A few weeks months ago we wrote about the series we recently worked on for Dulux, it was such a fun series and we really enjoyed the trust that the Dulux team put in us to deliver a top level product all within a very tight time frame on the day!
In the end we produced a series of 6 videos covering a whole range of the business units that participate in the program that is playing an important role in protecting those who spend all summer protecting us!
Here is one of the longer versions, explaining the journey of the program and impact of surf clubs in Australia
Meeting a kitchen legend
These days most Australian homes that have a serious chef in the family will have a Stephanie Alexander cookbook of some kind, with her “The Cook’s Companion” being highly regarded with over 500,000 copies sold.
Through her many years of experience in the food industry, Stephanie has learnt the importance of food education of all Australians and the influence it can have on our lives and well being.
2001 saw her create the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation to help educate inner city kids about the growing of food with a comprehensive gardening and kitchen program.
They now have reached over 1000 schools across Australia, making a tremendous impact!
We were recently asked by the awesome team from Melbourne creative agency Thirst Creative to help out with a video for Stephanie’s new Turning The Tables initiative, where participating restaurants donate part of your dining receipt to help raise funds towards further food education goals.
We thoroughly enjoyed working with Stephanie and her team, and like the true professional she is we were done in a flash!
We love a nice piece of production design
A while back we shared our favourite Nike spot featuring Londoners as the heros of the story, but more so it showed off what great and elaborate production design can create. So like most production professionals we love a great piece of production design, and this new one from Asics for their #IMoveMe campaign, is so simple it’ll have you scratching you head as to how they made it.
Cool people, the back streets of Tokyo, and a great message designed to inspire all of us to get out there!
A few busy weeks!
It’s been a little crazy here of late, but it’s been a grand time telling some great stories, and connecting with new clients and creating projects for them that engage in a great way!
DuluxGroup recently approached us to film a project for them that actually had a little personal bearing. For 6 years they have undertaken the the Surf Club Project, a program where they are providing new paint and protection for Surf Life Saving Clubs around Australia. The 200th club to receive this treatment was Lorne SLSC, a club where many of my friends and family have been involved in some shape or form.
It was great to be able to capture this transformation, with the Dronestar team capturing some amazing aerials, and to see the finishing touch, some brand new signage, take pride of place on the side of this building which plays such an important part in this seaside tourist hub.
I take great pride in working with a brand that wanted to tell the story of how important these clubs are for the communities that they work to protect every year, and the pride that Dulux take in helping Surf Clubs stay in shape for the years of future life saving they have ahead of them.
This project provides us with the chance to pay tribute to the the tireless volunteers who train hard to provide countless thousands of beach goers protection and safety every year, so that everyone can enjoy this great place we live in.
Click on the image to play the first in the series!
Dulux Weathershield – Protecting Surf Life Saving Clubs around Australia
Dulux has teamed up with Surf Life Saving Australia to protect clubs across Australia.
After 6 years, we're up to 200 Surf Life Saving Clubs protected with Dulux Weathershield.Posted by Dulux Australia on Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Nothing beats… great content and pride
We’re suckers for a great campaign, and this is the season when some classics are rolled out in the US during the much sought after super bowl spots.
But the other day this one popped up on the radar, and we instantly fell in love with it!
“Nothing beats a Londoner” a new short film from Nike that doubles as an ode to the city, its culture, and athletes. Not the superstars, but the everyday people that keep the global capital moving.
Yes, it does have a hand full of sporting superstars, but it’s the local kids of London who are the true stars, as they share the battles they go through just to compete in a city that can have the reputation of wearing you down.
The agency chose well, trying to give a well known American brand a distinctly local flavour, and to capture a “true London” feel they moved away from digital and shot the production on 16mm film “to really capture the texture of the city. In terms of the classic quick-cut, multi-sport film style, it’s a dynamic way to show sport looking incredible on screen. Besides, we had a lot of sports we wanted to feature because kids play everything here–even ice hockey.”
In their search for local athletes, the agency reached out to local sports clubs and schools, and went for real athletes over actors. “There’s a unique authenticity to the spot because the young athletes were cast for their sporting prowess above anything else,” say the creative directors. “And they’re all Londoners. The really exciting part was making them the stars of the show and seeing them one-up their heroes.”
We love the passion and the pride these Londoners show!
The chance to make a difference!
The streets of Melbourne came to life last weekend as thousands of runners hit the bitumen for Run Melbourne 2017.
This year I tackled the 10km run with my partner Josie and our great mate Penny, all challenging ourselves to tackle a distance a little longer than we usually run! Another challenge that many choose to take part in during Run Melbourne is the fund raising element. This was the first time I’ve done anything like this, so it gave me a lot of insight into how to run a little mini campaign journey in the build up to the big day.
I choose the wonderful charity Heartfelt, who’s amazing president Gavin Blue is someone I’ve worked with on many projects in his business as a professional photographer, and for the charity itself. Heartfelt is a volunteer organisation of professional photographers from all over Australia and New Zealand dedicated to giving the gift of photographic memories to families that have experienced stillbirths, premature births or have children with serious and terminal illnesses.
All these services are provided free of charge.
My ultimate aim was be to raise enough to donate one of their camera and printer kits to a hospital that is to far for a volunteer to make it to a session.
And we did it! With the help of all the wonderful donors, my target amount was reached and passed, so there will be some valuable money headed to Heartfelt!
ps I also got a new personal best time for the distance, so that counts as a double win doesn’t it? 😉
Great Brands – Cool Content
This year we’ve had great fun providing content creation for Melbourne-based Suzuki Motorcycles Australia. Often off the back of busy media launches, some of the unseen moments have a time to shine in a great range of highlight clips that Suzuki then leverage as Social Media content to their followers and customers.
This style of clip can help create a fun and playful angle to what can often been seen as a serious subject, that of the product launch. On this particular project we had nearly 70 journalists in 5 days go through many test rides and pieces to camera, and it was great to be able to show the less serious side to what was one of the biggest launches of it’s type to take place in Australia.
We’ve enjoyed proving that our production workflow, can lead to quick turn-around, engaging content that viewers love.
And as such, we’ve now gone on the create more of these clips on subsequent launches for Suzuki Motorcycles, across Australia and Japan.
Building a YouTube channel and creating a valuable marketing tool
The work place can throw up some unusual challenges, one of mine back in 2008 was to grow a youtube channel for one of the TV Shows I handle the post production for here in Melbourne.
From a small beginning way back then, MXTV recently hit 11,660,026 views and that’s backed up by a subscriber base of 29405, who get a load of regular content either from finished episodes to vlog posts that the team record while on the road!
What has been truly interesting to watch is our jump in audience engagement in the last 12 months. We have always had steady growth, but in the last year, we’ve had a 25% increase in “minutes watched” with a total of 21,070,000 total minutes watched up until today! Our greatest source of this increase has been Mobile Phones. These account for nearly 50% of our audience views. Viewers though, are using a range of devices to access our YouTube channel though, from Smart TVs right through to games consoles.
Another interest change has been the fact that we have viewers coming in via YouTube Red, their “commercial free” service, where you’ll get none of those pesky pre-roll or pop up ads. This has accounted for nearly 66,000+ minutes of viewing, and will increase as viewers take up the paid-for option.
And being an Australian based show, you’d think our largest audience base would be based here, but for viewing minutes the US has nearly 50% more than the Australian count, with over 6 million lifetime views!
It’s been great to watch this outlet grow, and now boom as people globally take up more mobile technology, with Cisco Systems predicting that in coming years, internet video will account for over 80% of internet traffic. With the boom in streaming services it’s little wonder why!
As always, if you have any video production questions, across social media, corporate, training and even broadcast television just drop us a line via our contact form
Meanwhile, this great info graphic from hubspot.com provides some great video marketing points to consider:
Video Marketing Statistics for 2017
An important project
Late last year, my good friend Finn Dorney asked me if I could help out with filming a recording session in Melbourne, at the renowned Sing Sing Studios in Cremorne.
I didn’t hesitate to say yes, it’s important as a small business owner to be able to do pro-bono work and help out charity and not-for-profit organisation, and this project had a story that needed to be told.
I’d met Nick Balcombe a hand full of times, and what always struck me was his interest in making his friends happy. Nick was a passionate Tasmanian living his dream. While he was a very successful web designer and a much valued employee of the water industry, his passion was his music and loved ones. Following his tragic death due to stroke, his vast network of friends and fans have been keen to do something that celebrates his life and achievements, and create a legacy that Nick would be proud of.
Part of that legacy was finishing the second album that Nick had started to record before his death. It was truly a special chance to be involved in capturing part of the album process. Everyone was determined to complete Nick’s vision, and you could see his influence on all of them as musicians and their need to honour his memory.
For more on the great work that the Nick Balcombe foundation do, make sure you go to: http://nickbalcombefoundation.com.au/
Creating the right video for your business
Video is rapidly becoming the communications avenue of choice. In fact Cisco are projecting that by 2019 80% of internet traffic will be video, which will make it an outlet that no business can ignore.
So why should you choose to produce a video for your business? Well the simple fact is, branded video content is almost as powerful a tool to acquire and interact with clients as your company’s website, and may even surpass it, with the rise of video integration across so many web platforms, from Instagram to Facebook and beyond, making it a much easier way to reach clients than potentially optimising your webpage’s SEO.
According to a survey conducted by research firm Demand Metric, nearly three-quarters of B2B participating marketers reported that video gave them better conversion rates than any other type of content. On Facebook, Socialbakers found that posting a video can give you, on average, 135 percent more organic reach than a photo.
And with the availability to specifically target your clients as they browse their favourite websites via your video conveniently popping up, this is something you certainly can’t do with your website. Here are 4 points you should consider:
Don’t Cut Corners
Quality is nonnegotiable. Your video is a direct reflection of your brand. Don’t try to skimp on production costs. According to a survey conducted by Accenture Interactive, many people still find video ads intrusive, and low-quality videos — with ads, or not — are pretty much unacceptable to consumers.
Never fear though, you can make a high-quality video that’s two to three minutes long, for less than $5,000. Still, try to be flexible with your video budget if you can. A number of factors, including costs associated with equipment, location, licensing and other elements of the production life cycle, could affect the amount you ultimately pay for the finished product.
Authenticity shines
Authenticity is attractive. In video advertising, genuine communication — not talent — is what gets people to pay attention.
Take for example Chevrolet’s #DayItForward campaign, which it launched as a video series on Leap Day to promote a positive brand image. The video was a hit, but not for the reasons you might imagine. Yes, it featured a number of actors and celebrities, but it also took them out of the spotlight and leaned on real storytelling rather than acting prowess.
If your video includes interviews with company founders or other members of the team, those need to be natural, sincere conversations. So, avoid writing a rigid script and rehearsing lines over and over. If you do, subjects could end up looking and sounding like robots on camera, or come off as phony. Instead, have the production team conduct a casual interview with you. When your personality naturally shines through, your audience will relate to you more.
Think inside the box
Don’t spend loads of time and money trying to be the next Dollar Shave Club. Viral videos can certainly lead to sales, but so can videos that achieve a much smaller reach.
The key is to think about your target audience and communicate in a way that they appreciate. “The Glam,” a standard, 30-second spot for L’Oréal Paris La Palette Nude, relied on a traditional story line and TV-grade production quality to introduce audiences to a cosmetic product. The spot resonated among older test audiences especially, who are more used to this type of ad.
Show it off
Once your video is finished, share it through a variety of channels. Including a video in an email can double or triple click-through rates, and creating space for it on your homepage can increase conversions significantly. Consider all potential avenues, even some “paid for” options like Facebook’s sponsorship options.
Social media platforms make it easier than ever to create an effective video ad campaign. Not sure you can do it? Consider this: In 2014, videos on Facebook were viewed 1 billion times a day. A little more than two years later, that number has grown to 8 billion — every day.
Given the ever-increasing importance of video in today’s business landscape, quality video ads are as essential as a website for effectively defining your brand’s values, purpose and product. Using these tips and tools, you’ll not only be able to reach your target audiences quickly and easily, but you could also attract customers you didn’t know you were looking for.
