The 16 county region covered by HealthBridge is only one of two areas in the United States to receive this funding.  The entire team at HealthBridge is highly qualified, innovative, and motivated with lots of passion for the job they do.  That coupled with an effective communications strategy, which included a video produced by Seven/Seventy-Nine, most likely played a large role in the decision to award them this funding.

A well produced video that connects with people on an emotional level can convey a message like no other medium.  Producing a great video is a powerful tool that can help move you and your organization closer to achieving goals.  You can play a video at a meeting or conference and take the audience to a place outside of the meeting room without ever leaving  it.  You can also post a video on the Internet and make your message available to anyone anywhere all the time.  Video can give people a sense of who you are and what you do before ever meeting you.

But I digress.  It’s easy for me to digress when it comes to talking about video because I love talking about it almost as much as I love producing it (total dork, I know).  We here at Seven/Seventy-Nine are very happy for our friends at HealthBridge.  Keep up the good work!

-Dan Phenicie

Check on our website soon to see the finished videos!

Drew Money
Creative Director

Click here to read to entire post from eMarketer

We here at Seven/Seventy-Nine have been singing the praises of web video for quite some time.  Ten years ago your only option for distributing a video message was television or having a large number of DVDs or VHS tapes duplicated and these options were cost prohibitive in many cases.   However, thanks to the magic of the Internet, a video message can be posted on You Tube, Vimeo, or another web video platform for little to no cost and distributed through email, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and LinkedIn, and posted to your website.

The Entrepreneur post suggests that anyone considering adding web video to their marketing mix should, “work with a knowledgeable online video production company which can help you create the best type of ad to meet your goals.”  Seven/Seventy-Nine is capable of creating video for distribution through any medium, but one area that differentiates us as a production company is web video.  We understand that the principles of video production are the same regardless of the intended medium, but the principles of the content itself are different on the Internet.  Among other things you can say more in a web video and you can say it differently.  Best of all, you’re not constrained by the strict time limits imposed on video by other mediums.

If you’re not doing web video advertising you should seriously consider it and if you’re seriously considering it, then you should contact a “knowledgeable online video production company” like Seven/Seventy-Nine.

-Dan Phenicie

Ad Week has more on the story here.

We have a number of projects that are now in post production and we’ll be sure to share those videos once they’re done. Until then, enjoy these behind the scenes photos:

Behind the Scenes June 2010

We’re very proud to have worked with Moerlein on several TV commercials in the past and we’re excited about other projects we have in the works with them.  Right now I’m looking forward to tonight because I’m going to pick up some OTR and toast Moerlein on their continued growth.  I encourage everyone in the greater Cincinnati area to pick up some of their favorite Moerlein beer and do the same.

Dress For Success – Cinicinnati from 7/79Ltd. on Vimeo.

Television is a passive medium where people sit back and let the box talk to them.  The Internet on the other hand, is an active medium where people seek out information.  With television, the viewer is mostly limited to what’s on at any given time or what’s saved on a DVR or TiVo.  The web on the other hand is all on-demand all the time.  From a marketing standpoint, television is strictly limited to a 30 second commercial, unless you want to run an infomercial. Web videos have time limits as well, but it’s based entirely on how long the average viewer is willing to watch rather than a strict programming schedule.  You will have much more luck with a 2 minute video explaining the benefits of your product then you will with one that’s 10 minutes.

There is no formula for what is going to go viral.  Predicting what’s going to go viral is like predicting what random inanimate object is going to amuse my cat tonight.  I should start uploading video of the things that amuse my cat because cat videos are huge!  Just go to You Tube and search for “funny cats” if you don’t believe me.  Most of the videos that come up have had well over 1 million views.  And as far as viral video goes, I’m completely dumbfounded by the success of “Charlie bit my finger – again!” which is the most viewed video of all time on You Tube.  Not all viral videos are home movies of people capturing random occurrences.  Funny or Die, the comedy website founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Judd Apatow has some great viral videos that are produced with some emphasis on production value (something that is frequently absent on You Tube). The Landlord is a classic which has received nearly 71 million views and I’m a big fan of “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.”

This doesn’t mean that advertisers should dismiss web video and not utilize it.  Keep in mind that You Tube is the second most used search engine behind Google. Not having a video on You Tube means you’re missing out on a 24/7 opportunity to market your business.  As I’ve said many times on this blog, if you own a business, then you should have a video on You Tube and on your website that explains who you are and what you do.  I would also highly recommend that you be in the video.  This way the consumer can put a face with a name.  If you sell products, then you should have videos on your website showing your products in action along with tutorials that explain the different features.  You can also have fun with web video ads like what Hyatt Hotels is doing with a pair of ads produced in partnership with Funny or Die called, The Teppanyaki Chef and The Lounge.

Whatever your video marketing strategy ends up being, be sure to acknowledge that there are two distinct channels for distribution of video.  Television remains the best way to reach a large audience, but it costs a lot of money and is limited by a strict time frame.  The Internet is less expensive and much less restricted but much more cluttered (24 hours worth of video are uploaded to You Tube every minute).  A large budget marketing strategy would include both TV and a distinct web video campaign.  Smaller budget marketing campaigns, which used to exclude video due to cost, can benefit greatly from putting video on the web.  With all things marketing, the most important thing is to have a plan.  Don’t just put a video on You Tube because it’s free and your neighbor has a camera you can borrow.  Video, like all other marketing and sales materials, is a direct reflection on the brand you have worked tirelessly to build.  Make sure it’s a good one.

-Dan Phenicie

The 3D technical wizardry of Avatar is no doubt stunning and Cameron is to be commended for the many advancements in 3D technology he pioneered making this movie.  There are a lot of movies coming out in 3D and it’s probably too soon to tell whether this is simply a fad or a major change in how movies are made and viewed.  I spent the afternoon before the Oscars at the movie theater watching Alice in Wonderland, the latest 3D extravaganza to hit theaters.  Tim Burton’s trippy adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic draws more inspiration from Through the Looking Glass than from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but ultimately it’s a mash-up of both stories with a few changes.  In this version, Alice is 19, much less neurotic, and tasked with defeating the Red Queen and her Jabberwocky.  It’s a story we’re all familiar with but what makes the film worth seeing is Tim Burton’s distinct imagery done in acid flashback-inducing IMAX 3D.

3D has certainly come along way.  I can remember my first experience with it as a soon-to-be teenager sneaking in to see Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Back then audiences had to watch 3D movies with flimsy cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue one.  The only memorable thing about this 3D experience was the occasional blood splatter that appeared to fly off the screen and the numerous times Freddy Krueger turned toward the audience and slashed at the screen with his metal claw-gloved hand.  The whole thing seemed more like a gimmick than an enhancement of the cinematic experience.  Recent 3D movies such as Up, Avatar, and Alice in Wonderland tend to use this effect to draw the audience into the story rather than just trying to draw them into the theater.

There has been a lot of talk recently about 3D and the effect it will have on the entertainment industry.  Movie theaters can’t add 3D capabilities fast enough to keep up with the amount of 3D films being planned by the studios.  ESPN has announced plans to launch a 3D TV network and home 3D entertainment systems were all the rage at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

If you haven’t been to the movies lately to see a 3D movie, then I highly recommend that you do so.  It really is quite stunning these days.  When it comes to movies like Avatar, Up, and Alice in Wonderland, 3D definitely serves as an enhancement of the film.  If a movie is visual in nature or really trying to pump up the spectacle factor, then 3D is a great tool.  However, some films just won’t be helped by it.  Up in the Air is one of my favorite movies from the past year (and I’m kind of bummed that it didn’t win any Oscars) however I can’t imagine any way in which that movie would have been enhanced with 3D.  Similarly, The Hurt Locker  – a gritty film about the adrenaline rush of combat as told through the eyes of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq – probably would have been ruined by adding 3D effects.  The Hurt Locker is a story driven film where the psychology of the main characters is a major part of the plot.  There’s just no way 3D could have enhanced it.  Besides, an Iraq War movie in 3D might prove to be an unnervingly heavy dose of reality for war sanitized American audiences.

3D is definitely a cool new addition to the ever expanding equation of entertainment options.  However I don’t see it becoming the standard platform replacing 2D.  Some movies are cerebral and story driven making them incompatible with 3D while other films are visual and effects driven, making them perfect for 3D.  I just hope that a certain sub sect of the movie industry that is based in the San Fernando Valley doesn’t start releasing films in 3D.  That would just be disturbing.

- Dan Phenicie