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Is corporate video relevant today and how ?
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Chris,
Without any more details I can probably guess why they would want 26 separate videos instead of two longer ones…1. The internet (including corporate sites and YouTube)
2. Presentation software that supports embedded videos, such as PowerPoint
3. Understanding that time is valuable and that it’s easier to get people to watch three or four short relevant videos than it is to get them to watch an equal amount or more video (which may not all be relevant)in one sitting.
4. Modular pieces are easier to repurpose without having to go out to a professional Editor to have them recut and updated. (Longer shelf life = more value)Those reasons may or may not be valid, but it’s likely those items were selling points in the back room discussion about this production.
-Tim
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Bill,
I’m with you on everything you’re saying. I completely agree…but we’ve found that as the size of the client increases, so does the ability to consult or advise them of anything. They almost never listen or heed the advice. We’ve worked with a handful of good sized corporations (500 million to 1 billion in annual sales), and they were all dominated by their CEO. In each case, the CEO dictated what was done in every department, including marketing and advertising. So regardless of how much we tried to understand their business, every project and every pitch was derailed by the domineering personality of the CEO.
Now I’m not saying CEOs shouldn’t be involved in every aspect of the companies they run…I’m just saying they should allow their VP’s of marketing and advertising to do their jobs. And in the companies we worked with, they weren’t given that choice. The CEO’s in question had accounting and finance backgrounds and had no formal training or understanding of marketing and advertising. Their idea of market research was to bring in all the secretaries and have them watch the spot we produced. They’d ask them what they thought. If the secretaries liked it, it ran. If they didn’t, it was back to the drawing board…despite weeks of coordinating our TV spot so it meshed with the rest of the company’s internally produced in-store, outdoor, newspaper and magazine ads.
So while we still try very hard to understand our client’s problems and needs and recommend plans that can truly help them brand and distinguish themselves in the market, they rarely listen. In fact, what I find astonishing is that any broad, focused branding campaigns EVER get produced. We constantly show our clients examples of how companies like Best Buy, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes and many others, create a distinct look and image, and hammer that image and message into consumers heads for years at a time.
But a month later, the CEO is complaining that we need to change the color of the graphics and find some new fonts because the advertising is looking stale. We’ve learned you don’t say “no” to CEO’s worth millions of dollars.
Anyway…we still hold out hope that there are clients out there that understand that branding and positioning a company is central to its success. We just haven’t found any yet!
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Those are all great reasons to do that many videos. But these folks hadn’t decided on any uses for the videos beyond in-store and hand-out DVDs. We had already produced half a dozen web videos for them, none of which ever got uploaded to the website, and they could barely spell powerpoint much less embed videos in it.
We really did try to understand why they wanted that many vidos and what the uses were. We just could never get the information out of them. As I mentioned, the entire project was eventually shelved…probably because it was just too unwieldy for anyone at the corporate level to coordinate, and when we gave them a rough estimate of the cost (based on their specs), they about had a stroke.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Dear Chris,
This reminds me of a story from the early days of Ford, when Henry Ford was still in charge. He had put his ad guys through numerous revisions of a ad campaign and was not liking what he saw. Finally, in one meeting he said, “Don’t you think that the public is tired of this ad campaign by now?” To which his ad guy replied, “Sir, this hasn’t been released to the public yet.”
Clients can be their own worst enemies, assuming that their reaction and taste accurately reflects that of the “average” target demographic. Then “video” gets blamed for the “fluff” reputation that started this whole thread.
The way I typically start this conversation with a client is to say, “While I will certainly defer to your judgement, I feel an obligation to point out that…” Then use success stories from other companies, accepted wisdom from authorities, or plain logic to make my case for leveraging the brand, consistency of message or whatever value I see an opportunity to add.
Sure, it often doesn’t work. But at least I have positioned myself as a consultant, with an understanding of both the client’s business and using my medium effectively, rather than a technician taking orders. And when it does work, everybody wins.
We need to keep trying.
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John Morley
Author of Scriptwriting for High-Impact Videos
John@OriginalVision.com -
As a coda to Mark’s coda, counseling a client to not do a video could actually be a strategy for up selling rather than losing work. Depending on the breadth of the services you offer, you may be able to propose a more comprehensive approach to the problem at hand: an extended marketing promotion, a training package, regularly scheduled employee communications. At least some of which becomes more revenue for you. And there’s always the possibility that this broader thinking may then lead to a video that is actually justified.
And in any case, as established elsewhere in this thread, positioning yourself as a consultant, who understands your client’s business and takes initiative in adding value–or preventing mistakes–is one of your best strategies for building loyalty and increasing revenue.
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John Morley
Author of Scriptwriting for High-Impact Videos
John@OriginalVision.com -
John Morley:
positioning yourself as a consultant, who understands your client’s business and takes initiative in adding value–or preventing mistakes–is one of your best strategies for building loyalty and increasing revenue.I agree with just about everything that’s been said in this thread. But some of the strategies to sell your work really depend on the part of the country you work in and the type of client you work with.
Our clients are mainly in the midwest and almost all have some sort of in-house marketing departments that range from a handful of employees to entire departments with dozens of workers. From our experience, most of them cringe at the notion of anyone acting as a consultant to them on projects.
Most of our clients formerly worked with either an ad agency, or a “one-man band” type consultant that directed their marketing and advertising efforts, but farmed literally everything out, from design to web to TV and radio production.
We were continually caught off-guard by the disdain they had for their former consultants and agencies. So we always tried to tactfully find out why.
Their aversion comes from years of working with companies that:
1. Didn’t listen to the client’s needs or any of their suggestions.
2. Would purposely deliver project previews and proofs so near deadlines that changes were essentially impossible.
3. Would place their media based on whether thay could get trips and incentives from newspapers, TV stations and radio stations.We heard this over and over from multiple companies. Some large, some mid-sized. They ranged from casinos, banks and health-care companies, to furniture companies and car dealer groups.
So we’ve learned to almost never refer to ourselves as consultants for fear we’ll get hog-tied and strung-up on a post somewhere!
I agree…that IS what we essentially are to a lot of our clients, but we prefer to frame the relationship being more of a partnership, since if our efforts help make them more successful, it helps ensure that we can likewise be successful. It may be a matter of semantics, but we’ve found that the language and phrasing you use in dealing with clients can make a HUGE difference in how they view you.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
“We were continually caught off-guard by the disdain they had for their former consultants and agencies.”
— Chris BlairThank you for the point of clarification, Chris. My intention was to suggest adding the value rather than assuming the title. You probably shouldn’t add “consultant” to your business card, unless it says something like Accenture on it already.
The baggage that comes with the term (borrows your watch to tell you what time it is, etc.) is arguably too much to carry and unfortunately well deserved by the type of consultants who are long on pontification and short on results. At the same time, the value added by a “good” consultant solves real problems and is some times even appreciated.
At a workshop for consultants held by ASTD (Assn. for Training and Development) one of the key trends emphasized is that consultants who would prefer to continue getting work need to do “real work.” Not just list out what other people need to do but actually craft the design documents, scripts, storyboards, facilitator guides, Web sites, PowerPoint presentations; and yes, shoot and edit the video.
In this era of doing more with less, authority for decision making, and thinking strategically, is increasingly being pushed down to the folks doing the actual work. Prospering in this environment means demonstrating to your clients that by hiring you, they don’t need to hire anyone else to keep you–and them–out of trouble. That’s what I was suggesting, regardless of the words you use to convey it to your clients.
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John Morley
Author of Scriptwriting for High-Impact Videos
John@OriginalVision.com -
John,
I probably didn’t say it well, but I was agreeing wholeheartedly with you on everything. Your point about companies wanting vendors to not only make recommendations but also do the work and basically take ownership of it is spot on.
We find the companies we work with want us to take very raw concepts and ideas and just run with them and get them done, making decisions to keep the project moving all along the way. BUT…they want to be kept involved in the process. When they were working with big ad agencies and consultants, the complaint was they were excluded from the process…and when they wanted to make changes, the agencies would argue with them and in some cases tell them they weren’t able to do that (either due to budget or time issues).
Jony Morley:
In this era of doing more with less, authority for decision making, and thinking strategically, is increasingly being pushed down to the folks doing the actual work. Prospering in this environment means demonstrating to your clients that by hiring you, they don’t need to hire anyone else to keep you–and them–out of troubleSo yes…you’re assessment of what it takes to prosper in this economy and business environment is exactly what we see in our part of the country.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Hi Mark;
Great thread you started here.
Have a look at my new website https://www.effectivebusinessvideo.com/
and click on the video embedded. You’ll see my comments on this.Dan
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