Tag Archives: storytelling

Courtesy: uplifinglives.org

Non-profits are typically great video production clients. Mainly because they understand how effective storytelling can be in marketing an organization. One of our clients also understands it can play a big roll during a crisis like the Oklahoma tornado aftermath.

UpLifting Lives is an charity focused on housing. It helps with debt relief plans for homeowners upside down on their mortgages, and they step-in after disasters to help get people back into their neighborhoods. The video we produced for them touches on each of those missions, but yesterday I got a call from them asking for an emergency edit session.

Tailoring a message

They wanted me to cut down the video so it only mentions the disaster relief part (VIDEO BELOW). See… they’re already on the ground in Oklahoma and they’re ready to help rebuild. They also have all sorts of people curious about how that works, so they want a video in place that speaks only to those situations.

Instead of wasting people’s time on a component of their mission that doesn’t apply here… debt relief… they’ll have a video that speaks to the thousands of people impacted by the Oklahoma tornadoes.

We were happy to make the edits yesterday and hope the video serves them well in the coming days. They have a big task in front of them.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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I got a question last week from a business owner, “What do you do if you want a video for your business but you’re camera-shy?” It’s not an unfamiliar question and my standard answers is, “Suck it up.” After a moment of shock, I smile and say, “Do testimonial videos.”

testimonials accomplish a few things

Testimonials are the camera-shy business leader’s best friend because it’s a win-win-win. Hearing from people who use a product or service makes a big impact on viewers… the clients who provide their story get some publicity as well… and the camera-shy business leader doesn’t have to be seen or heard on camera!

Testimonials work… bigtime

I’ve blogged a lot in the past (here, here, here… just to name a few) about how effective testimonials can be, but I think this is the first time I have come at it from this angle.

It’s certainly something to keep in mind if you’re looking for ways to promote your business, but don’t necessarily feel comfortable being the face of the company.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

Courtesy: Goose Island Beer Co.

A quarter century in business is something to celebrate. The ups, the downs, the people who made it everything possible… all of it makes for good video content. Give it to a loyal following and they’ll eat it up… or drink it down in this case.

Goose Island Beer Company is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this week. For those of you outside Chicago, it’s quite simply the city’s beer. Starting as a brew pub, growing into a craft brewery, and succeeding to the point where Anheuser-Busch stepped in and purchased the company. It’s the American Dream come to life, and now you can learn all about it in a newly produced video (WATCH IT BELOW).

Goose Island Helped Grow T60

I’m really proud of this video even though T60 didn’t have any part in it. As you may or may not know, Goose Island played a BIG role in growing this business. Just a couple years after launching, Goose Island leaders hired T60 to produce about a dozen videos on their beers. It was without question the biggest single project we had worked. The videos turned out great, and we were called back for a few other projects over the next couple of years.

Goose Island as a client gave T60 instant credibility here in Chicago. When prospects would ask me about some of our clients, all I had to do was mention the Goose and I had their attention. Great company, great product, our storytelling… I couldn’t ask for much more.

Inspiring More Storytelling

We haven’t done anything for them since the crew from St. Louis made the purchase. You’d think I’d be bummed, but the truth is it warms my heart. See… Goose Island’s leaders understand the power of video and storytelling. They wanted to do more… a lot more… so they went out and hired someone to produce videos in-house.

In a way, I hope their experience with T60 inspired them. They were so happy with the response they got from our videos that they wanted more, and from a cost standpoint it made more sense to hire someone full-time.

What Goose Island Can Teach you

I’d love to still be doing work for them, but when you see the video you’ll understand they’re in good hands. It’s on the long-side, but in this case I think that’s just fine. This video is for everyone at the company and anyone who’s a die-hard fan. You want to do a 15-minute video on the company’s history for those audiences? Go for it.

It’s actually a great lesson for anyone struggling with finding content ideas. Your company’s history is a potential treasure trove. You don’t have to do a 15-minute epic. A series of short history stories on various aspects of the company is a great way to go.

Anyway, I couldn’t be happier for everyone at Goose Island and I’m eternally grateful to have worked with them. They are passionate about what they do, and it comes through in all their videos.

Happy Anniversary Goose.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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Courtesy: imdb.com

I watched a pretty cool movie over the weekend, and it illustrated something important for anyone producing corporate videos. Keeping an open mind is crucial to storytelling.

The movie I saw was Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. It’s all about nutrition and changing the way we eat. The material is interesting, the story is well-told and it’s worthwhile watching. The trailer and full movie are below.

Alright, spoiler alert… I’m going to give away a surprise in the movie, so if you’re genuinely interested in seeing it… bookmark this post and come back to read it later.

About the movie

Okay, the movie is billed as the story of Joe Cross… an Australian man who’s 100-pounds overweight, suffering from an autoimmune disease and ready to make a big life-change. That is indeed what the movie is about, but there’s a story that overtakes it. Along the way on Joe’s journey, he runs into a truck driver in worse shape than him. Joe offers his help, and low and behold the trucker calls him out of the blue one day asking to take him up on it.

What’s remarkable about this is that the phone call appears to come at the end of Joe’s adventure. I can just imagine the production meeting after that phone call. Here they are at the end of the production and what could be an even better story has been gift-wrapped for them.

Joe’s story is good and he’s a likeable guy, but the transformation that follows with the truck driver is nothing short of extraordinary. It clearly added several months to the production and I’m sure more expense as well.

Takeaway

Joe and the production team deserve a lot of credit. It would have been easy for them to ignore the truck driver’s story and make the movie they set-out to make… all focused on Joe and his journey. What they seemingly did was make a tough call and it paid-off BIGTIME!

This isn’t a unique situation. The same thing happens during all sorts of corporate video productions. The hard thing is standing up and telling either your client or boss… there’s a better story here. I know we made plans to do one thing, but we’ve found something better. You might get some push-back and ultimately they’re the ones making the call, but you owe it to them to give your professional opinion.

You should want to tell the best story possible, even if that wasn’t the story you set-out to tell.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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Courtesy: thestartbook.com

Here we go again. I had another pros and cons conversation recently with someone about do-it-yourself video content. Thankfully, I had a new argument to bolster my opinion courtesy Jon Acuff.

Acuff is a successful author. He started with a blog and his latest book, START (VIDEO BELOW), debuted on The New York Times best sellers list. I’m a big fan of his last book, Quitter, and I’m looking forward to reading this next one. He’s an entertaining writer, but even better he’s pretty inspiring.

I was listening to him talk about START during an EntreLeadership podcast and something really hit home for me. I run into a lot of leaders at success companies who think they can produce their own videos. “Tim in accounting has his own camera and his home movies are pretty good.” That’s an actual quote.

You can’t skip ahead to awesome

Acuff talks about these stages everyone goes through on the road to awesome… learning, editing, mastering, harvesting and guiding. If you’re going to be awesome at something, you have to go through each step. One leads to the other and nobody gets to jump ahead. You figure out what you’re passionate about, practice, hone your craft, see the benefits of your hard work, then help others who are starting out.

As someone who’s dedicated their professional life to becoming a great storyteller, that clicked with me. It’s also why most DIY corporate videos suck. Ted in accounting hasn’t gone through the steps. His boss wants him to be a professional storyteller, but he hasn’t spent enough time learning, editing and mastering.

When to DIY, When not to DIY

I’ve said it time and time again, if you’re a small business owner without any budget and believe in the power of video… have at it. Produce your own stuff. It’s better than nothing and nobody is expecting professional videos from you.

On the other hand, if you’re a leader at an established company, find yourself a video pro. They’ll do it smarter, more efficiently and better than you.

Why would you trust the image and reputation of your business to Ted in accounting?

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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You know me… I love event videos. Previews that encourage people to attend, and videos shot during the event to share afterwards. I think they’re a great way to get people excited about the event, and a way for the event to live on even after it’s over.

Having said that… you still need to deliver a quality video and tell a good story. Just producing a video isn’t good enough. Case in point… CDW.

The technology retailer launched a new campaign last week and bought some space on Facebook. One of their ads popped-up in my news feed, and while I typically sail over them this one caught my attention.

It featured a video, See the fun people had at Technoliner reveal day (video below). Sounded like a good example of an event video, so I decided to see what they cooked up. It turned out to be a major letdown.

CDW apparently is driving a bus across the country featuring new technology, and they’re promoting the tour hoping people will check out the bus if it stops in their town. Sounds like a good opportunity for a video, right? Well, it is but the story stinks.

It’s all about CDW. Look at our launch party. We had Charles Barkley there. We grilled out. There’s all sorts of technology on-board. In short… they’re totally full of themselves. 

Look… if all your event video is doing is capturing the scene to give people sense of what happened that’s all fine, but that isn’t the goal for this video. I think the goal is to get us to want to see the Technoliner. So here I am… Joe Viewer… thinking… who cares? How does this technology impact me? Why would I make an effort to see the bus? What’s the point?

I don’t have an answer for any of those questions because CDW is too busy patting themselves on the back.

On top of that… they want me to check out the bus, but they don’t say which cities it’ll hit. Okay, maybe it’s too many to list, but give me a call-to-action saying something like, “Check the website for when the Technoliner will be in your neighborhood.”

Just because you’re holding an event and you’re excited about it doesn’t mean the rest of the world will be as well. The video still needs to be focused on audience members and their needs.

That’s the foundation for a good video.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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We’re celebrating at T60 this week after finding out we won our 12th Telly Award. The honor got us thinking back to some of our past winning entries and the lessons they can provide. We blog a lot about marketing, but today’s post is all about public relations videos.

One of the issues I face with prospects and clients is the notion… we don’t do anything interesting… why would anyone watch a video about us? I don’t blame people for feeling that way. It’s hard to look past what you do everyday and see it with a fresh set of eyes… a different perspective… but that’s why business leaders need professional storytellers.

One of our clients recently retired, Illinois State Senator John Millner. I never used to blog about him because I didn’t want to invite any political discussions. None of the videos we produced for him were political in nature. They were straight-up public relations videos highlighting work he was doing for his constituents.

We had a contract to do a series of videos and it had run down to the last video. Through his lens, he couldn’t really think of anything else he was doing that would be “worth” highlighting. I asked him if he had any events he’d be attending in the coming weeks, and it turned out he’d be walking in a Labor Day parade.

I said, “That’s your video.” He didn’t get it. He said all he does is shake hands. I assured him we’d find a story in that, and we did.

What I noticed on the shoot was that all the characteristics that make him shine came through during that parade. Sen. Millner is a genuinely nice guy. He’s humble. He’s upbeat. He wanted to connect with the people he served. Why not a video highlighting those things?

The Telly Award judges apparently agreed with me because they awarded us for that story (VIDEO BELOW).

Businesses go about their day-to-day work not realizing there are stories all around them. Stories other people would be interested in if they were shared. A good storyteller can look at your company and help you find those stories.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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This week we’re celebrating our 12th Telly Award by looking back at past winning entries to pass along some valuable insights. Today, I’m blogging about an incredibly important element when it comes to storytelling.

People

The people you choose to include in your video might be the most critical decision you make for the video’s success. The mistake a lot of business owners make is thinking they need to hire actors or models to put a pretty face behind their company. That’s not the case.

The best videos tend to feature real people who are passionate about their jobs and their company or organization. We’ve done a bunch of videos featuring some pretty great people, but one of them definitely stands out in my mind.

Vashawn was a 13-year-old Glenwood Academy student when we met him (VIDEO BELOW). He’s a good kid from a bad neighborhood who’s getting a chance at a great education by attending Glenwood Academy in Chicago’s south suburbs.

On-Camera Stars

He was one of “those” people. The camera loves him. He is at total ease in front of it, and that comes through in the video. I can’t really explain it other that to say you’ll know these people when you see them, and when you do you better have the ability to switch gears to take advantage.

Vashawn was not meant to be the “star” of this particular video, but after we did the interview I told the school’s marketing director he had to be front and center. The whole video changed. His story and the way he told it was simply captivating.

I told my wife after that shoot we were going to win another Telly Award because of Vashawn. I hadn’t even looked at the raw material, but when you capture the right people on camera you just know it’s going to turn out great.

Every business has a Vashawn working for them. It might not be someone in the C-suite, but that doesn’t matter. Feature the people who shine, and so will your videos.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

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When people think of video, they often think marketing. It’s true… video is terrific for marketing. It also happens to be a great internal communications tool, and there are many subjects that can be covered (video examples).

Here’s the top five reasons you should be using video to communicate with team members…

Video creates interest. Anyone can send out a newsletter or email, but video captures people’s attention. How many dozens of newsletters go unread? How many memos get skimmed, but don’t receive the attention they might require? LOTS! You can communicate the same thing in a video that a memo or newsletter might explain. Detail company policies, feature your latest product or service, maybe even highlight the work of an individual or group. The difference is people will watch and pay attention to the video.

The accessible CEO. If you’re part of a small organization, chances are you’ve met the CEO. On the other hand if you work at a medium or large company, there’s a good chance you don’t know what the CEO looks like much less had an opportunity to interact with them. Putting company leaders out front in videos allows them to speak directly to team members. They are no longer the impersonal name behind a title. They become a real person others can relate to, which then empowers managers to energize the company culture.

Breaking down the silos. A lot of companies work in silos. One department separated from the other, people don’t know one another and certainly none of them can tell you what the other is doing. Video can change that. It allows team members to provide an inside look at what they’re working on. You can write about a new product or service all you want, but hearing from someone who’s working on that project and seeing them at work takes it to a whole new level.

Storytelling advantage. Using video allows a business to tell great stories. The medium incorporates images, sounds and words to create a rich platform for people to “experience” information. On paper, what’s happening around the company is simply a laundry list of activities. Put that same information into the hands of a skilled video storyteller, and it becomes a narrative that engages the audience. By incorporating information into a compelling story you capture the audience’s attention and make them more receptive to your message.

Leaves an impression. Storytelling also helps viewers retain the information, and after watching something they really enjoy they share it with other people. A company newsletter might garner mild interest. Videos will have people talking about them in the halls. They also have a cumulative effect. The more quality videos you produce, the more viewers look forward to them. They can even become a morale booster. Team member success stories are a pat on the back they’ll really feel.

All of these things add up to a good reason for corporate leaders to use video to communicate with their teams. A CEO vlog, a video newsletter, updates on projects and initiatives… all great ways to get your messages across to people.

–Tony Gnau

This post first appeared at ragan.com.

 Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.

I hate missed opportunities. There are a lot of businesses out there producing marketing videos, but in many cases they fall short.

Maybe the production value stinks. Just because everyone has a video camera in their phone doesn’t mean they know how to shoot and edit good video.

HOW SOME VIDEOS GO WRONG

Maybe there’s no story. Storytelling is an art. Professionals like myself dedicate our lives to honing our craft. Storytelling is a skill just like anything else.

Unavailable resources are another cause. Sometimes the video you need to tell the story just isn’t available.

Throw in laziness and you can build quite a laundry list for why some marketing videos miss their mark.

If your videos are suffering from any of these things… stop. Stop making them. You could be doing your business a big disservice.

THE STORY BEHIND THIS STORY

Where’s this triad coming from? Well, thanks for asking. Major League Baseball. Actually, it’s mlb.com. They posted an article yesterday about all the various ballpark across the country performing tributes to the people of Boston. They all played “Sweet Caroline” during their game… a Fenway Park tradition… and people ate it up.

The story was great. The accompanying video… terrible. The article mentioned a bunch of ballparks, but the edited video only showed a few. As a Cubs fan, I was bummed they didn’t have any shots from Wrigley Field.

This wasn’t a marketing video, but it still got me thinking about them.

WHY THIS MATTERS

People who are watching your videos are busy, and they’re all video critics. They’ve seen good and bad videos, and they can spot a bad one a mile away. That means if you’re churning out bad videos, you’re probably leaving a bad taste in their mouths.

I was really excited to watch the mlb.com video, but I left it feeling mad. It was a total let-down.

Watching a bad video is irritating. It’s a waste of time. Your audience is going to judge your business by those videos, so why would you put out garbage?

Make sure to produce something you can be proud of.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.