Tag Archives: video production

I guess this is a good week for b-roll. I started the week by blogging about how you can shoot b-roll, provide it as free content and get some publicity from it. Today, it’s how b-roll can save your butt!

I’m sure most of you know what b-roll is, but if you don’t… here’s a descent definition.

Now, back to my story. We produce a monthly vlog for a large trade organization. This month the CEO talked about the outlook for 2013, and he spent a lot of time on what last November’s election is going to mean for them.

The organization’s communications chief usually provides us with photos we can use to cover a lot of what he talks about, but she was at a loss for what to do about the election stuff. He kept mentioning, “what’s going on in Washington,” and talking about Congress.

The initial thought was buying some royalty-free photos, but I told her not to worry about it… we’d take care of it.

Little did she know, we have stock b-roll of Washington, DC. I shot it four years ago when I was there on vacation. My college roommate and I met in DC for one of our baseball trips… we saw the Dodgers play the Nationals in DC and the White Sox against the Orioles in Baltimore.

He thought I was crazy when I showed up at the hotel with my video camera and tripod, and I told him I was getting up at 7 a.m. the next morning to shoot some DC b-roll.

His natural question, “Why?”

My answer, “because you never know when you might need some. I’m here and it’s just an hour or two of my time.”

That video sat on the shelf for four years until last week. Our client was super excited after seeing it in the finished video. She even forwarded me the email the CEO sent complimenting her on this month’s vlog.

Think we just earned some customer loyalty? Think she’d be willing to refer us?

Going the extra mile for something as simple as b-roll can pay off big time.

How has b-roll save your butt?

–Tony Gnau

Here’s a new one… I accidentally “liked” Online Pet Depot on Facebook, and now I’m being treated to all sorts of fun pet videos.

I don’t know when I “liked” it. Once I realized I was getting their posts in my feed, I was going to click “unlike” but a funny thing happened.

I started watching the videos. Nothing spectacular, just fun pet videos that people have posted on YouTube and now Online Pet Depot was sharing them with me.

It’s brilliant marketing when you think about it. Pet videos are some of the most popular on the web. Online Pet Depot has access to a ton of free content via YouTube and they take full advantage.

They’re providing me with something I’m enjoying, now when they tell me about a sale I might actually pay attention. Whether or not I’m converted into a customer is still up for grabs, but “their” videos keep their brand in front of me.

What sort of free video content is out there that applies to your industry? You might want to consider sharing it with your followers.

–Tony Gnau

Holy cow! That was a break. I took two weeks off from blogging and most business activities, but now I’m ready to go.

Hope you had a great New Year’s because we’ll start with an observation I made that night.

If you watched any TV news coverage on New Year’s Eve, you probably saw video of people celebrating around the world. Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai all checking in, but it wasn’t news outlets providing the video.

All three of those cities’ tourism bureaus shot the video, in some cases streaming live feeds, and provided it to news outlets.

This is something more and more businesses and organizations are doing. Shooting their own video and providing it to media, bloggers, etc. It’s a good idea because many of these content creators are looking for… well… content. The better the stuff you provide them, the more likely you’ll get covered.

Enter video… the best kind of contact out there. Why? People watch, that’s why.

Providing quality video is a great way to entice coverage.

–Tony Gnau

All hail the power of video! Last week, I blogged about how my wife has finally bought-in. She received a holiday video last december from her alma mater, this year just a standard email.

She was disappointed, but the disappointment didn’t last long because guess what showed up this week?

I promised her not to be too brutal with my criticism in the previous post, she LOVES her school, so I didn’t even mention it by name. Well, looks like I can now because Monmouth College redeemed itself by sending out a 2012 holiday video.

Now, it’s no great achievement. I kind of like the concept, but it’s a pretty basic video. The big question I have is about their PR/marketing/fundraising strategy.

Was this planned all along… text email followed by video email? Or did they get negative feedback when there wasn’t a video this year? Were there lots of people like my wife who were disappointed they didn’t produce a video this year, so they quickly put something together?

I don’t know the answer to that, but either way it’s clear video is a power communications tool.

–Tony Gnau

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