Archive for the ‘online video’ Category

Buzzworthy Wednesday: Space Chimp

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Buzzworthy Wednesday’s have been resurrected! In an effort to keep them simple and easier for me to stay up to date with a weekly post I will be keeping my comments and background on whatever the Buzzworthy Wednesday content is quick and to the point.

This week’s Buzzworthy Wednesday is “Space Chimp” with a sad but poignant environmental message. The video was a collaboration between the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF…not the wrestling organization), ad agency Leo Burnett which has one of my favorite interactive websites ever designed and singer / songwriter Ben Lee for his track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe”.

Space Chimp from Sydney on Vimeo.

Adelie Studios 2.0 – the relaunch

Monday, February 1st, 2010

So as promised the first step to relaunching Adelie Studios was the new logo design, thanks to all those who helped with the design process.

Now I have completely overhauled the website making it more user friendly, focused on online video animation and generally cooler in all ways. I give you the 62% more awesome…Adelie Studios Website.

It still needs work – I’ll be writing and adding an e-book about online video marketing, adding new blog posts and specific online video landing pages but for now…I rest.

Thanks to all who have been supportive during this process and if you know someone who wants to find a more entertaining way to market their business online…well you know who to call. Thank you.

Buzzworthy Wednesday: Liberty Mutual “Good Vibrations”

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Liberty Mutual has been using the “good karma” branding message for a number of years now. This week’s Buzzworthy Wednesday is a recently created animated addition to their Responsibility Project. It’s not often that you see a company take the marketing strategy to create change and to be authentic about it. I think this message was successful in grabbing the viewer to show the impact a simple action can have in the lives of others but comes across seeming disingenuous in others.

The animation is very well done and their pay it forward puts an emotional touch on their brand to communicate meaningfully with consumers.

Where I think it fails in some ways is in the use of the office building…let’s be honest most large office buildings are occupied by large corporations, financial and insurance companies and Liberty Mutual is no exception. Is this a reach? A sort of pessimism on my viewing part? I don’t know. It may be I’m seeing some symbolism that Liberty Mutual hadn’t considered when working on the project. It’s also a little long at a little over 4 minutes so part of the reason it may have gotten so few views is the fact that many online viewers have a shorter attention span than this video requires to unfold.

Either way, it’s definitely very well crafted by French animator Jérémy Clapin, the director of Skhizein. Clapin’s visual voice is incredibly strong and make this brilliant piece a pleasure to watch regardless of whether or not I am reading into the crowd in the office building symbolism too much. I guess if you remove Liberty Mutual and its marketing message from the equation I find it much more enjoyable and captivating short to watch. What about you? Am I crazy here?

Buzzworthy Wednesday: “The Way We Get By” Documentary

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

So this is a departure for me. Typically for Buzzworthy Wednesday I am profiling different marketing videos, websites or designs that are really unique and I believe worth a look if you haven’t seen them yet. Sometimes the branding is subtle but this week’s is a complete departure and has absolutely nothing to do with marketing on online branding.

This week I am choosing to profile the documentary “The Way We Get By” about the stories of three senior citizens who are dedicated to greeting the troops being deployed and coming home from Iraq and Afganistan at the Bangor Maine Airport. I felt this was particularly poignant especially since last Wednesday was Veteran’s Day and it is truly a moving piece.

The documentary takes a look into the lives of three senior citizens – Bill Knight, Jerry Mundy and Joan Gaudet who have dedicated their lives to greeting these troops to help them deal with the losses that come with aging and rediscover their reason for living. Greeting these troops day in and day out has brought a renewed purpose to their lives.

Although this is loosely billed as a documentary about the Iraq War, it stays apolitical. It is more universally a search for purpose as these people confront their own mortality in their waning years. The dynamic between the departing soldiers and the greeters is what makes this film so successful. For the seniors their mortality is something they are confronted with every day as they confront health problems and the passing of loved ones but for the soldiers it’s a more nebulous feeling because as they depart they know that some of the people they are flying out with will not return.

So until December 12, 2009, PBS is making the entire documentary available to view on their website. You can also check their television schedule to see when it will be airing again in your area. Watch it…you’ll be as moved as I was and share your thoughts about it below.

TheWayWeGetBy

Buzzworthy Wednesday: The Battle for Milkquarious

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

The Battle for Milkquarious, is a 20-minute online rock opera about a rock icon named White Gold fighting for justice and his girl on the faraway planet of Milkquarious…that description alone is worthy of Buzzworthy Wednesday. This destination website with movie was launched in mid-October by the California Milk Processor Board and agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (the creators of “Got Milk”).

This short film has sort of a Zoolander-ish feel which carefully walks the line between cool and corny. The result is a hilarious piece with frequent and humorous one liner references to milk like “You guys want to sip on my one gallon axe?”.

They’ve also created the “Milkdonkulous Give-a-way” which is a contest to high schools across California to create their own interpretations of scenes from the movie and win $50,000 for your school’s art, music, and drama programs.

The contest is kind of cool, but where they fall short is having the high school kids interpret scenes. Why stop there? Why not have them write new scenes? The winner could have their script used in the further adventures of White Gold. I think expanding upon the intellectual property of Milkquarious rather than just rehashing the material would make far more sense and really let the creativity of these high school students run wild. Then these kids could share their videos on YouTube and Facebook and create a social buzz around Milkquarious. That’s where the payback would be from a marketing perspective.

All in all it’s a pretty funny and great marketing effort, but is this the future of online video advertising? Will more and more online marketing videos be moving to this type of immersive experience? What do you think?

Milkquarious