The technology Svengalis (techgalis?) at Round Tower have paired up with Maple Knoll village, a leading senior living facility in Southwest Ohio, to introduce a groundbreaking Internet of Things solution to Maple Knoll residents. Our aging population and a decline in healthcare professionals have made technological solutions more than bright shiny plaything. Check out how Round Tower is making a real difference in the lives of these residents. I love working with these guys!
Curiosity and Roto Rooter…Number 2!
OK, ok… that’s my most offensive pun to date. I can’t help myself. The real story, Curiosity and Roto Rooter were so happy with the result of last year’s campaign that they brought the band back together again. This time we cut two versions. The one at the top of the page is “as scripted”. The commercial you will find below is a version we cut together using some planned improvisations. Check them both out and let me know which one you like best.
Round Tower Brings VMWare to the Cloud
I recently completed 2 videos for the technology wizards at locally based Round Tower that was fascinating and timely. Round Tower’s expertise and experience with both VMWare and AWS makes them s perfect partner to manage on-premisis to cloud migration with speed and without losing any application functionality. If you did not understand that last sentence…it’s a good thing, very good and all this from a rapidly growing local company. Cool stuff. Rather than listening to me butcher the details of the work this amazing company is doing, just watch the video.
Roto Rooter, a Study in Potty Humor
This fall I directed a fun (and funny) commercial for rock-star Cincinnati Advertising Agency, Curiosity and their client Roto Rooter. Curiosity has been doing some hilarious (and occasionally irreverent) social media creative work for the company and our commercial continued the lighthearted approach to the venerable brand.
The project had many challenges that are unfortunately familiar to those of us who choose to live in the “fly-over” states… quick turn around, challenging budgets, trying to make freezing cold fall day look balmy, blah, blah, blah, no big deal, the usually drill.
The benefit of limited financial resources is that you are forced to focus on the core of the idea. You have to ask tough questions, plan meticulously and really exercise those creative muscles. I figured in order to to make the most of our script we needed to spend the bulk of our resources on casting and talent fees. This was a character driven script, we needed a character. I convinced the creative team to keep their minds open to all ages, colors, shapes and sizes. We gave the actors freedom to play with the character during casting and found some real gems.
The thirty second version (above) turned out great and as an added bonus we were even able to cut a fun :15 second spot out of the footage (see below).
Husky Boy Traps Curiosity for P&G Product Intro
I recently finished this product introduction video for Curiosity Advertising and Zevo, a new-fangled flying insect trap from the good folks at P&G. Not many posts from me lately because I’ve been doing a lot of consulting, concept and writing work It felt good to get out on location and flex the old production muscles. Best part of the job? I used my dog, Cali on the shoot and, of course, she stole the show. Same old story…quick turn around time and challenging budget, but with a great client and the best crew in the business, it was smooth sailing. Check it out and let me know what bugs you. (I really have to stop with the puns!)
HPI Story won’t “Stay in Vegas”
HPI wanted to make a big splash at Black hat 2016. If you don’t know Black hat is the largest and most prestigious computer security conference in the world. Hackers and computer security specialist from around the world gather to compare notes and… well, to tell you the truth, I have no idea what they do. I still have a VCR that constantly blinks 12:00… so, yeah. Anyway, the big problem for HPI is, printer security, though important, is far from sexy and not likely to generate much traffic on the convention floor.
Gyro proposed ditching the standard flashy booth and suggested a different presence. We constructed a cool lounge just outside the main speaking areas, loaded it with charging stations and pumped up a twitter based contest/forum named #SecureMyUpgrade. #SMU was basically a contest on twitter. Conventioneers submitted requests via twitter on how to upgrade their experience while attending the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. Excursions, spa trips, shopping, shows… all kinds of upgrades were gifted by HPI and we were there to shoot and edit the experiences as they happened. We created a buzz with billboards, signage, in room tv animated promos, even #SMU custom decked out limos. Each day we shot, edited and posted videos to twitter to build excitement for the promotion. We never knew what we were shooting in advance and had to do some fancy phone work to secure location releases and city permits on the spot, but we planned it out well and had many contacts ready to help at a moments notice. We pre-produced animated opens, music and graphics and set up an edit room in our HPI command center so we could get quick client approval on our videos. We hired local drivers to run data between our crews all across Vegas to our editor. It was a crazy hectic 5 days, but the results were off the charts.
Over 1400 #SecureMyUpdrade mentions, and over 600 entries. Social media was responsible for driving 68% of all traffic to the HPI website during the campaign and social video drove the highest amount of awareness and engagement of any social post type. We got people talking about printer security in an unexpected way. We are proud of our work on this campaign and are happy that this is one story that will not “stay in Vegas”.
gyro Launches Hyland Brand with Unlimited Potential
Just a quick share of some work we competed for our client Hyland. We conceived and introduced a “nested design” to simply demonstrate the ability of the software to bring together disparate systems under one platform. gyro’s own Aaron Geraci did a stellar job bring the boards to life (as always!) and the music track from Sound Images really completes the package. From concept through design and animation, the gyro creative team put a lot of thought (and hours!) into this project. I’m proud to have played a part in it.
Some solid work for Dassault’s Solidworks
OK, the headline here buries the lead, but, as any reader of this blog knows, I cannot resist a good pun. Of course it can be argued that “good pun” is an oxymoron, but I digress. Perhaps a better headline would read, BattleBots! Hell Yeah!!!
Yep, we had the pleasure of interviewing two participants in the ABC robot fighting competition television show BattleBots, for our client Dassault Solidworks. The BattleBots engineers use Solidworks, a 3-D modeling software, when designing and constructing their mayhem machines. This is pretty cool, high-tech geekiest stuff. I was in heaven… and apparently Daussaults dedicated audience of engineers, designers and fellow killer robot fans love the videos too.
The two videos posted here are the longford hero videos that appear on Solidworks’ YouTube page as well as on a dedicated page on the Solidworks website. The dedicated community of engineers that follow the site love seeing all the different business and applications that use the software. We also cut a couple of one minute and thirty second versions of each video that were used in social Media to help drive traffic to the hero videos. Check them out and feed your inner nerd.
Brewing up a different kind of product video for SAP Crystal Reports
Most product videos fall into a fairly predictable pattern, lots of shots of the product in action coupled with long lists of features, benefits and capabilities. At gyro we believed in doing things a little differently. Features and benefits are important, but the emotions drive a story…and purchase decisions. For SAP’s Crystal Reports we created a product video that actually shows how the product helps the purchaser reach their dreams. We picked a dramatic location to help make our visuals compelling and shot the whole thing on a shoestring budget. The fabulous Dave Morrison manned the camera as DP extraordinaire, “the best in the biz”, Kim Cooper, produced, gyro’s own Aaron Geraci edited the project. I directed and served as executive producer on the job. Oh, and yes, I did provide the golden throated warbling voice over track.
gyro First Data Clover Introduction
In the summer of 2014 I was hired by gyro, Ad Age’s 2016 B2B agency of the year, as their VP of Video Content after working freelance for the agency for a month while helping them land a land the First Data account. The First Data project was immense. We designed and implemented a video marketing strategy for the client to introduce their new POS/small business management product line. In all I produced and directed and oversaw all creative on 33 videos for the client over ten months. We planned and built the videos to have multiple uses over multiple channels including company and product web pages, social media, in-store broadcasts and a very sophisticated interactive kiosk used in Sam’s club and financial institutions.
With footage shot all across the US we produced seven different product videos. These were used prominently on product web pages and anchored the different kiosk chapters. Here are a couple of examples of the longford videos (one at the top of the page, one here).
We also finished 18 different “how-to” videos that provided customers who desired a deeper dive into products’ specific functions and features. These videos supported the main product videos and also appeared on web pages and on the kiosk.
In addition we cut the interviews with Clover owners into five unique customer testimonial videos and used them on a YouTube channel and on face book to drive potential customers to the product web pages. This one’s my personal favorite.
Like I said, it was quite an undertaking. The client was delighted with the videos and especially delighted with the thousands of leads generated from the web pages and kiosks. A heck of a lot of work, but a very satisfying result.