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An Evolution In Advertising & Ads That Make You Go Hmmm.

Jun 10

Posted by Scott Westerlaken in Brand strategy, Education, Marketing Strategy, Scott Westerlaken, Social Media, Television Advertising, Video Production, Web, web video | No Comments

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I just finished watching the 24th Annual London International Advertising Awards DVD. You gotta love advertising awards reels. After viewing them I always feel that maybe as advertising practitioners we are getting smarter! It’s also a very productive way to waste a few hours watching videos and calling it “research”!

There were a few surprise ads on the reel I had not seen and that blew me away, some that didn’t grab me and some that just left me shaking my head wondering why they rated so high.

The highlight 60 sec. TV spot for me was from Volkswagen. They received a gold TV win for “Dog-Fish”. I loved it on many different levels. The story telling was really well done, the acting was good, but the Visual Effects were fantastic.

Surprisingly, it didn’t win Gold for Visual Effects, that went to Evian “Rollerbabies”, which I find the close up’s of the babies looked really fake.

Truthfully the Evian ad is cute the first time you watch it then it gets more annoying each time around.

The other ad that made me go hmmm was the Nokia N96 gold winning ad “Bruce Lee-ping pong”

Interesting scene, got my attention…but really a Gold for telecommunications? It had me really wanting to see more “Bruce Lee” doing his thing rather than the two folks he was playing….Yet more Hmmmm..

There were some beautiful animation ads this year in the silver category. The Scrabble campaign “Sumo”, “Hula” and “Yoga”. All three also won a silver for original music. I like the ads but personally wonder how well they did for brand and sales.

Bakers Biscuits “Precious Biscuits” spot (silver for animation) was beautiful, but again, I hope it did something for the brand….

Another disappointment, but for different reasons was the Silver winner for Direction, Tampax, “Zack Johnson”. I really think it deserved a gold. The story telling and characters were great.

In a reverse of what the trend has been for years, the Public Service winners over all were a little week. I did like the Gold winner ECPCAT “Child Pornography”, but the silver winners Shelter, “House of cards” , Women’s Aid “Cut” and Anti-Knife Crime (OMG, really?) “Cribs” seemed weak to me.



What grabbed my attention this year was the “New” category. A “New” category?! “Entries for The NEW Category are for work that merges the power of an original idea with a relevant compelling execution. Emotionally inspirational, imaginative work, effectively creating new dialogues, creating new spaces of interaction, altering perceptions, setting new benchmarks that invite and reward at every level of engagement.”

All the winners were fantastic in execution. You got to love clients that are willing to reach out a little…The Grand LIA went to Fiat eco: Drive interesting but I loved a few others more.

“The best job in the world” by Tourism Australia really blew me away when I first heard about it and it still does.

Also the AC/DC Black Ice idea was interesting, especially the Excel spread sheet video…yup, you have to see it to believe it.

The Excel sheet can be downloaded here: http://www.acdcrocks.com/excel/

This category gave me hope that marketers are moving towards an evolution in advertising…when viewers get to a point that they don’t see advertising as advertising…..

All the winners can be found on the LIAA website, http://2009.liaentries.com/winners/ and it’s well worth a look through.  What have presented is just a very small snippet. Would love to hear back on what you liked out of the show!

SW

Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

With over 25 years of award winning experience in marketing, television commercials, film, video, communications, web, radio, print, and events, Scott has the ability to maintain focus on the big picture and offer a wide range of solutions appropriate to the clients message and budget. He has been recognized with dozens of awards in business, communications, and filmmaking from around the world. For the client, this means a truly unique balance of hands on technical knowledge and high level strategic experience that always leads to unique and creative solutions.

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Someone Call A Doctor!

May 31

Posted by Scott Westerlaken in Video Production, web video | 2 Comments

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Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

Recently I had a conversation with someone who was bragging about their camera system and needing just one more lens to have a complete kit.  I asked her if she had tried the full frame model from the same camera manufacturer she currently used.  She replied that she had that model.  Thinking that she didn’t understand, I asked her again. “Have you tried the 22 megapixel full frame version of that brand?”  She repeated that was the one she has  “BUT it wasn’t 22 megapixel, it’s a 10 megapixel, 35mm SLR.”  I started to explain the different sensor sizes then stopped…why should I?  This person shoots stills for her clients now and bills them for doing so.  She should know the gear right?

As equipment becomes better and more affordable I am clearly getting more confused over what constitutes a pro photographer or videographer, or am I?   Does act of selling or be paid for your work make you a pro? Does it mean that you can now go around saying you are a “pro photographer” or “videographer” even if you don’t know the basics taught in first year photography or film school?  Not to say these folks don’t get great shots, but I have always thought there was more to being called a “pro” than that.  If I performed CPR on someone, does that make me a Doctor?

SW

With over 25 years of award winning experience in marketing, television commercials, film, video, communications, web, radio, print, and events, Scott has the ability to maintain focus on the big picture and offer a wide range of solutions appropriate to the clients message and budget. He has been recognized with dozens of awards in business, communications, and filmmaking from around the world. For the client, this means a truly unique balance of hands on technical knowledge and high level strategic experience that always leads to unique and creative solutions.

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If your going to get shot, forget the blindfold.

Mar 2

Posted by Scott Westerlaken in Scott Westerlaken, Video Production, web video | 2 Comments

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What to wear for a video shoot.

At PHI, we want you to look your best.  When we go shooting real people we always get asked the same question “What should I wear?”  For some, I know they are looking for an excuse to go out shopping, but for most it’s a legitimate concern that sometimes is overlooked.  I put the following points together and share it with people I intend to shoot.  Not only does it make them feel more comfortable about the upcoming big day, it also avoids costly delays and embarrassment.

- Dress as you would normally when you have a big meeting and realize the what you wear will effect what people will think about your company.  Take into account that you want to feel comfortable as if you are uncomfortable it will be communicated on camera.

-Solid colors look best on video. Think blue, yellows, greens, grey and off white.  Red is also fine but depending on the camera, the hue and the texture has caused problems in the past.  Best to bring a back up if you dress in red…Just in case.

-Avoid white or dark clothing and instead dress in off white and dark grey.

-Avoid wearing the same color shirt & tie as…well, you won’t see your tie!

-Try not to wear anything too bright or distracting. Wearing wild colors, distracting clothing or jewelry may take away from what you want to say.

-Avoid clothing with fine patterns (pin stripes, herring bone) as they will cause a moiré pattern (a distracting wavy effect, seen mostly when Don Cherry appears on HNC) when seen on TV.  Not to say you can’t wear something with a pattern, you just need to avoid the tight, thin, contrasted lines.  Below is a quick example of what the moiré pattern looks like…note that only the image is pulling back, all the other movement is an illusion but very distracting!

-Avoid clothing that displays a brand, saying, image or logo unless you have obtained advance copyright approval (in writing) or it’s your own brand or sponsor.

-Avoid clothing that is reflective or has reflective strips unless it’s part of the interview!

-Avoid clothing that makes noise.  If you know you will be walking while being interview, wearing cords or wind pants that swoosh when you walk would not be a good idea.  Also think about leather that creaks, jackets and jewelry that also might make noise.

-If you can, or are unsure about what to wear don’t be afraid to bring several set of clothes so the director has a choice.

-If you wear eyeglasses, you may be asked to remove them if you are comfortable without them.  Remember when the optometrist offered low or non glare lenses?  Non glare free type lenses cause flares (reflections of the lights) and blocks your eyes from being seen.  If you can’t function without them, we have a few tricks to lighten the glare.

Other things to remember:
-Turn your cell phone off.  Even it it’s on silent or vibrate it can still make noise or cause electromagnetic interference to the camera and audio gear.

-Don’t forget to get a good night sleep before the shoot.  Trust us…it shows!

-Men may need a little powder to keep the skin sheen down.  Don’t be embarrassed about that!

-Women should wear their normal amount of makeup and not over do it.

- If you are prone to heavy sweating, let us know.  Even if you are not, it’s always a good idea to keep a handkerchief close by for any quick dabs.  Consider dress shields if you perspire easily.

-Don’t wear vivid red lipstick or try out some whacky new colour…unless that’s the look you are going for!

-Make up in general should be limited to softer tones and neutral overall look.

-Avoid ball caps.  They hide your face and makes lighting you very hard.

-Try and pick an outfit that we can clip a small microphone and transmitter and transmitter too, unless we have discussed other intentions.

-If you are being shot on blue or green screen it’s very important that you do not wear…blue or green!

If we have missed anything or have any other advise to share, please let us know!

SW

Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

With over 25 years of award winning experience in marketing, television commercials, film, video, communications, web, radio, print, and events, Scott has the ability to maintain focus on the big picture and offer a wide range of solutions appropriate to the clients message and budget. He has been recognized with dozens of awards in business, communications, and filmmaking from around the world. For the client, this means a truly unique balance of hands on technical knowledge and high level strategic experience that always leads to unique and creative solutions.

Wikio
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Real Estate Marketing Trends

Feb 18

Posted by Scott Westerlaken in Low Budget Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Scott Westerlaken, Social Media, Twitter, web video | No Comments

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housesIn the last few months I have been doing intense market research on real estate marketing and trends.  Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone but, things are changing.  Things are changing fast!  Just look at the USA market and you will quickly see where we are headed – when times are tough the strong, the quick to adapt and the most innovative succeed.

There is a strong move to the internet in the USA, not only how the client uses it, but the way Realtors are (or in some cases not) using it!  Just as the cell phone and email revolutionized the way Realtors did business, the internet is also changing the way business is conducted and won!

According to two different studies conducted in the USA, 80 to 95% of sellers and buyers are finding and researching their broker and agent on the internet before engaging their services.  If your web page hasn’t been optimized and isn’t regularly updated, then this should scare you into action!

The move to Facebook pages and Twitter is growing, but experienced brokers are still ignoring it’s potential to drive both sales and client acquisition.  Furthermore, Twitter searches conducted by home buyers or sellers is a growing practice and if you’re not monitoring your brand (or real estate in general) in this space, then you’re missing out!

Photo tours are still dominant in real estate, but a growing use of video to improve the client’s experience, the Realtor’s brand perception and the listing’s visibility is substantial.  The move to video tours has increased by up to 96% from 2008, with the top reason being home sellers love not having to disrupt their lives for numerous showings.  Further to this is the increase in search weight, caused by the rich media on the brokers’ site, while also providing a more engaging experience for home buyers.  Video is being used as a marketing tool to elevate the agent or broker’s brand perception, in addition to providing property-specific details.  A good example (if we do say ourselves) are the videos we did for Polycorp.

What does this all mean? Real estate brokers should be embracing the new tools available to them and encouraging agents to participate in social media.  It’s no longer good enough to have a static brochure on the website.  A broker’s site needs to be optimized for search, it should also be dynamic and engaging. Otherwise, the site simply gets lost in the search traffic maze.  And the best part is: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and most “social media” initiatives cost very little to implement and video content can be produced for as low as $50.

There are some pitfalls that real estate professionals need to keep in mind, however.  Everything you put out there must relate back to your brand. Just like you would not send out a newsletter that was poorly written and badly laid out, the same holds true for your social media and video efforts.  If you are setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts, they need to be branded and even more importantly, full of useful information for your clients that is updated regularly.  With video tours, also keep in mind that you need to keep it branded.  Think of video in the same way you would a brochure.  It all reflects on “how the client will view doing business with you”.  There is no shame in asking for help in these areas…your expertise is in the real estate business!

I can’t imagine a Realtor in this day and age saying they don’t have a cell phone, or email.  It’s fundamental to the way business is done today.  The same will be said about Facebook, Twitter, and websites with rich content in the next year or two!  We have been working on a few innovative ideas for clients and how they can use Facebook, Twitter and video to increase sales, client appeal and branding.  I would love to see some great examples of how others are also doing so, whether in real estate or not!

SW

Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

With over 25 years of award winning experience in marketing, television commercials, film, video, communications, web, radio, print, and events, Scott has the ability to maintain focus on the big picture and offer a wide range of solutions appropriate to the clients message and budget. He has been recognized with dozens of awards in business, communications, and filmmaking from around the world. For the client, this means a truly unique balance of hands on technical knowledge and high level strategic experience that always leads to unique and creative solutions.

Wikio
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Narcissism or Market Research?

Jan 26

Posted by Scott Westerlaken in Marketing Strategy, Scott Westerlaken, Social Media, web video | 4 Comments

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Scott Westerlaken

Scott Westerlaken

Over the last few months I was introduced to a great but addictive tool.  Google Alerts.  Imagine, if you will, you had a personal researcher that gave you up to the minute web status reports on any subject you wanted. Like…um…well yourself and your company.  Ok..I must admit I get a kick about seeing where my name appears but it also serves other purposes. It can give you immediate feed back on posting visibility, news reports and business opportunities. I have one “Alert” for “web video” (note you apply the search parameters as you would with a regular Google search, see end of article for more tips) that regularly gives me greater insights into industry developments and twitter/linkedin material to spread.

google alertsTo get going, visit www.google.com/alerts.  Sign in or setup an account if you do not already have one (takes a couple minutes at most).  Set up your search words and how often you want your update (immediate or daily) and whether you want to be notified by email or RSS.  Simple, but addictive, so be careful!

Quick briefing on “Search Modifiers”

Looking for an explicit phrase? Use the words within quotation marks, like “phi group”.

google modTo exclude words use the hyphen(minus) symbol. “video production”-wedding

To include similar words try the little used  “~” (known as the tilde, finally found a use for that key).  “video production”~producer

And…(yes Margaret I am starting a sentence with “and”) finally the mathematicians favorite modifier “OR”.  Video production OR producer for example.

There are others, such as site specific and file type searches but this is enough to get you going.

Would love to hear some other uses and stories for Google Alerts.

SW

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Creating Emotional Connections With Inexpensive Web Video

Jan 22

Posted by Chad in Guest Blogger, Low Budget Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Video Production, web video | No Comments

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Whatever your product or service, finding customers in a broad, cluttered market served by many competitors requires  more than a good website and brochure. It takes a lot of cold calling, relationship building…and, yes, sometimes sleepless nights and a little bit of luck too!

Fact is, to generate sustainable success, you’ve got to capture your customer’s attention by zeroing in on their specific product application or need, and then appeal directly to the points of pain associated with that product or process. In other words, you need to find an emotional connection and demonstrate clearly how your product will solve their concerns or inefficiencies.

In my years working in the foodservice equipment industry, I was responsible for marketing innovative equipment solutions that ultimately could provide operators with cost savings and a better quality product for their customers. The challenge was how do you convince a well-established, multi-national chain it should change the way it prepares its core product (in this case, beverages)?  Equipment is often viewed as a commodity and just another capital expense. To get a buy-in, an emotional connection was required where my product could address and demonstrate a solution to specific points of pain in their beverage preparation and delivery process.  However, demonstrating the product solution to all the decision makers, as well as the field operators,  would be a very expensive and time consuming exercise if we chose the “face to face” path. A fast, inexpensive way to reach the right people and communicate the most important points about my product, for a very specific product application, was what was required.

The solution was to develop a series of videos that demonstrated our product in action, solving a specific problem for a niche application.

The key to success here is that the videos need to be produced and delivered quickly to the customer, preferably shot in the customer’s environment for maximum effect, and they need to be short and to the point. The result? Instant demonstration of the product application in the customer’s environment that could easily be uploaded on the web or emailed to key decision makers. In fact, the process worked so well that the concept was expanded to include development of preventative maintenance and technical training videos. These videos were assembled into an easy to navigate, Flash-based user interface that enabled a customer to easily get the important information they needed about the product.

Similarly, in developing new market space for the MorSwift (www.morswift.com) morswift siterubber banding and bundling system, the challenge was to find a way to bring this innovative packaging solution to the attention of customers accustomed to using  traditional packaging methods.  Demonstrating the various niche applications for MorSwift would not only help the customer visualize how the banding system could fit into their production process, but also enables a way to communicate the key selling points of the system.  By developing short, cost-efficient videos with on-screen bullet pointsmorswift videos page (see http://www.morswift.com/videos.html),  then uploading these to the web, MorSwift is able to reach customers all over the world.  Rather than promote the MorSwift system as a broad, “packaging solution”, the company is able to use the videos to promote specific, niche product applications such as rubber banding of broccoli, crab, lobster, printed material, tools, etc.

It’s important to note that this is a dramatic change in approach to the traditional use of video where most applications of video are for broad strokes of image, company brand, and sales pitches.  Instead, the specific niche application for the product and related messaging is the focus of the video. Quick, to the point, in your face!

PHI Group can help you deliver creative, cost-effective and professional-looking product application videos that will knock the socks off of your customers!  The result?  Close sales faster by offering a more relevant, targeted sales pitch to your customers and reduce your travel and marketing expenses in the process.

For more examples of using video to promote your products and services, visit www.phigroup.ca

Please share with me your thoughts on this topic, I would like to hear from you.

Chad Wiesner (chadw@eastlink.ca)

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It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.

Nov 27

Posted by admin in Scott Westerlaken, Social Media, Uncategorized, Video Production, web video | No Comments

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What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know.  It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.

Mark Twain

roof in field

I like to compare what I do in communications to building a house.  There are many different ways to get to a finished house and not all houses are the same.  Some are designed by architects who put out tenders to construction companies who then, after winning the tender hire subcontractors.  Others are dreamt up and built by the dreamers using their own hands.  In what I do I can either be hired by the client or an ad agency to execute to varying degrees on an idea of theirs or our own.  Also, as demonstrated on “Holmes On Homes” and maybe in your past marketing efforts there are folks out there who bullshit you out of your money leaving you with a half finished reno or message!

In building a house or communications message, none of the finished products are inherently superior to the other just by how they got to being, but there are some benefits and dangers involved in each method.  For one, the more people involved in the process the easier it is for someone down the line to “fix” a mistake caused by inexperience, lack of knowledge or attention to detail, but the more people involved, the more complex the process and the more cost.  With less people involved the process can be simplified and the costs can be reduced but inexperience, lack of knowledge and attention to detail can be disastrous as there are few others (if anyone else) to catch errors.

The major challenge facing small to medium sized companies right now when it comes to hiring independent contractors to execute on their communications is they can be faced with an assortment of “experts”.  These “experts” can throw around key words, stats and phrases to leave the impression that they “live” whatever they are professing to know about marketing, web, or video.  But there is more than knowing the latest catch phrases, popular websites and/or having read the latest evangelical book or blog on the subject required to be able to effectively communicate your message.  Success in telling the story comes from being able to combine solid knowledge of the media involved, knowledge and experience in technically executing for that media and having the ability to effectively communicate with the client and even more importantly, the target audience.  It’s not rocket science but does require hard work, which some are adverse to.

At PHI we believe the secret to communication success is having a team that is willing to work hard to understand the company and target and put a supreme effort into the execution of the message, all within the company’s budget.  Our team’s depth of experience in various industries, working with various products, and in some cases, being a manager on the client side making marketing or advertising decisions gives us a practical, street level understanding of what works in a real business and what doesn’t. At the end of the day, sales and the need for sustainable cash flow is what business owners want out of their communication expenditures. However, a company’s sustainability is only obtained by telling its story through meaningful, targeted branding, PR and advertising that will reach the actual customer.

You know your business better than anyone, and PHI’s team will help you articulate that knowledge (and story) into something that resonates with your target.  Catch phrases are optional but if you call in the next two hours we’ll throw them in for free (you only pay added shipping and handling).

SW

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