Z3 Project 2022 Marketing and Promo Video

Part 3 of the video marketing campaign created for the December 2022 Z3 Project conference in Palo Alto, CA. The strategy, which we designed during the pre-production phase, hit three major milestones ramping up to the December event:
• a re-cap of the previous event
• a save-the-date reminder for the upcoming conference
• a call-to-action for ticket sales

What's the takeaway? Your marketing and sales strategy should be integrated into your video production from the onset. Don't wait until you have the content to begin thinking about how your business will use it. Of course, stay flexible, be willing to adapt to changing market demands and customer needs, and remember that the magic happens in the editing room where anything becomes possible.

Secondary Animation

Secondary animation is an essential principle in motion graphics and animation. Secondary animation has many vital roles:

• support the primary animation

• add more depth to the scene

• emphasize key visuals, concepts, themes, movement, sounds, etc.

• bring more life to the scene, or “make it pop.”

In this shot (narration has been removed), note the leaves coming out of the smokestacks ¬– a subtle visual cue that reinforces the narrative of the video – and the wind turbines spinning. These secondary animations make the scene more exciting and help support the video’s core message.

The Story Behind Apple's "Think Different" Campaign

What does your company stand for in this world? How do you want your customers to feel about your product, brand, or service? What story do you have to tell and how are you telling it?

In this short clip, Steve Jobs discusses Apple's “Think Different” campaign and presents some important questions every company needs to ponder.

Pricing Strategies for Creatives

One pricing structure does not fit all.

Creatives need to determine the best pricing strategy that balances both their own and their client's needs.

This pricing strategy should be based on numerous factors including (but not limited to) the scope of work, long-term customer value, cash flow, experience, and the level of trust between creative and client.

To begin, three pricing models to consider: hourly, fixed, and retainer. Match the right option with the right client and then all creatives have to do is create!

Review the slides below for some tips, insights, and things to think about.

Working with Instagram's New Algorithm

There are many very long articles out there right now about Instagram’s new algorithm and how to best leverage it. But no one likes to read long articles, so I’ve bullet pointed the key concepts:

• Post carousels. Carousels can increase your engagement and reach. If you increase engagement, IG will push your stuff more. Why? So they can sell more ads.

• Be consistent. I advise my clients to create a posting schedule that they can maintain for the rest of their lives, whether that’s one day/week or every day with multiple posts. It doesn’t matter. Just be consistent. And use a scheduler to automate your posts, so you don’t have to think about it. 

• Use Reels. IG is ripping off TikTok and wants to compete. 

• Use Stories

• Use hashtags thoughtfully to connect with the right people and groups. 

• Post when your audience is active and online.

• Engage and connect with your audience. Yes, that means you need to respond to comments. Really.

• Follow the data. Review your stats and make adjustments. Test different types of content and see what works (and what doesn’t). Double down on the good stuff.

• Use video. People love it. It doesn’t have to be pro. Use it strategically and thoughtfully, and you might go viral (but probably not).

• Post content your audience will enjoy or find valuable. Posting valuable content will boost engagement, inspire sharing, and generally make people like you more. As you plan your content, create a strategic ecosystem of ideas – branch out and find linkages.

If you have questions or need help developing a social media strategy, please contact me - I’d love to help! 

Customers Prefer Video

Is your firm meeting its customers' engagement preferences and optimizing value? According to a HubSpot content trends survey, customers prefer to see videos from the brands they support over other media types being used for outreach.

Things to Think About BEFORE Creating a Video

Here is an extensive list of questions to ask and things to consider BEFORE creating a video. Of course, if you have questions or want to talk through any of the items on the list, I'm always here to help. You can read and download the list using the link below.

Website Promo for Stillwater Associates

Chasnoff Media created a full-length 2:30 video, in addition to a series of shorts for social media, for the launch of Stillwater Associates’ new West Coast Watch website. The purpose was to guide viewers through the website and communicate its value, points of differentiation, and the extensive amount of information available through the site. Excited to share it here.

Behind the Brand with Stages Cycling CEO Jim Liggett

What an awesome collaboration with Stages Indoor Cycling on their Behind the Brand series. The series examines the nuances of the company’s strategy, vision, superior product lineup, and more exciting things to come. This video snippet is from our interview with CEO Jim Liggett. Had such a great time working on this project!

Stay Curious, My Friend

When designing or executing your digital strategy, it helps to be curious: study what other brands and businesses are doing; follow your competitors; utilize tools like Facebook's free Ad Library to learn and gain inspiration; learn about and implement best practices for your industry and marketing channels.

Deception is Not a Good Marketing Strategy

I received this in the mail the other day – a solicitation ad designed to look like a check or other important financial information.

If your firm's marketing strategy requires deceiving customers so they'll open your content, you should probably consider how you can provide more value to your target markets – that way, you won't have to trick them into engaging with your message. This applies to all media – digital and snail-mail alike.

What the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Can Teach Us About Strategy, Business, and Decision Making

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) on September 18th, 2020, marked the end of a progressive legal legacy that shaped both federal and state legislation. Her death shined a light on her tenacity and steadfast commitment to justice for all. When examining her life and work, it is clear that RBG had a big picture, long-term strategy to accomplish her goals – guaranteeing equal protection under the law for women – even before she was on the Supreme Court bench. RBG’s approach to strategy, relationships, and decision-making is a case study for business leaders on how they can grow their organizations, optimize productivity, and thrive even in the face of adversity.

Strategic Thinking

From the onset of her career, RBG had a plan. Her big picture goal was to ensure that the constitutional clause “equal protection of the law” applied to women. The first part of her strategy that she employed to accomplish this goal was to take and argue cases that would, case-by-case, step-by-step, eliminate statutes that discriminated on the basis of gender (for both men and women). The second part of this strategy was to clarify, case after case, how women were treated since the nation’s inception, being branded, in her own words as “branded inferior.” In this way, RBG created a legal landscape that pointed towards systemic gender-based inequalities and formulated a precedent that the courts could look to in the future as these types of cases continued to be litigated. Kathleen Peratis of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project noted that RBG’s “conception of the strategy led to a whole string of litigations for the next decade.”  

What is the take-away here, and how can you emulate RBG’s strategy to bolster your business? Here are some simple steps:

• Before you put pen to paper or begin delegating executive orders, stop and think: What is the big picture goal? What does “winning” look like? What does success mean in a measurable way that connects to your firm’s core values and mission?

• What is your firm’s vision and mission? What are your business’s core values and principles? How do you effectively communicate these things to the public?

• Your company’s winning aspiration should highlight how you deliver value and where/to whom.  

Once you have your big picture goal, reverse-engineer the process.

• Getting from here to there. What steps, in order, need to be taken? Who will be responsible for each step?

• Capabilities inventory. What capabilities need to be in place? What assets will you need to accomplish your big picture goal? More cash? More employees? Technological upgrades? External partnerships or alliances? Are the appropriate management systems in place?

• Finding and filling the gaps. A strong strategy promotes integrated linkages between a firm’s business units and operations. Define the links in your organizational chain to create the best structure to achieve your goals. Are there gaps in your business? How can they be filled? What are your key roadblocks/obstacles? Are there gaps in the marketplace that you can fill with your new strategy?

In the words of RBG, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” Pursuing large-scale strategic initiatives takes time, patience, consistency, and leadership.

Decision-Making   

Effective strategy and effective leadership are not just about deciding what to do – it’s about deciding what not to do. RBG’s process for achieving her larger goal was driven by strategic decision-making – taking on only the cases that would propel her agenda forward. So often, businesses pursue a strategy of “more is better” when, in fact, such a methodology only pulls the organization away from its goals and makes it harder to create an optimal fit between its operations and delivering value to its customers. 

Considerations for strategic decision-making:

• Does the proposed strategy move the firm closer to its goal, further away, or create stagnation?

• Does your firm have both the capability and desire to execute the necessary strategic steps to accomplish its big picture goal?

• Are decisions being made in a vacuum, or are more inputs needed for optimal execution? Is there buy-in among key stakeholders? If other departments or business units are required, have they been allowed to be part of the discussion?

• Only select the right tools and mechanisms that will help you accomplish your goals. At each decision point, ask yourself, “Does making this decision get me closer to my goal? Who will benefit from this decision, and who will be hurt by this decision (both internally and externally)? Is the cost of making this decision commensurate with the value it will create? Can I afford not to make this decision?

Dissent and Confrontation – Leveraging Obstacles and Failures

“Of course, I prefer to be in the majority, but, if necessary, I will write separately in dissent,” said RBG in a televised interview. As the Supreme Court shifted to the right with the additions of Justices Alito and Stevens, RBG found herself, more often, in the dissenting minority. However, she did not conceive of being in this position as a failure. On the contrary, she leveraged her power of dissent as a tool to continue moving her strategic goal forward. This is clearly seen in her response to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. employment discrimination decision of the Supreme Court in 2007. In a rare move, RBG read her dissent from the bench, arguing against applying the 180-day limit to pay discrimination because discrimination often occurs in small increments over large periods of time (Ledbetter, Ginsburg, J., dissenting). 

And what did taking the time to voice her dissent accomplish? In 2007, Democratic members of Congress introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Barak Obama eventually signed into law in 2009.

When faced with rejection or perceived failure, look for other ways to accomplish your goals. For RBG, that was using the power of dissent. For you, it may be

• Pitching your idea to new ears.

• Taking a fresh approach to building excitement and consensus around your project.

• Looking at different departments that might be a better fit for what you’re proposing.

• Re-purposing or re-packaging your product or service to better meet the needs of your target market.

No one enjoys failure. In our culture, in general, success is celebrated, and failure is deemed intolerable. However, failure can be a powerful learning tool for recognizing how to move forward successfully. From the notion of “failing forward,” we can learn to derive meaning from our failures and adversity and give them meaning and insight. RBG was not defined by her inability to win every case while on the bench; she was defined by how she navigated and responded to her position at any given time. She was no less confident and no less competent by being in the dissenting minority. Rather, she used being in that position as a chance to communicate why she found herself in that position – turning a seeming failure into an opportunity.

Relationships

“When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade,” Ginsburg said in a NYT Sunday Review article on October 2, 2016. RBG was known for her collegiality and the unlikely relationships she maintained across party lines. She and conservative judge, Antonin Scalia, considered themselves good friends. Though they did not often agree on legal matters, their collegiality enabled the court to function. “Despite our strong disagreements on cardinal issues – think, for example, of controls on political campaign spending, affirmative action, access to abortion – we genuinely respect one another, even enjoy one another’s company. Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn’t – to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia’s favorite expressions – “get over it!” (“Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Advice for Living” New York Times, September 20, 2020.)   

You will not always agree with your colleagues. In these increasingly polarized times, it is becoming more difficult to have productive conversations with individuals we deem on the “other side.” However, I think we can all agree that such polarization and tribalism isn’t actually productive – it gets us no closer to our goals.

RBG left behind both a remarkable legal legacy and a roadmap for how we can be more strategic and thoughtful in both our business and personal lives. By keeping the big picture in mind, we can anchor ourselves to the strategies and important decisions to accomplish our goals. 

The Case for Using Subtitles or Captions on Your Online Videos and Best Practices

If you are posting video content online, you should highly consider including subtitles or captions (two different things) for your audience. Failure to do so could result in fines or lawsuits against your company. Before we get into the 'why' and the benefits of adding subtitles or captions to your video content, let's first examine the difference between the two. The following descriptions were borrowed from www.rev.com.

Subtitles

Subtitles are a translated version of a video's transcription, meant to give the viewer a real-time experience of what is happening on screen. These subtitles usually appear as text on the bottom of the screen. Typically subtitles are intended for use by viewers who do not speak the language used in the video, but who can still hear other sounds, like music, and can tell which person is speaking.

Subtitles for the Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (SDH), however, also include important non-dialogue information, such as speaker identification or sound effects. If a viewer cannot hear the video, the additional information in these subtitles can aid comprehension.

Captions

Captions are designed to increase video accessibility for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Captions are a transcription, usually word-for-word, of the video's spoken dialogue, and may not exactly match the pacing of the dialogue or action. They may also include background noises, speaker differentiation, and other important audio information that helps a person understand the video without sound.

Captions usually appear as white text on a black bar, normally at the bottom of the screen. Videos may have open captions, which are permanently embedded into the video, but it is more common to have closed captions, which can be turned on and off.

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So, why should your company include subtitles or captions and what is the value add for both your business and your viewers?

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The Data

According to a new report from Verizon Media and ad buyer Publicis Media

• 92% view videos with the sound off on mobile and 83% watch with sound off.

• 80% of consumers are more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available.

• 50% of consumers said captions are important because they watch videos with the sound off. The reasons people said they watch videos without sound include they were in a quiet space, they didn't have headphones, they were waiting in line or they were multitasking.

• When captions are available, 37% of viewers said they are encouraged to turn the sound on because the videos seem more interesting.

• 29% said that even with the sound off, they were better able to understand the video because of the captioning.

• The report found that adding captions helped ad performance, contributing to an 8% lift in ad recall, a 10% lift in ad memory quality, and a 13% lift in the brand linkage.

  Read the report at: http://bit.ly/subtitle-for-video-data-report

Inclusivity

Adding subtitles or captions to your videos makes them more accessible to more people, including deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers. Adding subtitles or captions not only provides value for those watching your content, but it also reflects well on your firm's values, brand identity, and inclusivity efforts. And, if being an upstanding company wasn't enough, there are legal considerations.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Caption Requirements

If you are producing or distributing video content in the US, your content may be subject to federal regulations concerning video accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The ADA and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have passed rules and guidelines regarding captions for videos. These include the ADA Title II and Title III, Rehabilitation Act Section 504 and Section 508, 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

FCC standards for television have set the precedent for online content. These standards include:

• Accuracy: captions must relay the speaker's exact words with correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar with 99% accuracy. No paraphrasing. Honor the original tone and intent of the speaker.

• Time Synchronization: captions must align with the time the words are spoken. Captions must not proceed too quickly for the viewer to read.

• Program Completeness: captions must be included from start to finish.

• Placement: captions must be positioned on the screen without blocking the important content. The font size should be reasonably legible.

  Learn more here: https://www.3playmedia.com/2018/12/12/us-laws-video-accessibility/)

best practices for ADA compliant captions:

• One to three lines of text appear on screen all at once, stay there for three to seven seconds, and are then replaced by another caption.

• Timed to synchronize with the audio.

• Do not cover up graphics and other essential visual elements of the picture.

• Require the use of upper and lowercase letters.

• Use a font similar to Helvetica medium.

• Have good resolution.

• Include not more than 32-characters-per-line.

• To check for compliancy, select the Captions options drop down > Show non-compliant duration. This option highlights any captions in red whose duration is not between three and seven seconds.

• Captions should be synchronized and appear at approximately the same time as the audio.

• Words should be verbatim when time allows or as close as possible in other situations.

• Captions should be accessible and readily available to those who need or want them.

• Add music or other descriptions inside square brackets such as [music] or [laughter].

• Captions should appear on screen long enough to be read.

• It is preferable to limit on screen captions to no more than three lines.

• Speakers should be identified when more than one person is onscreen or when the speaker is not visible.

• Punctuation is used to clarify meaning.

• Spelling is correct throughout the production.

• Write out sound effects when they add to understanding.

• All words are captioned, regardless of language or dialect.

• Use of slang and accent is preserved and identified.

• Use italics when a new word is being defined or a word is heavily emphasized in speech.

  Resource: https://www.elo.iastate.edu/resources/best-practices/design-best-practices/create-ada-compliant-video-captions/)

Chasnoff Media provides full subtitling and captioning services. Contact us to make your videos more accessible and to increase engagement.

Communicating Pandemic Safe Practices to Your Customers

If you are a customer-facing business during these uncertain times of the pandemic, you must be communicating to your customers and clients what you are doing to keep them safe and how you are doing it. Here is a COVID-19 safety Safe Practices video I produced for McKenzie Dental. In 2-minutes, we cover their entire process, from welcoming patients at the door to social distancing during dental procedures. More than merely describing the process, we convey it visually with beautiful imagery and editing.

A Message of Thanks

Thank you. Two simple words that connect people and communities, strengthen relationships, and build trust. Here is a video we produced for Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago as part of their 'Message of Thanks' campaign, to convey their gratitude to their donors and community for stepping-up and answering the call when the school needed them most. 

'What is Strategy?' Part 1: Operational Effectiveness

I've always been fascinated by Michael Porter's 1996 classic Harvard Business Review article 'What is Strategy?' However, it's in need of a refresh given todays fast-paced tech innovation and shift to the digital economy. So, I've decided to break down the article into digestible parts, adapt them to the digital age, and hopefully provide readers with some strategic insights and guidance. Part 1 of my adaptation focuses on operational effectiveness and creating a sustainable strategic advantage. Here you go…

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What is Strategy? Part 1: Operational Effectiveness

Operational effectiveness is not strategy.

What does this mean? It means although you do something well, this doesn’t signify it’s strategically impactful for your business. You can offer a high-quality product or service, reduce inefficiencies in your business, and be more productive, but those things won’t necessarily translate into driving more revenue or providing you with a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. Businesses need both operational efficiency and strategy to create advantage and “superior performance.” As Michael Porter, founder of the modern strategy field and one of the world’s most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness, notes,

“A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at lower cost, or do both. Operational effectiveness means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them…In contrast, strategic positioning means performing different activities from rivals’ or performing similar activities in different ways.”

For example, you could have a library of high-quality, high-level video content for your social media channels that you post every week at the same time and to the same audience; however without an overarching vision of what you’re trying to accomplish or what you’re measuring to determine success, these posts are not necessarily going to help you to strategically grow your business. Simply managing your social media channels is not enough. You must set clear KPI’s, track the data, and adapt accordingly. Your competitors are also probably posting high-quality content to their digital channels, so, what makes your content unique? What additional value can your content provide to audiences? Where are the gaps? How can you leverage your content to build trust, dialogue, brand identity, and engagement?

Adapting to feedback and data and constantly improving your business’s operational effectiveness is imperative to stay ahead of your rivals and generate profitability. However, these tasks get harder everyday as technology allows for all companies to have easy, fast, and cheap access to data tracking and reporting. No longer do large companies have exclusive access to data analytics. This means that competition will get stiffer and response times will need to be faster – raising the overall bar for operational effectiveness. “The more benchmarking companies do, the more they look alike. The more that rivals outsource activities to efficient third parties, often the same ones, the more generic those activities become,” writes Porter in his original What is Strategy? article. In effect, best practices in operational effectiveness can be easily copied and adapted to any business, and as technology accelerates, the barriers that stand in the way of achieving these capabilities are stripped away.

Strategy is all about finding and leveraging your business’s unique points of differentiation and then, clearly and concisely, communicating those points of differentiation to your customers. Strategy is about providing unique value. Strategy is about setting priorities. Strategy is about creating “fit” among your company’s activities that are difficult for competitors to replicate and that reinforce your internal activities – more on these later.

Social media provides both big and small businesses the ability to reach vast numbers of people at an extremely low cost. It’s why Facebook, despite all of the current backlash its receiving, will never go away. (This is a discussion for another time.) However, simply throwing content against the great social media wall to see what sticks is both operationally and strategically reckless. Businesses must create a detailed digital plan that envelopes its short and long-term goals, messaging, KPI’s, and synergies that will flesh out its digital eco-system.

So, the questions you need to answer right now are, What can I do better? and What can I do differently than my rivals?