend to be a hit or miss when it comes to on-camera interviews.

Now, if you’ve watched the video, you’re probably thinking to yourself… I don’t remember seeing the boy in the video. Well, that’s because his interview was cut out.

METROsquash leaders realized something after our shoot. They had selected two students to be interviewed who attend Chicago Public School military-style academies, and each was wearing their uniform for the interview.

They didn’t want to give the impression that all of the kids they service attend these academies. We could re-shoot the interviews with the kids wearing normal clothes, but the added shoot would have cost them more money.

Instead, we suggested dropping the boy’s interview from the project. The reason was that his uniform was pretty much front and center in the interview shot. You couldn’t miss it.

On the other hand, the uniform wasn’t as prominent in the girl’s interview shot. She looks like she might be wearing one, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it was a military-style uniform.

In the end, that’s what METROsquash leaders decided to do. They had the unenviable task of telling the boy he wouldn’t be in the video. I’m sure it wasn’t something they wanted to do, but it was the right choice for the project.

It’s a bummer. His interview was really good and would have been a nice addition to the video, but sometimes you have to leave good material on the cutting room floor.

–Tony Gnau

We’re continuing our Telly Awards celebration this week with a look back at this year’s winning entries and some of the important things we can all learn from the projects.

Yesterday, we highlighted the recruiting video produced for the Warrenville Police Department. Today, it’s the “About Us” video we did for the after-school program METROsquash.

Like a lot of non-profits, METROsquash wanted to put a face on their program and show potential donors exactly what it is they do. Their video does a great job of that thanks to an invaluable asset… trust.

You see, the majority of their students aren’t exactly star squash players. They’re young kids just learning the game. It doesn’t exactly make for exciting video, and there was some concern that the slow pace of their games wouldn’t play well to an audience.

We assured them that we could still make an entertaining and informative video with a nice pace… and they trusted us. When you pick your storyteller, you have to pick someone you can trust.

We could envision how the video would be shot and played out in our minds, but sometimes it’s hard to get clients to share that vision. They simply don’t have the same experience and creative background that we do.

But they trusted us, and  it paid off. They’ve been very happy with how the video has been received when they show it.

Pick a producer you can trust, and let them roll with their vision for your project.

–Tony Gnau