I’m pleased to advise we have completed production on a Video Product Briefing for Phillip Securities. It’s not hard to see the application of HBM’s approach to Branded Content, which I may have spoken to you about before. But there were a few lessons to be learnt from this project as well.
Background
The aim of the Video Product Briefing is to promote its mobile trading platform. The Briefing can be accessed via the POEMS website.
The aim of the Briefing is to raise awareness of the platform, which has been around for a number of years, and to educate visitors to its website how to use it. The icon to play the Briefing is located near a banner ad promoting the same service.
We like this Briefing a lot because the recording is credible and contains valuable information. The marketing message, in this case, is to encourage Phillip account holders to trade using their mobile phones. But it’s a soft and subtle sell. Nothing pushy.
We like the clip for several reasons:
• Concise & credible – the emphasis is on education, not selling. Engaging your target market is always a better option than trying to sell something to them. Kudos to the client for taking this route.
• Small file size – at around 11MB, it’s small enough even for streaming using a dial-up connection
• Good image quality – we encode in Adobe Flash 9 (which is actually Flash 8 but encoded in H.264 standard), which means the image quality is nice and crisp.
But the project taught everyone involved, including the client, a number of valuable lessons:
1. Use professional presenters, or provide training for your own presenter.
You have to weigh up whether one of your staff fronts the camera or you have one of ours do this. There are pros and cons to each. In this case, the client fielded one of their own staff for the presentation to camera. Gwen Lee did very well, given that she is not a professional presenter. Bottom line: if you are going to use your own presenter, please ensure you factor in the need for presentation training.
2. Custom backdrops & graphic designs
A custom backdrop and custom graphics do wonders to the branding and viewing experience. And they are not expensive. We’re quite pleased with the final product, given what we had to work with.
3. Make-up
The clip also shows how much of a difference make-up by a professional image consultant makes. Clients are often reluctant to opt in for this, but for the cost involved (several hundred dollars in this case) it makes a huge difference on screen, and the client understood this very well.
4. Video on the front pageThe placement of the video was beyond our control. If it had been us, the video itself would have appeared on the front page, rather than just a thumbnail or the graphic of a video camera. There are plenty of examples where video on the front page makes a big difference to the user experience.
5. Effectiveness
Not withstanding the less-than-idea placement of a logo on the front page, our server records show the clip has been downloaded in great number. Naturally, I am not at liberty to say how often, but it certainly seems to have been a success.
6. Get internal buy-in first
Your job is made that much easier if all the decision-makers are on board before you start. Producing a pilot program to get this buy-in sounds like a good idea in theory. In practice, it is best that this buy-in is achieved before you start. Otherwise every cent spent seems like risky business. Get the commitment and budget first.
As always, I am happy to take your questions, comments or feedback by emailing me or calling me on +65 6223 2249 or +65 9017 3534.
Best regards
Mark Laudi
Managing Director
Hong Bao Media (Holdings) Pte Ltd
mark.laudi@hongbaomedia.com
