Visual Media Group's Blog

Thanksgiving is especially meaningful this year here at VMG.

This month our gifted Director of Photography, Ty Migota, and I traveled to Sierra Leone  to tell the story of the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation’s efforts there. We were fortunate to have Jessica Dyer of POF accompany us to act as liaison with the organization and staff in that West African, near-equatorial country.

Our experiences during those 7 days in country induced a mixture of tears and wonder.  Sierra Leone has the distinction of being the poorest country on earth. The life span there is just over 40 years of age. The nation is still reeling from what can only be described as a horrific internal war, with the prime weapons of choice apparently the AK-47 and the machete. Amputees from those brutal years abound. The stories the survivors tell will put a hole in your heart.

It will take many years and help from around the world for Sierra Leone to heal.

As I settle back into the routine of an ordinary American, I am constantly reminded how extra-ordinary this country is. How fortunate we all are. How bountiful our lives. Despite our challenges, both personal and as a country, our opportunities are nearly limitless, our blessings abundant.

I know I will be counting mine this year.

Stay tuned for Pictures and the Video that accompanies this article.

Money raised during nonprofit’s annual fundraiser supports research to eliminate diabetes and its complications

Seattle, WA – September 24, 2010 – For the second year in a row, Visual Media Group produced the keynote presentation for An Evening of Wine, an annual fundraiser hosted by the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute (PNDRI) to support its mission of eliminating diabetes and its complications.

After a brief wine reception in the foyer featuring wine makers from all over WA, the 300+ guests were ushered into the Seattle Marriott Waterfront’s Grand Pacific Ballroom, where they heard introductory remarks from PNDRI Board of Trustees President Rick Omata and Scientific Director William Hagopian, M.D., Ph.D., who helped explain the real-life relevance of PNDRI’s research.

Lars Ryssdal—Corliss Estates winery brand manager, sommelier, and a popular fixture on the Northwest wine scene for more than 22 years—led the raucous crowd in a game of “Name that Wine” before turning things over to celebrity emcee Pat Cashman to kick off the live auction, which featured items donated by a cadre of local businesses.

The most emotional part of the evening came after auction bidding closed and Fund-a-Need began. PNDRI worked with Visual Media Group to produce a video that captured the important but heartbreaking story of Brent and Heather Kuehl of Sarasota, Fla., who lost their 1-year-old son, Rocco, because of a missed type I diagnosis. The Kuehls are strong supporters of PNDRI and its DEW-IT (Diabetes Evaluation in Washington by Immune Tolerance) program, which strives to make screening newborns for diabetes a standard part of the U.S. medical infrastructure.

“We raised $275,000 at An Evening of Wine 2010,” said Becky Bruhn, PNDRI’s Events Manager, “thanks in part to the powerful story-telling of Visual Media Group and the video they produced for this year’s event.”

The Kuehl family’s story can be seen at: http://bit.ly/dcaB77.

About the Visual Media Group: Visual Media Group is a full service Creative Video Production Company located in the greater Seattle Area that specializes in producing high quality digital video and multimedia including Corporate and Event Video, TV Commercials, Motion Graphics, and much more.

About the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute (PNDRI): PNDRI is an independent non-profit biomedical and clinical research center dedicated to eliminating diabetes and its complications. Founded in Seattle in 1956 by Dr. William Hutchinson, Sr., who also founded the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, PNDRI is advancing basic and clinical knowledge to help predict, prevent, treat and cure diabetes in all its forms. The Institute’s acclaimed team of 85 physicians, scientists and technical staff strive to realize clinical discoveries that improve the health of the 246 million people worldwide living with diabetes. For more information about PNDRI, visit www.pndri.org or call (206) 726-1200. If you were just diagnosed with diabetes or want to learn more about the disease, please visit our Diabetes Resources page.

Contact:

Rich Rudy

(425) 457-7100

rich@visualmediagroup.net

Our current economic climate and the rapidly changing marketing communications environment have ushered in a mind spinning array of challenges to businesses that want to build their brand awareness.

Statistics show that a key tool to help build brand awareness is video on the web. Indeed, according to numbers released this year:

- 76% of online video consumers watch professionally produced clips regularly (Interpublic Group’s Magna).

- The number of online shoppers who watch retail product videos before buying a product grew 40% from January 2008 to January 2009 (comScore).

- Google reports that videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on the first page of search results.

Compelling numbers, aren’t they?

So, if you’re a business owner wanting to build your brand, you can set yourself apart from the pack by creating professional HD video to market, sell, educate and engage your customer. Brand Awareness means capturing the eyes and ears of your audience…and those eyes and ears are watching and listening to video online.

As a business, other than your product, it’s all about sales and marketing, isn’t it?  So, this entry is about one of the many ways we use to generate sales leads. It’s about motion graphics…on a vehicle. Well, graphics in motion to be more precise.

We get asked about our wrapped vehicles a lot; so let me tell you about our experience with them.

Yes, we do get business from them. We made them hard to ignore, featuring our logo, telephone number, what we do, and most importantly our tag line “Whadda’ you lookin’ at?” Potential clients have actually picked up the phone and called us after seeing them for more information!

The design for our vehicle wraps were done by our dear friend and business associate, Roberto Garcia. He produces wonderful graphics for all sorts of needs. Give him a call if you want to talk about designing your wrap: www.negoarte.com.

Where to go for the physical wrap? We love the folks at Rainier Industries for this.  www.rainierindustries.com.

Special care; be aware that you have to hand wash these things. No mechanical wash. Beware, you can’t roll down the windows either!

Kelly, Owner of Visual Media Group, with our wrapped Van and Scion

Visual Media Group is a creative video production company that works all over the world and is headquartered in the Seattle Area.

Author of Blog: Mark Sparks is the Co-owner and CEO of VMG.

Video Search Engine Optimization is a pretty hot topic among marketers recently. Deservedly so now that search engines are offering “blended results” where videos and web pages show up on the same page in response to a search query. Forrester Research found that videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking…and those are very attractive odds. So, what’s the best way for your company to take advantage of the search engine’s new-found voracious appetite for video?

One good way is for your company to create viral videos. They call them “viral” because it appeals to people in some way. As a result, they pass it along to others via email or an embedded link in a web page, blog or social networking site. The key to creating a “viral” video is to have that process occur repetitiously, thus exponentially increasing the chance that your video will rank higher on search engine result pages. This will help you get more eyeballs on your brand.

The reason for creating a viral video is to increase the number of eyes on your brand, your product, well just on you in general.  That’s why a viral video made for the purpose of promoting your brand is called “Branded Entertainment;” yet another recent addition to the marketing lexicon. One of the tried and true methods for helping your video go viral is to make it funny or cute. Here’s an example of a branded entertainment piece that we created for People for Puget Sound. It’s a Public Service Announcement about an Angry Salmon who hates pollution. Be careful, he may be coming for you next!

Of course, a branded entertainment video can be passed along because it appeals to people’s interests. There’s not much that’s more interesting to a lot of people than booze. Consider the case of Demitri’s Bloody Mary Seasonings. They had no idea that one of their customers had embedded their YouTube link into their own popular web site until the hits on their video skyrocketed. You can make the hits on your own videos skyrocket on purpose. We’ll show you how. In the meantime, check out the branded entertainment piece that broke out big for Demitri’s.

Finally, who can forget the mass of Soccer fans we have in Seattle? If you wanna make a big splash without resorting to a man-sized salmon, try adding a celebrity to your branded entertainment video. This piece, featuring Fredy Montero a forward for the Seattle Sounders FC, served us well from a viral perspective because soccer fan sites and blogs embedded our YouTube link within their own sites. All we had to do was tell them it was there. Check out Fredy Montero in this dreamy, stop motion sequence we shot for Comcast Cable:

Chances are that you’re not going to do too much with a branded entertainment piece if all you do is post it on a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo. In order for people to find your video, you have to put it right under their noses and wave your arms around screaming, “watch me, watch me!” But, with a little strategy and key promotion techniques, you might just have the next hit video on your hands. Look us up for help creating your company’s next branded entertainment piece. And, for information on making that piece go viral, check out our newest whitepaper: Simple Steps to Maximize the Impact of Your Video.

“GET THE WHITEPAPER NOW” BUTTON

Recently we helped craft the re-branding message for Colliers International Global Chairman and CEO, Doug Frye.  They had a very cool story to tell, and we wanted to visually match it in an equally cool way.

The look had to meet or exceed the message.  This was an internal video that would bring all the markets all over the world together.  One name, one brand, one vision.  The team went to work and found a location that would photograph well, and seamlessly work with the post and visual effects needs.

When the launch was executed at the end of April, the results were even more outstanding.  Emails from around the world flew into Doug’s office, praising the look, feel and components of the video.  Here is some of what they said:

“Today’s Video Message provoked several powerful emotions in me while watching; Pride, Enthusiasm and Confidence.  I’m looking forward to the next installment as this message was very timely and inspiring.”  – Ottowa, Canada

“Excellent messaging and a great production.” – Toronto, Canada

“This is just the beginning of the greatest time in our history as the worldwide leader in Real Estate Intelligence.” – San Jose, Costa Rica

It raised the bar, at a time when the bar needed to reach new heights.  The results continue to go beyond expectations.

This is a perfect example of how a company’s message matched with a dynamic speaker then coupled with a creative approach can equal unprecedented worldwide audience response.  That’s cool.

So, you’ve got gills, you’re used to swimming around in the sound, and you really like where you live.  But when the land folk use your home as a dumping ground, what are you going to do? One brave fish went off the hook to make a point.

With our camera’s rolling, this Salmon with attitude runs amok as he huffs and puffs and gets into people’s face.  Ok, he’s a dude in a fish costume, but you get the point.

This has become an effective campaign for The People For Puget Sound, an organization dedicated to cleaning up Puget Sound.  They wanted a message that would cut through the clutter and not get lost.  VMG answered the call, and then some, with this concept. The Kitsap Sun thought enough to blog about it and discuss the how and why here.  We’re sure there will be much more as this fish spreads his ‘tude through You Tube.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

Yup, novelist Henry Miller really said it best.  And that is really what our traveling team from VMG did in the month of January.

First, it was off to Vietnam to shoot a story about a young girl named Tuyet who lost her legs in a train incident when she was only 4.  She’s in her teens now, and will be the focus of just what the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation does.  The video will be shown at their auction and Gala Dinner on March 27, 2010.  Visit www.pofsea.org/events.htm to find out more.

Kelly, Mark and Ty spent quite a bit of time traveling by plane, train, automobile and scooter to get this wonderful story.

Then, upon returning there was very little rest for the wicked.  They re-packed their bags, grabbed Kristen and took off again….this time to Kauai Hawaii!

This time they were gathering scenes to be used in a series of commercials for both Seattle, and Hawaii.  Hendrikus Organics is a company that creates wonderfully rich and sustainable products that do amazing things for your garden.  Look for them soon on KING 5 television.

The entire VMG team is extremely proud of what our people and gear can do on the road to help everyone see new things, from any destination.

“Santa Intern” is the story of Santa, disguised as our new intern, who showed up to spread a little holiday cheer.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Visual Media Group