Evian Roller Babies

Here's a video ad that went viral quickly. Interestingly, Evian displays a gentle product slide at the start and then the end of the video, leaving the viewer with just a slight reminder that the entertainment is associated with a product ad. The downside of this relatively effective technique of course, is that companies need to invest heavily to develop entertaining content like this, for the consumer market. 



How can your company create entertaining video content for the consumer market, while still getting your product in there?

IdeaPaint - Now Any Surface is a Whiteboard

We at Brave Boat Studios Love this - From CNN Money.com:


(CNNMoney.com) -- In 2002, a group of Babson College entrepreneurship students ran out of room on their whiteboard. They had spent hours brainstorming new business possibilities, and the sudden space crunch threatened to cramp their creativity.



Instead, it sparked a new idea: Why not make paint that turned walls into giant whiteboards? The ideas kept popping: you could paint chairs, doors, tabletops, playrooms, entire corporate offices. Any surface could be a canvas for inspiration. The company would be called IdeaPaint.

Personal Mobility Device by Honda

Even though the videography isn't the greatest, we sooooooooooooo want one of these!!! Yay Honda! What would you pay for one of these personal mobility devices?

London Video Captures Spirit of Local Culture

Here's a video that's clearly the best tool for capturing the unique local culture of Cockney Rhyming Slang. Text and images couldn't have conveyed the essence of the language so well.

How to Market a Hoover Creatively over YouTube

We're back, having been away for the first 2 months of 2009. We were busy opening a new line of business (making everyone at Brave Boat Studios certifiably crazy, I suppose.)

Here's an innovative video ad from China, with a surprise twist at the end. Somehow it isn't quite what you'd expect, which is probably why it was so popular on YouTube:

Yellow Cabs Rebranded? Marketing Expert Martin Lindstrom Comments

Worldwide branding changes are highlighted by well-known marketing expert Martin Lindstrom. 3 key lessons - watch:


Minimal changes can still drive major publicity buzz. What are some other examples of modest branding changes that drove significant PR buzz?

Skoda Fabia Ad: Sweet!

Skoda's ad is delectable and one we can all relate to, don't you think?

Market Research via In-the-Street-Video

Here's one entrepreneur who takes his market research right to the customer, on the street, on video. Watch his technique and think about the amount of valuable market research he captures:



We think this sponteneous form of video makes a great web marketing tool - it's like a video testimonial to the uniquely desirable attributes of the product. Does your firm do this? Why or why not? Is it harder or somewhat different, if your product is a service?

Mike's Hard Lemonade: Personification Makes Great Ad

Are you thinking there's not much one could do to create mystery around a lemonade product? Think again. Mike's Hard Lemonade has done just that:



Lemons with personality!
How can you personify your product or its ingredients, to differentiate it from competitors? Tell us about it (no more lurking - WRITE or at least DRAW.)

Even funnier actually, is the initial page of Mike's site (see it here) where you can create a Tragic Accident Report which you can use to get out of work for the day. (The Crew at Brave Boat Studios has been tinkering with Tragic Accident Reports since about 6 this morning. The Cap'n is on to them, though. )

The Klondike Contest - This Guy Won $100,000!

Check this out: Klondike sponsored a contest in which the best Klondike video wins $100,000 as a grand prize. Here's Joel Levinson, who won. He literally took himself on a POLAR TREK, ending at the Arctic Circle:



Would a contest like this promote your firm's product well? We're trying to see if it'd work for us, (although the prize would likely be more like a hefty $2.00. )

Question to our (still silent, ever-lurking) minions of viewers: Why do you think these contests have such widespread public appeal? There were multiple top contenders for this contest prize and the traffic to their videos is astounding. Klondike got some great press out of this one. Why do people watch or participate in video contests like this?

Bitter Beer Reinforces its Brand with an Unusual Rendering of its Theme Song

Here's a great video ad from Australia. They've got the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing the theme song for Bitter Beer, on beer bottles, no less! Ingenious and very well done:




Creating video ads to run on the web is an interesting marketing exercise, as long as you're thinking outside the box. In fact, we suggest you try giving the assignment to the IT folk, or some group that isn't generally charged with responsibility for marketing at all. Sometimes those are the people with the best ideas. What's your product or service, and what might you do to get creative, inexpensively?

Schweppes Beautiful Video Ad

Here's an example of a video ad that applied imagination and beautiful presentation to get its message across. This is a 2008 Ad which used slow motion cameras capturing at 10k frames/second:




Let's hear it, what do you think of this? Could you imagine your product presented similarly?

Our GURU - Seth, on Social Networking & Small Business

Don't you just love this guy? Carol reads/watches/lurks incessantly... The Crew's getting sick of watching her hunt down every book he ever wrote, etc.

Here Seth tells us what's worth it and what isn't, about social networking for small business:



We at Brave Boat Studios have a really good habit of actively participating in the forums and blogs that are relevant to our business, but we won't "friend" you just because you need another link in your profile. Wouldn't you think by now, social networking in an effective fashion would be more well-understood than it is today? We often encounter clients who don't know what social networking is, and who are literally afraid of it. What's been your experience? (C'mon, quit lurking. Speak up... we won't shove you overboard !)

Carol

Passion (and viral marketing) Can Drive Your Business Forward

Here's an interesting case:
Tom's passion is providing shoes for children who cannot afford any. He has very little money and zero marketing budget. Watch how he successfully uses his passion to drive word-of-mouth and word-of-mouse, to propell his mission/company forward:



Tell us how you get creative about driving word-of-mouth& mouse. Does your passion drive any part of your business and how do you incorporate that?

Our sizeable, growing viewer audience is extremely quiet, but we know most are businesses not entirely accustomed to the VLOG format. It's ok to LURK awhile longer, but we'd like to start hearing from our viewers. We don't expect you to load up video here, just text your thoughts. Perhaps you have links to other, related video content; just insert the links and the entire audience will likely check out the content.

So, comment-away!

Carol & Crew
Brave Boat Studios, York Harbor, ME

Video Marketing - the Vlog for Commercial & Industrial Internet Marketers

We're Commercial Video Marketers aboard this Ship, dryrot and all. The Crew has been rummaging around below decks again, looking for the best visual marketing information we've collected during our 9 years at sea.

Visit our motley Crew at this vlog often, and get the information you need to turn your shipwrecked, dead commercial web presence into a visual marketing powerhouse.

Bail out of old marketing ways. (You know what we mean:)

• the PDF downloadable documents
• the piles of outdated paper catalogs sitting in the office corner
• that web site full of static old still images and pages of text.

Bail out or Shipweck!

So Go Ahead. Rock the Boat. Read about something entirely new: Video Web for Commercial Enterprise. Our vlog will be one of your favorites, we just know.

If you don't subscribe after a few reads, you walk the plank. No kidding.

The Cap'n runs a tight ship.