When you consider all the elements that make up a professional video production—arguably—sound is often the most important. As video pros, this makes quality audio production something we take very seriously at SPI Productions.

From a video production studio to locations …

Often audio production happens at a recording studio, with professional voice talent and sensitive microphones in a soundproof booth and a recording engineer behind a large computer screen. In these cases, gorgeous audio is expected. But sometimes (most times for Facebook, Twitter and other social media in fact) sound is gathered on-site during a shoot, under challenging conditions and time constraints. In these situations, the skill of the production crew can mean the difference between a professional end product or an amateurish result that will waste money and undermine your credibility!

Audio professionals dedicate time before a location shoot to ensure a top-quality production. This usually entails:

• Scout it out—Visit the location ahead of time. What are the acoustics? How much ambient noise is present? (Even things like air conditioning and or distant traffic can be picked up and cause problems.)
• Anticipate everything—A microphone on a boom vs. a clip-on lavalier mic? Where will the actors be in relation to the mic? Block out the production to determine, in advance, what equipment will work best.
• Invest in pros—This should go without saying, but just in case it doesn’t … when it comes to sound, you get what you pay for. You pay a professional to write, produce and direct a video, why would you want to take a chance on diminishing the overall integrity of your project due to poor sound quality?
• Be prepared!—Come with a plan of what equipment to use and other things to keep in mind (i.e., when to close a vent, unplug a fridge or put down a rug to prevent noisy footsteps) for each shot based on the storyboard. Shoots are expensive, be like the Scouts and Be Prepared!

Music to your ears

When it comes to using music in your production, you can commission an original score or use existing music that you’ve legally obtained the right to use. No matter how much you want to do it, you can’t use music without proper permission. That means—unless your budget is huuuuge or there are extenuating circumstances (some recognizable older music is in the public domain)—you probably can’t use popular music. It’s stealing and no reputable agency or studio will help you do it.

The good news is that sound professionals usually subscribe to libraries (see Music Vine or Musicbed for examples) of licensed music available for very reasonable fees. As an example, music for a regional radio spots can often cost less than $100. And licensed music libraries usually have options that sound very close and evoke the same feelings as the popular music you are tempted to use.

Finally, if you have a large enough budget, hiring a composer to score your project is a significant way to enhance the overall quality and add a unique touch to your production.

From voiceovers to sound effects to the music you choose, when it comes to videos … what your audience hears is as important as what they see.

The system that makes this possible starts with tracking the behavior of someone on a particular web page. Where they came from last … how they got there … what keywords they used to search … and other online behaviors and actions. This info is the heart of behavioral targeting and it gives you the power to precisely and effectively target your digital campaigns. Some of the most commonly tracked online behaviors and actions include:

• Websites and specific pages visited
• Time spent on a site
• Frequently and consistency of site visits
• Visits to sites with similar topics
• Exhibiting niche interests within a topic
• Search style (keywords, name brands or general categories)
• Likelihood to purchase (“cart filler” or actual buyer)
• Previous similar purchases
• Device used

Let’s take a look at online luxury watch shopping for example. Using sophisticated software, algorithms and real-time behavioral data, it’s relatively easy to learn a particular shopper’s desired price point, brand preference, browsing history and what watches others who behave similarly have actually purchased. With this type and level of information, you have the data needed to construct a buyer persona, or the ideal target for your luxury watch.

From this persona, you can determine what ad format will be most successful with your audience, refine your message, develop an individual invitation, offer or discount and more … In general, with a persona based on behavioral data there are numerous ways to customize your campaign and personalize your appeal, prompt action and convert a target to a customer.

Behavioral targeting, as well as other tactics such as retargeting, geofencing or competitive conquest, are just some of the many ways we use advanced media buying techniques to get your message in front of the targets who are most receptive to it.

If you’d like to learn more, don’t hesitate to contact the experienced programmatic media folks here at SPI Collective.

Expanded DOOH Creative Capabilities …
No longer “set it and forget it” for a month or more like conventional outdoor, DOOH screens are flexible and feature dynamic graphics, animationand messages that can change based on parameters such as time of day, weather conditions, traffic flow—even sports results or current events.

And soon dynamic creative will be the norm—creative customized and optimized based on the demographics of the audience likely to be driving by at a specific time.

Young Millennials will see an ad for an entry-level vehicle while high-income GenX moms could be served a luxury model. Now pair this demographic info with something like current weather conditions and the creative options are astounding. When it’s snowing, that Millennial audience might see a SUV loaded with snowboards while the GenX mom will get a message touting the safety of a new all-wheel-drive vehicle.

DOOH Media Matters …
How DOOH is planned and bought is changing as well. There are more than 7,000 digital billboards, and over 1.25 million digital, place-based screens. The Advertising Association/Warc Expenditure Report says that DOOH accounted for a 40% share of total OOH spending in 2017 and by 2020 DOOH will account for half.

As mentioned above, new tools are becoming available that combine geolocation and behavioral data—provided by mobile phones—to create a new model for consumer behavior in the physical world. Rather than buying a board for a 30-day period, programmatic media plans will be created based on the probability of a specific audience segment being in a certain area at a particular time, and purchases will be based on impressions.

DOOH can be updated to respond quickly, allowing marketers to build responsive, real-time plans that change the placement of ads—in addition to the creative—as market conditions change. The only limits on targeted DOOH plans will be budget and the finite number of physical displays.

Clearly this traditional channel is experiencing a renaissance and offering exciting new opportunities for marketers. Feel free to contact SPI for help navigating this big new outdoor world.

• Motion Graphics Animation in its simplest form … A highbred of graphic design and animation, motions graphics is just what it says—graphics and type that moves in order make it (slightly) more exciting, communicate a concept or help tell a story. Think of the movement you might expect in a darn good Power Point, an internal training or corporate video or even digital out of home signs where the animation runs in a loop.
• 2D Animation Historically used for children’s cartoons, 2D animation can be silly and fun or serious and packed with valuable information. It catches attention and allows you to create grrrrrreat spokes characters (Hello, Tony the Tiger), explain a complicated subject like Schoolhouse Rock or give your logo a life of its own. Depending on your brand personality, 2D animation could be an ideal fit for your marketing videos.
• 3D Animation 3D animation can run the gamut from the latest Pixar release to a realistic fly-through of the off ramps, roundabouts and bridges in a new complex urban interchange design. There’s no limit to what can be done with 3D animation, but it’s resource intensive and might be overkill for many video marketing projects and budgets. That said, if you’re looking to position your brand as a cutting-edge thought leader, 3D animation might be worth your investment.

Ready to Animate your next digital media production? SPI partners with some of the top animators in the region to enhance the videos we write, produce and direct. We’re ready to talk about how animation could bring your amazing ideas, concepts and products to the screen!

Consider these five tips to effectively use geofencing for your digital campaign:

1. Limit your geofence. A small suburban plumbing company should not geofence a large metro area. They may get more calls than they can handle or calls from people outside their service area. Instead, they should stick to geofencing the suburb(s) where they prefer to work. Or a car dealership could run a geofenced campaign that targets people only when they visit a competitive dealership across town.

2. Make your message relevant. Based on the time of day, day of the week, time of year or geographic location, your message needs to make sense. If your restaurant doesn’t serve breakfast, don’t geofence around your location early in the morning advertising your surf-n-turf special. And don’t hit people lounging at the beach with ads for your dry-cleaning services.

3. Include a clear and compelling call to action. It’s one thing to notify people about your location, but it’s even better to offer them an incentive to visit your business. Provide discounts or offers to bring people to you and make your offer attractive enough so people actually act on it.

4. Measure campaign results. Look at results in real time to determine if it’s a successful campaign or if some tweaks are needed. Perhaps the creative message isn’t right or the area you’re geofencing needs adjustment. At the least, analyze the results afterward to help determine future campaign strategies.

5. Extend the value of your geofenced campaign with retargeting. An exhibitor at a trade show can run a geofenced campaign that targets show attendees and drives them to the exhibitor’s booth. Then, the exhibitor can retarget those attendees, serving them a refined follow-up digital ad—the next day or week or month—while they are online at their home or office.

Geofencing isn’t appropriate for all companies, but it is a useful strategy to have in a quiver of programmatic digitalcapabilities.

A subset of the broader “explainer video” category, whiteboard videos came rolling into our collective marketing conscious with an innovative UPS TV campaign in 2007, followed by the viral video that introduced the world to Dropbox. Simultaneously, YouTube was making a big splash as the world’s first free video marketing resource available to small business.

YouTube made video marketing a viable option for companies and organizations without big budgets for production or media buys. And it wasn’t just for-profit companies making use of this trend. Historically, The RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and TED Talks have been two of the most successful non-profit YouTube channels known for the innovative use of whiteboard videos.

Clearly, this need to explain things simply came together with the broad reach and affordability of YouTube to create an ideal climate for an explosion of whiteboard videos. Soon the whiteboard could be seen everywhere on YouTube, websites, TV, Facebook, Twitter in corporate training rooms and at schools. Now, more than a decade later, it continues to be one of the most popular, effective and likeable video marketing formats.

The whiteboard format works well for many communication and marketing initiatives. There are countless things to think about when attempting to create the perfect whiteboard, but if you believe your organization would benefit from one—and wonder how to get started—this short list is key to producing a killer end-product:

• Content—Think of your content is terms of telling a fun, interesting story as well as educating. Make sure you have something compelling to say so your audience will feel it’s worth their time to watch. Please don’t use the format to just list features of your product or give a sales pitch.
• Graphics—The best whiteboard videos tell a story in a way that allows the accompanying graphics to flow and work together. This is more interesting and holds attention better than stand-alone elements. The illustration style should be clear, likeable and interesting. Ideally the graphics should make the audience smile!
• Script/Voiceover—Once you’re sure the script holds all the information you need to communicate, read it out loud to ensure it is conversational and has enough personality to match the graphics. Go ahead and include humor, puns and quirky words as long as the jokes are respectful of your subject matter. Finally, and this is vitally important, make certain your voiceover talent is a professional who is also a good match for your content.

One last caveat … because a whiteboard video is so simple, production quality is essential. There is nothing to distract a viewer from bad quality and it will reflect poorly on your organization and brand!

Understanding programmatic media buying starts with knowing the terminology. Here are some key terms defined, according to Adjust:

• Real-Time Bidding (RTB): Also known as Open Auction, RTB is where inventory prices are decided through a real-time auction.
• Demand-Side Platform (DSP): Software that enables agencies and advertisers to buy ad inventory cross-platform.
• Sell-Side Platform (SSP): Software that allows publishers to sell display, mobile and video ad impressions to potential buyers automatically, in real time.

The faster-than-a-speeding-microchip programmatic process works like this:

1. A media buyer inputs a bid and targeting parameters into a DSP.
2. When an internet user, let’s call them Sam, lands on a web page, they trigger the programmatic process.
3. First, the web page publisher lists the ad placement in front of Sam as “for sale” on their SSP.
4. The SSP analyzes Sam’s cookies to determine location, demographic characteristics, habits, interests and more.
5. The SSP provides this info to the DSP and the DSP reviews it to see if Sam fits the targeting parameters and bid set by the media buyer.
6. If Sam is a good fit, the DSP bids for the ad placement.
7. Once the SSP receives bids from all interested DSPs, it determines a winner.
8. The SSP displays the winner’s ad on the web page, making an impression on Sam.

This all happens in the blink of an eye, while the web page is loading! Programmatic isn’t just the future of digital advertising, it’s the now. By 2021, eMarketer estimates almost 88%—or $81.00 billion—of all U.S. digital display ad dollars will transact programmatically.

Utilizing The Trade Desk—the world’s most advanced online advertising marketplace—SPI introduced programmatic buying to southeastern Virginia. As part of our refined process, SPI’s media team continually monitors plan performance and adjusts as needed to maximize the return on our client’s digital ad investments.

Interested in learning more? We’d be happy to discuss the benefits of programmatic buying with you at any time!

Training plays an obvious role in safety and productivity. But maybe less obviously, according to a poll by West UC’s Digital Media Services, it’s also a key factor in job satisfaction and employee retention:

• 41% of respondents said they would like more training in the next year
• Two out of three employees say training plays a significant role in their decision to stay with their current company/position.
• A third felt material in their (current) training was not interesting or engaging.

Clearly, there is opportunity here! A quality training video can provide multiple benefits in one convenient-to-use package. Employees can view training videos on their schedule, then go back and review information again if desired. Additionally, training videos provide the same experience every time they are viewed—nothing gets missed or miscommunicated. And, since many people describe themselves as “visual learners,” videos are a great way to appeal to this group.

Style and substance
Different types of information work best delivered through different styles of video:

• Live action works best for more straightforward information.
• Animated videos offer the opportunity to see inside a machine or process. Whiteboard videos are a popular animated choice.
• Demonstrations provide a great opportunity to show action and an end product
• Recorded screens are the ideal way to show how to do something online.
• Addressing the camera is best used with professional actors or when someone internally is both comfortable on camera and has a compelling message.

With a third of employees feeling their current training isn’t interesting or engaging, it’s important to make sure your training video offers both interesting information AND presents it in an engaging manner. Keep the following in mind:

• Attention-grabbing introduction
• Visually attractive
• Information is clear, concise and well organized
• High quality production—good sound, lighting and editing
• Message resonates with the audience

Of course, some companies can produce serviceable training in-house, but more often, producing an engaging and effective training video means turning to experts with significant experience writing, producing and directing compelling, effective video content. Reach out to us to discuss your training program needs. Maybe a video is right for you?

https://twitter.com/chloecopley_05/status/1039725587055759360?s=20

Or smiled at Iggy’s attempt at island dining (relax, no Iguanas were harmed here) …

Dinner date didn’t go as planned pic.twitter.com/BwBIOBzY7Z

— conner (@connerhallmark) November 28, 2018

But beyond sweet, funny animals, strategic marketing videos can make a big impact on Twitter, especially if you, “throw a little money at it!” According to Twitter:

• Video is their fastest growing advertising tool with over 2 billion video views per day—that’s 67% year-over-year growth.
• Videos get people to take action—Tweets with video attract ten times more engagement than tweets without video.
• Promoted Tweets with videos save more than 50% on cost-per-engagement.

So, if you have created a winning marketing video for Twitter—that does a great job of explaining your product, service or experience and will help you realize your goals—and you want it to be seen by more of the Twittersphere, consider video advertising on Twitter. Here’s a primer of the options currently available:

• Promoted video—Here you simply pay to promote a video from your Twitter account and the video will autoplay as it comes up in your target audience member’s Twitter feed.
• Video website cards—After they watch your video, these on-screen cards continue the engagement beyond the end of the video with creative designed to drive users to your site to learn more or take action
• In-stream video ads—There are simply brief video ads that will play at the start of a video your audience has already decided to watch. Twitter makes sure the content of the video is safe for your brand—such as sports highlights or the weather.

And remember, according to Twitter data, 93% of video views happen on mobile and are often viewed without sound, so use captions or subtitles, and always watch videos in advance on a mobile device to make sure everything is copasetic.

For help writing, producing and directing a video for Twitter—or effectively placing it in front of your target audience—contact SPI and let’s talk!

This propensity for video viewing on Twitter, coupled with the overall effectiveness of video, is a great opportunity for marketers.

When creating or repurposing a marketing video for Twitter, consider the following:

• Put people in the spotlight early—Videos that feature people almost immediately are remembered best, add warmth and personality to your brand and are twice as likely to get scrollers to opt in to watch.

• Write an organized script—Twitter reports that videos with a clear story can grow purchase intent up to 9%!

• Showcase value—Videos that highlight how a product delivers value have higher recall and enjoy a 14% lift in brand affinity.

• Laughter is the best marketer—Videos that provide entertainment receive a 13% improvement in viewership and 15% better intent to share.

• Shorter is often better—If you’re starting from scratch create a short video that prompts the viewer to click the link for more information. (Even a clever .gif can do the job.) If you have a longer video that you created for other purposes, edit it down. You may even be able to create several shorter videos. 95% of consumers believe a video should be less than two minutes long.

• Include subtitles or captions—A majority of people view Twitter videos with the sound off. Use captions so you don’t lose this group.

Now’s the time

Do you need a video, but feel overwhelmed with the process? Or maybe you’re still on the fence? Consider that 83% of businesses believe that video gives them good ROI. To learn how a professionally produced video could help your business reach its goals, give us a shout.