Movies in Marketing, now open to all businesses

Hollywood reputedly spends as much money marketing a film as making it in the first place; but feature film marketing uses the scattergun approach, targeting everyone and anyone. Clearly this isn’t feasible in the business world, both financially and practically – but nor is it necessary.

A few years ago, I made a film for a British company making exotic ceramic aerospace components that was targeted at less than a dozen American executives working at Boeing and Lockheed, taking them on a virtual tour of a midlands-based factory. But it was still one hell of a challenge for the UK sales force to actually get in to see their target audience and show them the film. Today, with pretty much universal Broadband Internet access it's easy...more

A factory tour or equipment demonstration is just a mouse click away. Your product, company or pitch is accessible to your potential customer without them needing to make any commitment or apparent request – and without your sales team needing to bang on their door. Another great advantage of the Internet is the way in which it has ‘levelled the playing field’, giving the chance for small and medium sized companies to put their message across on line as powerfully as the major players.

The business of factual filmmaking itself has changed substantially, too. In the old days, using film or hefty analogue video cameras, a crew of between four and six people was usually required, with all the related expense of travel and accommodation. Now, with compact and lightweight digital equipment, I’m often working on my own or with just one specialist collaborator. Computer-based digital editing is much more efficient, too, with the easy ability to animate stills, add graphics, titles, sound effects and music, and to author and build DVDs.

Much of my current work is distributed on DVD, playable on any computer or DVD deck. In addition to the ‘main film’ such DVDs can have a myriad of extras: additional films, interviews, slide shows, printable PDF documents and so on. All these elements or ‘assets’ can easily be accessed by a sophisticated but simple menu and navigation structure, sympathetically designed to relate to your company’s own activities. It is an amazing marketing tool with so much more potential than a printed catalogue: it is a more powerful and involving communication, which is easier to update, less expensive to mass-produce and cheaper to distribute. And any or all of these DVD assets can also be included in an Internet website or used for internal communications on a company’s own Intranet.

Whether for internal communications, training, marketing, public relations, corporate identity or just plain selling, digital video and the Internet have become the ‘must have’ tools to get the job done effectively. People love to watch films, and it is part of my job as filmmaker to make my work both highly watchable and very persuasive in getting its message across to the target audience.

If your company is not already using digital video, both on and off the Internet, surely now is the time to embrace these technologies. During the current credit crunch and economic downturn, everybody needs to try even harder to get their message across, especially in sales and marketing. Digital video and the Internet are the best tools for the job. If you are not already using them then you should be. And if you have used digital video, maybe now is the time for an update or rethink.

VERSO is here to help realise your digital video ambitions. It may be less expensive than you think… and more effective than you can imagine. Email me with your comments.

charles.mapleston@versomarketing.co.uk

www.VERSOmarketing.co.uk

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