Okay, I had to post this commercial. One, because I’m an Alabama Alum and big Alabama football fan. Two, because I think ESPN always has awesome commercials. I think any company who is interested in using video to build their brand can learn some valuable lessons from watching these ESPN spots.
First, ESPN understands their demographic. They have narrowly focused their target audience and they know how to speak to that audience. Do you know who you target audience is? Do you understand how they think and how they make purchasing decisions?
Second, the audience can relate to ESPN commercials. If you are a sports fan, you instantly “get” each and every ESPN commercial. They don’t have to bombard you with a lot of facts and dialogue. They don’t have to explain everything to you. Knowing the behaviors and habits of your target audience will make easy for you to create video content that they can relate to. And when your audience understands your message, they feel comfortable with your brand. And when they feel comfortable with your brand, they will have no problem doing business with you.
Third, they rely on the visuals more so than words. This commercial uses very little dialogue. The visuals tell you everything you need to know. When you produce a video and/or TV commercial for your company, are you letting the visuals tell the story? Consider this commercial as another example.
Here’s the ESPN “Roll Tide” commercial. Enjoy. And Roll Tide.
A new ad by JetBlue demonstrates what’s most important when doing business – customer service. If you treat the customer well and go out of your way to provide a little something extra, then you will quickly build up a base of loyal followers. Customers who have a positive experience with your brand will, in turn, tell others, and you will gain trust and credibility within the marketplace. This commercial succeeds by capitalizing on the frustrations felt by many air travelers, who must put up with extra baggage fees, fees for in-flight headphones, and other inconveniences that have made air travel a pretty laborious process. The commercial also has a documentary-style, hidden-camera format which communicates “authenticity” – a hot buzz word in media communications today. So, I want you to think about a few things as you watch this commercial:
What are you doing to improve customer service and increase brand loyalty?
What are you doing to set yourself apart from your competitors?
What strategies are you using to get your message out to your target audience?
In today’s advertising environment, marketing firms, ad agencies, and PR professionals are trying to leverage all the social media tools out there to generate awareness for a product or service. There’s Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, MySpace, Tumblr, Flickr… the list goes on and on. But can we go overboard with these strategies? Sometimes, simple is better. Consider the following ad and then consider this question, “Can advertisers overuse these tools to the point that the target audience starts tuning out?” Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
In 2008 I worked as Director of Photography for the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival’s TV commercial. Filament Artists, a local creative services agency, handled production and post-production. Todd Hornsby was the producer and Sam McDavid was the writer/director. This year, the decision-makers at Sidewalk asked Filament to do it once again, and I had another opportunity to work as Director of Photography for the project. The Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival is now in its 12th year, and will be held in downtown Birmingham September 24-26.
PoshBirmingham.com is a website that features incentives from the finest retailers and restaurants in the Birmingham area. The website should launch in the next week, but to help raise awareness and drive traffic to the site, we were hired to produce a series of commercials. We created four commercials for Posh Birmingham – two :30 spots, one :15 spot, and one :05 spot. Some spots focus on the retailers, while others focus on the restaurants. The :30 spot posted below is one advertising some of the retailers you can find on PoshBirmingham.com.
