Funny campaign videos draw in viewers because people like to share funny things online but also because sharing is easier when the issue is treated with a little irreverence and humour.  At least that’s my hypothesis. But this post isn’t about that, it’s about why marketing online video is as important as excellent scripting writing and execution.

The latest funny campaign videos from the Enough Food If (or just IF) coalition – in particular this one (from Save the Children UK) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KhMj6p21dU – could be a good example.

The cost of the film and its marketing are integral to its success

The numbers:

1. The video went live on March 17th
2. Published on the Save the Children and Enough Food If  (IF) youtube channels – an e-update presumably alerted supporters to the video?
3. Hash tag on twitter #aidworks
4. 490,000 unique views by 25th March

That’s an impressive tally by any marker (bar Kony), so what’s going on here?

Why do funny campaign videos generate hits?

Well I’m not entirely sure they do.  Enough Food If coalition put out another campaign film on 19th March, this one >> http://youtu.be/UF2r2TO9OeU a well produced, topical video featuring 500 George Osbornes – timed with budget day. But it generated only 1,600 views (by 25th March).

What is the difference here?

• Both use humour to communicate their message
• Both were put out by the same coalition brand
• Both were well organised bits of storytelling (though the Obsorne one was probably quicker and cheaper to make).

The difference seems to be that Save the Children weren’t involved in promoting the 500 Osbourne’s film – and Save the Children brought 300,000+ views (by March 25th) to the #aidworks film.

So, it’s about marketing AND good quality storytelling

google screen shot – adwords

A search for ‘UK overseas aid’ (while I was trying to find a video on UK residents opinions about aid) delivered this adword campaign result.

The link directs to Save the Children’s campaign site for IF with the video and the campaign e-action centre stage.

Save the Children UK have invested in their funny campaign videos and it has paid; not just in the quality of their output (high production values and good writing) but also with their resource to market it.

 What would James Bond do?

Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, had an estimated budget of between $150 – $200 million, a significant proportion of that budget will have been spent on marketing.  Is this a worthy comparison? yes! The cost of the film and its marketing are integral to its success.  The two cannot be separated – it’s how the movie was seen and made money.

Similarly, Save the Children UK have made a solid funny campaign video, well written, well produced, funny, but (it seems) have also marketed it, showing they believe in their investment by getting behind it creatively and resourcefully. Bravo!

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Landing page video is appearing more and more instead of text or pictures to help boost conversion rates. The evidence is mainly anecdotal as many organisations won’t share exact figures, but I have been asked to produce lots of small videos to append to fundraising campaigns over the last year, so something must be working. Here is one I made for WSPA’s Bid Bear Rescue appeal.

>>Get in touch to discuss your landing page video potential

Landing page video on latest WSPA  campaign

WSPA’s new big bear rescue appeal uses video to quickly show how money will be used to rescue bears in badly run down zoos in Romania. I was out with the WSPA teams to film this video. Plus a stack of other exclusive video content aimed at their regular givers. This content is being produced in a bid to lower attrition rates in their regular giver portfolio.

WSPA are setting a high standard of story telling by bringing donors on early with inspiring and engaging videos. This is a great post from Steve Young writing for unbounce.com that looks at some example landing page video setups.

Landing page video vs. Direct Response Television

The web is referred to as a ‘lean forward’ technology, meaning your audience is interacting with your content. A strong call to action in a web video can illicit immediate user response; traditional DRTV ads are consumed more passively.

Bespoke landing page video is attractive because:

• DRTV is expensive and used exclusively by larger organisations.
• Bespoke landing page video dosen’t need to as produced – the costs of production are generally lower.
• They aren’t subject to the same censorship as DRTV ads.
• It’s easier and less expensive to test multiple variations of the same video. For example to test different cash ask amounts on an audience segment.

The two forms are aimed at different audiences when they go out on their intended channels. However DRTV spots can cross over to landing pages. They may perform as well as dedicated landing page video, thus broadening their acquisition potential.

The British Heart Foundation’s Hard and Fast video suite starring Vinnie Jones is a good example of content that was produced for both TV and web.

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Alesha Dixon rescues bears with WSPA as some are still kept in poor zoo conditions in Romania.

See Alesha in action in this short film (shot by myself and Richard Hughes – edge2edgefilms) showing what Alesha got up to with the WSPA.

Alesha Dixon rescues bears

I was part of a crew that travelled to Romania with Alesha Dixon. My job was to film all the amazing footage of the bears while my colleague Richard  was filming all the action with Alesha.

Catch up on ITV1 player  to see Alesha’s TV spot on the Lorraine show.

Do celebrities help charities raise profile and money? What do you think? Have your say.

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Stop motion animation I thought would have been a doddle with the frame by frame advance that you can do with a LomoKino.

A frame from the test stop motion animation for a campaignfilm client. See the animation test below.

This is a follow up post to Video diary: stop motion animation LomoKino

The three challenges I came across in this test were

• lighting
• framing
• lens quality.

Stop motion animation – lighting

The hot shoe on the LomoKino will allow you to trigger most modern SLR type flashes. You just need one that will recharge quickly for another burst.  You also want consistency in the amount of light being output. Cheaper flashes will ‘breathe’ slightly in the exact amount of light they output.  The top flash alignment that I tested in the clip below flattens the image and I didn’t compensate for the falloff on the lens, so fill light on either side may have helped.

Stop motion animation – framing

The LomoKino viewfinder is off vertically by about 20cm when working within a metre of your subject. This is evident in the LomoKino animation below.

Stop motion animation – lens quality

OK, this is a silly thing to be commenting on I know. The look and feel of Lomogrpahy is all about the use of sharp little plastic lenses, and really, the look is lovely and full of atmosphere. The fall off is substantial however and maybe a little more than I expected given that I researched flash output vs’ film type carefully before shooting.  Next time I’ll try a 400 ISO film with flashes trigged remotely, both on a 45 degree off axis shooting angle.

The BBC have posted a great article on Lomography, check out the top 10 golden rules toward the bottom of the page.

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Ricky Gervais supports animal campaign – collars not cruelty

Ricky Gervais supports animal campaign collars not cruelty. Photo WSPA/Jason Alden

Ricky Gervais supports animal charities globally, and Ricky has supported the WSPA on a number of occasions.

Ricky is a busy a-list star, so it’s no surprise that when the opportunity to get him in another campaign film for WSPA came about, it was a quick turn around. how to get the best from working with celebrities always seems to the be the last piece of the communications strategy in any charity or NGO.

Tell us your advice on using celebs. Leave a comment!

Ideally a charity should match or even shape campaign communications around a targeted celebrity. Although Ricky Gervais is a good fit for animal charities, there must be an animal story or scenario that would really benefit from his long term engagement, commitment and creativity; something that would really give a campaign a chance of hitting the mark.

Have your say below; what is the best celebrity campaign you have seen. For me the campaign needs to be a good fit to the personality, Vinnie Jones in the British Heart Foundation campaign for hands only CPR springs to mind. Ricky Gervais supports animal charities and it’s a good fit for him.  He’s careful about what he eats, he speaks out against abuses and he performed a standup show entitled ‘Animals’. He has a personal connection to the subject and it goes a little deeper than simply putting a famous face to a campaign.

But does the video tell a compelling story and is Ricky adding to that story? What do you think?  Discuss below in the comments. 

Working with Ricky Gervais

The question in my mind was “what if he dosen’t want to do the shoot the way I’d planned?”.  He’s sharp witted and dosen’t appear to suffer fools, so you can understand why I was concerned.

He was really open to ideas and 100% got the message that we were trying to convey. He also gave a lot of his own creativity and was relaxed while he improvised around the script with the dog on his lap, there was open communication and a willingness to test ideas out. Just what you want on a shoot once you’ve got the key messages filmed.

See how Ricky Gervais supports the collars not cruelty campaign on the WSPA website page here.

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The LomoKino requires that I read ISO charts on the back of a flash I’ve never used, asking Derek behind the counter at Calumet for spools of 36 400 colour negative (which brand sir? which brand!), and then loading the media (sorry, film) into the back of the LomoKino.

>> I’ve a written a follow up post to this: stop motion animation

Yep, I’m not a Hoxton trendy as you may have gathered, if not by the virtue that LomoKino is now as old as lensless specs down the East End. But campaignfilm is a North London film and video facilitation bureau, and it’s only when ‘an idea’ calls – no cries! – out for some alternative production methods that I even think about using something as daft as the LomoKino.

It is quite cool though.

I’ll post the results here when the film is developed – ha, did you read that, developed, pah!

What the LomoKino isn’t

Kodak M4 super8 camera – now one of the most reliable cine cameras still available

I love shooting on Super8 which is still a really workable medium provided you have the right camera. I have the Kodak M4 (via my Dad), and it’s a really wonderful simple bit of kit; fixed lens with a daylight filter if you are going from indoors to out shooting on a tungsten cartridge. No zoom, no slo mo, no sound (of course) apart from the clicking of the film advancement mechanism. It’s even driven by 4 x AA! But it won’t let me advance the film frame by frame. So enter LomoKino 35mm [short] Movie Maker.

The LomoKino is really just a bit of fun and another entry in the wallet emptying Lomography portfolio, and it is for these two reasons that I wanted to see it work commercially.  But for now, here is a mini production video diary.

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Sian Williams supports BBC Children in Need with a pawprint tattoo on her cheek

BBC Children in Need launched ‘bearfaced‘ last week.  A physical take action asking supporters (led by celebs) to paint a temporary tattoo on their faces, photograph it and then share socially – online of course.

A few years ago while still working for the WSPA we came up with a similar concept.

Bears in Asia are subject to captive bile extraction for their whole lives. It’s a pretty grim business. WSPA wanted to motivate Asian ex-pat communities to voice their support for widespread change in the bear bile industry – an industry that still flourishes today with bile being used in traditional medicines even though there are viable herbal alternatives.

I produced this video to support the call to action which was to ‘tattoo’ yourself with a bear pawprint, upload to a microsite (now it would be a facebook group) and invite fellow ex-pats to the do the same. The photo-signature action was then sent to the authorities in South Korea who would likely listen to savvy ex-pats who have an eye on their country’s cultural reputation.

Since the action South Korea has committed to “prepare measures to end the practice of bear farming” which is tremendous news.

The issue around bear bile farms in china is still a hot topic for animal welfare campaigners and it’ll be interesting to see over the next few years how China responds.

Lots of ‘temp tattoo’ actions crop every year, often with the action being to write something on your palm and then hold it up in a ‘stop right there’ gesture as you picture is taken.   This kind of visual statement is not new, but that doesn’t take away from it’s appeal; I think I underestimated the willingness of people (mainly young women) to give it a go.

The celebrity kickstart of ‘bearfaced‘ is a nice use of famous people; all the ingredients are there for multiple celebrity support, good photo shoot, common thread of the tattoo running through the photos, accessible issue and of course great for time poor celebrities.

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Among the big hitters are smaller lesser known charities such as Merlin, a charity bringing child mortality rates down in some of the worst hit countries. I was particularly impressed with their interactive map on the issue… Merlin

Global journal top 100 NGOs.

On a slightly separate note, Merlin’s use of video is great. It must be difficult to think about producing content while in the firing line in some of the most conflict ridden countries, but the approach by Merlin to produce simple snippets and publish them really give the supporter and media a sense of what it is like .

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The Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit (WCU) has entered into a funding partnership with the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).

Trade in wildlife (parts or live animals)  is a “major source of revenue” for criminals according to WSPA.

It is the first time a charity has directly funded a Met Police unit and it is hoped it will lead to more staff being recruited and trained in how to tackle wildlife crime.

“This is not some niche, illicit trade carried out by petty part-time villains. It is a major source of revenue for a global network of hardened criminals, gangs and drug lords – all growing rich from the trafficking of wildlife and none about to have a crisis of conscience and stop what they are doing.” Simon Pope – Head of External Affairs, WSPA.

The WSPA and the Met launched their partnership on the 30th January 2012 at City Hall London. I was there to video the event and produce a same-day video news release for WSPA.  Nice and Serious also participated, with their content to be released as a serial on the WSPA UK suite of sites shortly.

The event attracted plenty of press attention with the story being picked up by The Guardian, The BBC, The Daily Mirror and a double page print spread in the London Evening Standard.

The story was also published on wildlife blogs such as Wildlife News and who gives a monkeys.

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A few months ago I was asked to look at some footage from the campaign group No Women No Peace (NWNP).

The original idea was to edit the mixed format footage together into a coherent short advocacy film that demonstrates the issues that No Women No Peace are to tackling, namely the exclusion of women from decision making processes in politics – especially in conflict zones.

A shot meeting with the folks at NWNP and we quickly realised that a better approach would be to film a dedicated piece to camera with campaigners during International women’s day and then use the archive footage as scene setting images of the problems that women face in conflict areas.

We knew it needed to be fresh and powerful, so between us we came up with the ideas of a single script filmed several times with different campaigners and then intercut together to keep it quick. The visual motif of the women being gagged was added to draw attention to the lack of voice that women have.

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