Over the past couple of months two events have reminded me that I really must try harder to post to this blog more regularly. It really is very easy to let this kind of activity fall by the wayside when there are things more loudly demanding your attention… not least the need to complete client work and make a crust!
But on two occassions recently, we have attracted business purely and simply through being found ENTIRELY BECAUSE of this blog.
One of the occasions was with our new client DA Systems for whom we are producing a series of product videos for their website. Anyway, a couple of their key people had seen a video we produced for WarrantyWise, liked what they saw and decided they wanted something similar.
Now we all know (I hope by now) that video get’s you noticed and engages people in ways that text and still images can never compete with, but what I hadn’t fully appreciated was that even without us being credited on the video or anywhere on the WarrantyWise site, they were able to ‘Google us out’ as producers of this piece simply because I happened to write a blog about it in November last year!
Similarly, I had a call this week from a potential client who had long admired the video testimonials we produced for Ziptech Services a few years back. His colleague had also remembered seeing a video we had made presented by Quentin Willson (one of the many and may also have been the WarrantyWise one!) Once again through the wonders of search we were tracked down. Without this blog, both opportunities would no doubt have slipped through our fingers.
If you don’t know Quentin, here is some of his work, including it has to be said, a fair smattering of stuff he has done with Web-Epics;
On a more fundamental level this anecdote reminds me of how much easier (and at the same time so much more competitive) the Internet makes marketing a business. One forgets how slow, cumbersome and expensive the whole process was in the 20th century!
My attention was drawn to a posting yesterday on BroadcastNow, which very succinctly summed up the value of what we do as professional video producers. The writer Geoff Motley (pictured below) very clearly points out the importance of working with properly skilled people and the downside of not doing so.
Geoff Motley
With more and more organisations turning to video marketing techniques to promote their message, high quality production values are becoming ever more important. A year or two back companies using home-movie productions to promote themselves on the web were able to get away with; they were seen as pioneers and the fact they had embraced the medium at all gave them prominence. Now it is different; online video is becoming ubiquitous and so it is not only the quality of the message, but also the way it is crafted and displayed that will guarantee viewers, successful communication and ultimately success.
Web-Epics have recently completed two promotional videos for our local Chamber of Commerce (Portsmouth and South East Hampshire). The first is “A Member’s Story”. Shot and edited by Paddy Payne, this follows local business owner Sam Farrow of Farrow Creative as she tells a bit of her business history and why she has found her membership invaluable.
The second was filmed at a number of events last year and includes comments from a significant number of members about the benefits they get from their Chamber membership.
At the end of November we filmed a fund raising event for nearby Rowans Hospice to help them demonstrate some of the activities they get up to in order to raise more than £3m to run the hospice each year. It will also be used to encorage more people to join in the event next year.
You can see the film below and please feel free to donate to our Christmas appeal on behalf of The Rowans Hospice at www.justgiving.com/webepics. If we can raise £500 it will pay to run the Hospice for just 1 hour!
Two Web-Epics clients from quite diverse industries have realised the value of adding a movie to their websites and recently ‘gone live’ with Web-Epics video marketing productions.Taking the example of these two companies illustrates the flexibility of video to communicate a product and/or service – sometimes both at once – in a way that can only otherwise be matched by experiencing it at first hand. Take Manchester-based Warranty Wise with their campaign to introduce a used car warranty that is fair to the consumer. They already had Quentin Willson on board helping them develop the product so it made sense to maximise his involvement and his credibility as a motoring journalist who is also widely recognised as a ‘good guy’ on the side of the consumer and have him clearly explain their offer and what sets it apart. In a matter of a minute or two Quentin explains in easily understandable terms something which would traditionally involve paragraph after paragraph of para-legal words and impenetrable phrasesthat few would even bother to read.Watch the video and you know exactly what you are buying.
At the opposite end of the country and moving from car warranties to ships on the Solent, tall ship charter company Red Sky have included a video on their homepage to show people what they can experience sailing with Red Sky.
Clearly nothing could compare with the reality of climbing the mast of one of these beautiful ships (or simply soaking up the sun on deck sipping a glass of champagne while someone else climbs the mast for that matter), but I think you’ll agree, video is the next best thing to being there!
Ran a seminar for Business Link the other week on Video Testimonials. Part of it involved shooting some ‘live’ testimonials in the room… kind of a live studio audience I suppose… anyway here are the results.
First of all Peter Czapp of the Wow Company talks about his experiences of working with Web-Epics.
Second Christine Hammacott of the Art of Communication explains the benefits she saw in attending courses run by ACT Assessment and Training.
It’s then Photographer Chris robinsons turn to talk about his client’s experience of working with Culverwell Consultants.
Finally, James Hardiman of Spend Less on Utilities gives voice to his highly valued relationship with No-nonsense Business Services.
I read about this at Streamingmedia.com today. It seems Microsoft and Akamai are collaborating to make HD streaming widely available as early as 2009.
Apparently the two companies announced yesterday that
Microsoft’s new “Smooth Streaming” technology will be bundled with a new Akamai service offering called “AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight.”
But forget about how it works… as if i would ever understand anyway… think about what this could mean. Will Richmond of VideoNuze hits the nail on the head;
“Users expect TV-quality video when they go online; anything less just doesn’t make the grade anymore.” Especially in the HD era, premium video providers are recognizing that quality is king and as a result are accelerating their shift to more robust delivery infrastructure. And the payoffs are clear: higher-quality video drives longer viewing sessions, greater engagement and improved monetization opportunities.”
… along comes Ultra HDTV or Super Hi-Vision (SHV)… I think there is probably a whole department of an electronics company in Japan just coming up with ways to reuse the VHS initials again! While this format has been around for a couple of years it seems, it was first brought to my intention by Informitv who have blogged today about a demonstration of the format taking place at IBC in Amsterdam this month. According to Engadget who wrote in January this year, that the Japanese government are investing millions in bringing this to reality as a broadcast format by 2015!. If you thought HDTV was high definition at 1080 x 1920 pixels – which equates to 2 megapixels think again… the Ultra HDTV image resolution is 7,680 x 4,320 amounts to an enormous 33 megapixels! By the way it is also capable of 22.2 channel surround sound.
Do we need it? Of course we do.
…is the subject of our new TV production that goes out this Friday evening at 21.00 (and every evening until 14 August) on Sky Digital Channel 167 (Information TV).
Drive Greener and Save Money was produced in conjunction with our friends at Launch Group and was pulled together in 4 weeks from brief to broadcast!
As mentioned in my last post, I think this sponsored TV model is a very interesting development. At a time when there is a shift away from coventional TV advertising, maybe sponsored broadcast content could be an exciting development. I guess only the viewing figures will tell!
While most of our activity is involved with on line video and traditional media (DVDs etc.) We are quite excited at Web-Epics that we have just been commissioned to produce a programme to be broadcast on a Sky channel. More about this in due course, once it is in the public domain and we will be able to write about the client and the project.
However the channel it is to be broadcast on is interesting in itself.
“We broadcast in-depth public service programming on topics of vital interest to various sectors of the community.
Public bodies use Information TV to broadcast their own video material in the form of sponsored TV programming. Programmes may be one-off broadcasts, or regularly repeated, and can be as short as 5 minutes. The sponsor of each programme will be clearly credited so that viewers know who has enabled the broadcast.”.
Clearly nothing could compare with the reality of climbing the mast of one of these beautiful ships (or simply soaking up the sun on deck sipping a glass of champagne while someone else climbs the mast for that matter), but I think you’ll agree, video is the next best thing to being there!
.