Yaffe Tidbits

Creating Web Video Content is Easy Pt 2: Customer/Client Testimonials

In an earlier post, I told you how easy it is to get a Flip camcorder to record and upload video. Study after study shows that web video helps you and your site. It triggers more search. It adds engagement. It causes your potential customers to stay on your site longer. Between the Flip camera and YouTube, it couldn't get much easier.

Today, I'd like to talk about one of the good sources of content for your own sites and channels. It's getting a few words of support from your best customers or clients. I know the CEO of Bigby Coffee carries his camcorder around with him and is always shooting quick little videos of both customers and employees. In this new world of social media, nothing speaks louder than having your biggest fans sing your praises. And getting that could be as simple as pulling out your camcorder and asking someone, "Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to record a few kind words about how you love us and how our product or service has made your life better?"

It really is that easy. Our clients from Grand Home Furnishings in Virginia were in town for a meeting. After it was over, I grabbed Steve Davis, the marketing manager, and asked if he'd say a few words. We went into an empty office and in just about 30 seconds I had a good client testimonial. I posted it online the next day. That's great content for very little effort. Of course, it's easier if your customers already love you!

Mike McClure, Flipping over video.

Now that's how you do viral video!

You can't create a viral video, because no one knows for sure what will grab the public's fancy. You can, however, create a great web videos that go viral, though. We've done a lot of talk around here about creating content for the web and web videos. It's a skill set we have that flows out of our history of broadcast. It's exciting for the creative staff, because it's something we can sink our teeth into. It's not just a matter of taking the TV idea and putting it online, there is a knack to doing web video well.

Such is the case with Office Max's latest web video campaign for back to school. They have all the right elements. Quirky characters. Interesting storylines. Pranks on unsuspecting people via hidden camera. It's well cast, well executed and most importantly, actually makes a point they're about the promotion they're pitching. Basically they have an odd duck improv actor with a couple sidekicks bring in sellers of high priced collectors items and then offer to pay cash. The twist is the cash offer is all in pennies. It all ties into Office Max's penny promotion, where certain school supplies are only a penny. Here's my favorite. Be sure to check the rest of their videos, too.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director and video freak

Pandora Radio and The Long Tail

We are living in the age of recommendation. If you spend any time shopping or searching online (and if you're reading this, I assume you do) you have probably been influenced by the recommendations of friends and strangers alike. Two recommendations I followed recently have not only given me enjoyment, but have gotten me thinking.

The first recommendation was to check out Pandora radio. I got an email from a friend (sorry, I don't remember which one) suggesting I go to their website and check it out. I did. And I loved it. Now, I'm hooked on it, play it almost every day at work and have gotten a number of other people hooked on it. What it is, if you haven't checked it out is a site that allows you to create your own online radio stations based on a particular band or song you like. You create a station around My Chemical Romance and not only do you get all their songs, you get songs that are by artists that have similar qualities and that people who like that band tend to also like. And as you go along, you can customize it further by tagging which songs that it plays are your favorites and which ones you don't ever want to hear again on that station.

This is great! I have fairly eclectic tastes and some of the artists I like aren't incredibly popular. For instance, I love happy ska music. I can never find a place to listen to just ska. I have Sirius satellite radio, but with all the sub genres there, they still don't have a ska station. On Pandora, I created a Less Than Jake station and a Reel Big Fish station. Both stations play bands that, like the featured artist, play upbeat, happy ska. Plus, I built another station around the song "Anthem" by Zebrahead. So, now instead of no place to find a steady diet of ska, I have three different online radio stations devoted to ska. The selection goes very deep, they even have my daughter's favorite band, a metal rock band from Japan called Dir en grey.

So, what's my point, other than to tell you about a good way to find music you like and discover music you never heard of before that is like the music you like? Well, that has to do with my other recommendation I took. Our newest account service person, Joanie, who taught eCommerce at Parsons School of Design gave me a book to read called The Long Tail. Many of you may have heard about this book and/or theory before, but it was new to me. I've been reading it and I find it fascinating. It talks about how the new economics of plenty, brought on mostly by the Internet are changing the way we look at economics. I know, economics doesn't sound interesting. But, it's all about things you probably experience every week if not every day.

Our economy, especially in the areas of things like movies, music, books and such has always been about the few hit makers. The old 20/80 rule - where 20% of the products make up 80% of the sales/profits/whatever. Now, when you have the Netflixs, iTunes and Amazons of the world, you can bring a seemingly infinite choice to the shopper. So, instead of only being able to choose from the 8,000 CDs in your local record store, you can choose from millions of tracks. And through following search and recommendations and "people who bought this also bought this" type of cues, we are all able to break out of the pop hits culture and find stuff we like in niches that aren't as popular, such as ska music. Pandora radio is an example of the long tail of music. There's a lot more to it than that, but I'm not going to get it to it here. If this intrigues you, I suggest you check out the book or the online radio site or both.

Mike McClure, Livin' in the recommendation age and loving it

Match Game

Turner Entertainment (TBS and TNT on your cable TV dial) is trying something with their movies and TV shows called “contextual targeting”. What they’re doing is making commercials relevant to scenes viewers have just watched right before a break.  For example, after a scene in the movie “Anchorman” where the characters are talking about love, we would see a commercial for eHarmony.  I like this idea.  And I think it could be a lot of fun.  Just imagine.  During the movie “Cheaper by the Dozen” they could have commercials for Trojan condoms.  And if they tried this during a Detroit Lions game, they could do commercials for Glade air freshener.  After all, chances are the Lions are stinking up the place.  What would you pair up?

Ron Lee         

Brought to you by Preparation H

(I can be a pain in the butt)

What are you watching?

So, the rush is on to create video content for the web. You probably already knew that. But, apparently the big movie studios are just waking up to that fact. I read an article from the NY Times today (Warner Shifts Web Course, Shouldering Video Costs) that talks about how Time Warner is giving up on trying to get advertisers to pay the costs up front for web entertainment projects, because they, like many other Hollywood studios, are falling behind in the race to create content for the web. Edgier, scrappy newcomers are getting ahead in the race to provide content. So, like other studios who have been trying to play it safe, they're jumping in running. They announced a whole slate of minimovies, games and eposodic TV shows they're creating specifically for the web.

All this got me thinking about, what's out there and who's watching it. First off, you can catch up on all your favorite shows online these days with varing degrees of sucess. When I missed an episode of Fox's "On the Lot" I was very frustrated, not able to get their episodes to play on my home computer. When I wanted to catch up on missed Heroes episodes, I was amazed at how quick they loaded and how smoothly they ran on NBC's site. But, it's not just the big networks. My daughter got hooked on Sci Fi's "So you want to be a superhero" several episodes in and went back and got caught up with ease.

All that's great if you haven't joined the DVR set yet, as we haven't. But what about original content? I liked the webisodes of "In the Motherhood" which I talked about in a previous blog. One of my favorite places to go for original content is a site Will Farrell launched for short funny videos called Funny or Die.  It's where he first played his now famous Pearl the landlady videos.

What are you watching online? Why not share some of your favorites with the rest of us? I look forward to watching more good stuff (on my lunch break, of course!)

Mike McClure, ECD

D’Oh!

You’d have to be completely cut off from the world not to hear bout the upcoming release of the Simpson’s movie.  The buzz generated from the Simpsons/7 Eleven partnership has made headlines for multiple weeks.  What’s surprising is that 20^th Century Fox has lined up only four tie-in partners for what is considered to be one of the summer’s biggest films.  And only one partner—Burger King—will be buying television ads to support the film.  The other three partners—7-Eleven, JetBlue, and Vans shoes are running nontraditional promotional programs that, while they generate headlines, are not the multimillion-dollar media buys typical of much-hyped films.

Compare this with the other blockbuster films of the summer.  For instance, Sony Pictures lined up seven partners for “Spider-Man 3” that reportedly spent more than $100 million on co-branded media alone.  Disney teamed up with 13 partners for “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” the most partners for the studio to ever have for one film.  And DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures partnered with eight brands for “Transformers” that reportedly spent $100 million-plus in media and marketing support.

In a press release announcing 7-Eleven’s promotion of the movie, Lisa Licht, the studio’s executive vice president of global marketing partnerships, said the promotional strategy was to “partner with companies that would execute programs that have never been done before. This decision may reek of missed opportunities to some, but this decision keeps true with the spirit of the Simpsons.  The show, since it’s inception has frequently and consistently taken jabs at corporate America.  What credibility then, would the movie have, if Fox had taken twelve partnerships and bombarded consumers with Simpson’s-related media?

In a true example of life imitating art/pop culture, 7-Eleven made national headlines when it announced that it had transformed a dozen of its stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the convenience store frequented by the Simpsons in the show, and that it would be selling real-life versions of such fictional “Simpsons” product favorites as KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola, Squishees (Slurpees), pink frosted Sprinklicious donuts and a special edition of the Radioactive Man comic book read by Bart.  7-Eleven believes that this promotion marks the first time a “major company has partnered with a fictional entity to bring it to life.”  So far, the 7-Eleven promotion has been a huge hit, with many Kwik-E-Mart/7-Eleven stores reporting a doubling of traffic and sales, according to a company spokeswoman. 

Whenever you watch The Simpsons, you see Bart Simpson skateboarding his way across Springfield in the opening scene. After watching this for so many years, it seems that skateboarding has become an integral part of The Simpsons. Vans shoes, the iconic shoes of skateboarding, has also partnered with the Simpsons Movie and hired 12 underground artists, including David Flores, Futura, Gary Panter, Geoff McFetridge, KAWS, Mr. Cartoon, Neckface, Sam Messer, Stash, Taka Hayashi, Todd James and Tony Munoz to design 14 styles of limited-edition “Simpsons”-inspired sneakers depicting their own interpretations of the animated characters.  In total, only 1,400 pairs of shoes will be created.  They will go on sale July 14 for $100 a pair at 10 boutiques in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Long Beach, Calif., Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Honolulu.  Vans expected to sell out of the shoes the weekend after the shoes are released.

Simpson’s Move partner JetBlue, labeling itself “the official airline of Springfield”, and also noting that the discount airliner “shares a sense of humor” with the Simpsons.  The JetBlue campaign is slightly more traditional, including an online sweepstakes and direct mailings, but will also be devoting an entire in-flight channel of their airline television to play only Simpsons for the month of July.  But don’t let their strategy fool you—the site http://www.jetblue.com/ has integrated the Simpson’s characters and motifs into their website, including character-recommended destinations and a Mr. Burn’s “flightlog.”

Liz Kerner (that's me as a Simpson Avatar, you can do the same at the movie's site)

POP CULTURE & THE STATE OF OURS

Is Reality TV and the recent release of the movie “300” any indication of our culture?

I have satellite TV with a slew of channels, and I must say there are few things that I tune in regularly to see. The ones I do sample are The Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central, Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes on CBS, the BBC and many of the science and investigative journalism programming on PBS, all of which try to uncover a glimpse of reality that isn’t staged. But don’t think I’m all facts and no fun; I do like The Office (which is actually a clever spoof on reality shows), and that loveable, quirky genius we know as House. Also I must confess to watching the well-produced soap opera’s on HBO like the Soprano’s, Rome and Big Love.

Now that I’ve shared with you some of the more memorable TV offerings from our cultural stream of consciousness, let me get back to my original question as to the state

of our culture.

They say that art “Art imitates reality”, and if that is true, our reality television is telling us our reality is staged and for sure the movie “300” is telling us we lust for violence.  Of course there are a lot more meaningful forms of entertainment, but when you look at the big hitters out there it does cause you to pause and make you wonder if these forms of art are accurate representations of our psyche.


Margot R. Luby
Associate Creative Director