Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Mmmm, nothing says tasty like “gray and moist”
It is videos like this that made the Ampex ADO the most valuable piece of gear in 1985!
I think that rap sequence was an outtake from Breakin’ 2.
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I attend several trade shows per year as both exhibitor and visitor.
The subject matter does not matter – the concept is the same:A booth on an exhibit floor, chock full of other booths, wants people to enter the perimeter of the booth so as to be approached by a sales or marketing person.
At a lot of booths, plasmas are used as signage, often in the vertical configuration showing PPT loops or motion graphics with some subtle ambient music playing. These are simply that – signage.
Some booths have a specially made loop produced, either specific to the convention and city, or just something generic to use at all of their meetings.
In my world, surgery, the loops are either motion graphics about some new medical device, with or without clinical footage, or simply a highly edited montage of clinical footage demonstrating the application of the device. As in other specialty areas, some of the videos are Madison Ave quality, some are Flip Cam quality, and most are somewhere in the middle.
Putting a talking head in one of these loops is nearly useless due to the noise level in the exhibit hall which usually resembles the VAB at NASA. The audience may see someone they recognize but unless they are nose to nose with the screen they won’t hear it.
Consider your neighbors also. We have endured hours of listening to the same 3 minute loop from a neighboring booth. Eventually the brain tunes it out, almost.
So your goal is to get people into the booth. In the medical world the best way is to show something clinical, as that is most relevant to the viewer (ie, a rhinoplasty). Find the equivalent of a rhinoplasty in your own industry, keep it short, to the point, high quality, not too loud, not too talky-heady, some sales pitch but mostly visual and you will be moving in the right direction.
If you want long testimonials from the CEO and users, throw those on your website or hand out flash drives or make a freely available mobile app.
Mike Cohen
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Having been born in Pittsfield, MA, the one time capital of plastics in America, I am duly impressed by this award Todd has received multiple times. Plastics are highly competitive, especially with the whole anti-phtalates movement, particularly regarding baby bottles and water containers.
Todd – given that your company specializes in plastic, I wonder what brings you to Creative COW? Are you looking for a vendor to help with some videos?
Keep up the great work.
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The first week that Hightail launched, on top of the old YouSendIt platform, it was a total disaster (New Coke – nobody asked for it and aside from the company, nobody cared about the new formula).
They spent a lot of effort talking about how they came up with the name and the whole branding Madison Ave thing (yeah it’s a 7 sided shape with a H in it). But they seemed to forget about testing the site.
Files sent under YSI were intermittently available for download under HT. Clients had trouble downloading and uploading, and half of my attempts at sending files resulted in errors. And corporate clients on older versions of IE had more problems.
On the Hightail Facebook page people erupted with complaints and pointed out that Hightail sounds like spam or worse.
After a few days, Hightail started responding to FB posts and they also contacted me directly, apologized and gave me 6 months of free service.
Seems to be working now.
I did not know about the 10gig upgrade – we’ll get a lot of use out of that as it is very frustrating being limited to 2 gigs when working with videos. The Pro Plus option on their website still says 2gig limit.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Mike Cohen
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I won’t repeat the great advice already given. But yeah, never tell a client your cost. If you are only charging cost you will always break even. A Fortune 10,000 company understands the need for any business to make a profit. You need not spell it out.
Don’t use the word “juice” as that implies greed or malicious scheming. Make your numbers reflect the three slices of your business pie (cost of goods, overhead and profit). To use the box of nails example:Cost of raw materials and labor to make 1 pound of nails $1.50
Cost to ship from Korea to Cleveland via boat, train and truck $1.00
Profit for manufacturer $0.50
Profit for distributor $0.50
Cost to Home Center $3.50
Sale price $5.50 leaves Home Center $2.00 to cover $.75 wages, $.75 overhead (electricity, uniforms, orange paint etc) and $.50 profit.Figure the same breakdown for your services and give the client the selling price ($5.50 for the nails) and the rest is your secret sauce.
Mike Cohen
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Videos go viral whether you want them to or not. You can make a video you think will light up the world but then you have someone post a clip showing a baby elephant save a nun from a burning orphanage – can’t compete with that.
What do you want to accomplish? Tell the world about a unique product that is safe for people with food allergies. Who is most alarmed by gluten and nuts? Moms and dads of kids born in the past 30 years. Nick is right. Let compelling interview clips setup the need for such a product then deliver the goods with some words from the inventor/chief baker with some fancy tabletop shots of the bread and a cute kid taking a bite of a sandwich. Cue piano music. Mom on camera saying “I love XYZ Bread almost as much as I love my kids”. Etc.
Not necessarily viral but heartwarming is what you need.
Good luck
Mike Cohen
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It appears most Caribbean countries are not Carnet participants. I’m planning a shoot down yonder also though a different island.
Mike Cohen
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I thought this was going to be a thread about superpowers. Well to the folks who are passionate about a cause you may appear to have super powers if you can help them spread their message. In the YouTube era professional video skills are 50% in demand by volunteer organizations. I suggest finding an issue you care about instead of just throwing a dart at the NGO with a job opening. Imagine taking a position as the video guy/latrine digger/diesel mechanic for the International Skunk Preservation Society and realizing 3 months into a 1 year contract that you don’t care much about skunks or latrines. Your lack of passion will show in your videos too…
Why not find a local charity to help out?
Best of luck.
Mike Cohen
PS. Zelin rocks
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Yesterday in our local rag, the Hartford Courant, they ran a syndicated travel essay from Tribune. 2 out of 4 of the photos were credited as iStockphoto. 1 was from the New Hampshire tourism office. The final pic was uncredited. So the photographs from iStock paid someone a few dollars.
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Very funny.
Mike Cohen