CallLimiter is a small software developer in Australia that has developed some cool little apps that it sells. They came to us to develop a video micro site for their mobile phone product that can be used to control how long you stay on the phone. This is something most everybody can relate to. The phone companies have managed to get many people to abandon their fixed cost landlines and use their cost-per-call mobile phones almost exclusively, thereby increasing almost everyone’s monthly phone bill. It’s a high price to pay for convenience and not everyplace in the world has discount pricing plans, opening up the market for CallLimiter’s product.

Concept Creation

Step one was to find out what the key sale’s points were. The client provided us with three main reasons for buying their product: control personal phone costs, control phone costs for family members, and limit potential mobile health hazards. We quickly realized that mobile phone overuse and abuse was an obvious additional sales point beyond the cost factor that should be made.

Once we knew what rational sales points had to be made we needed to create a scenario that put these sales points into context so the average consumer could relate to them. One of our guiding principles is to try and find the emotional context that drives home the product’s sales proposition and ties it to its brand identity. Just telling people that a product or service will save them money is not good enough; you need to relate what you’re selling to the audience on some human level.

What we came up with was a family dynamic based on the tried and true family sitcom scenario: your harassed father dealing on the phone with his over protective mother, love struck daughter, overly stimulated son, and medically-challenged brother. Four cheeky video scripts were written highlighting each sales point by placing them within a uniform and relatable family context that everyone could understand and find relevant.

Production and Design

The budget was tight so we kept everything simple, and that not only kept the cost down, it also concentrated audience attention on the message. Marketing communication is all about delivering a meaningful, memorable message and you achieve that by using presentation techniques that entertain while delivering the pitch. Complex and expensive production techniques often used in television commercials to grab viewers’ attention are often counterproductive on the Web. For television the sponsor must grab attention during the commercial break when the audience loses focus and wanders off to the kitchen for a drink or starts a conversation with another family member; on the Web your audience is almost always alone, and their focus is directly and intently on the screen. On the Web the problem is one of holding a click-happy audience’s attention, not focus. Many corporate videos don’t work because they are just plain boring and have no personality. The problem is not one of short attention spans or length of presentation but rather one of holding interest, and the best way to hold an audience’s interest is to put the message within a story context and speak directly to the viewer.

Keep it Simple. Make it Entertaining. And Tell a Brand Story.

Three out of the four videos created used two actors on a white background with the father character in the foreground and the family member in the background. The fourth video that was actually the first one shown only used the father character on the phone with his mother which allowed us to eliminate one actor and keep the client’s cost down.

We needed to design a logo for the product, create a website that accommodated all the content, cast, shoot, and edit the videos, compose custom signature music, and create a slide show of images using the actors from the videos. Our design team created the logo and word mark as well as a blue-grey color scheme that visually tied everything together. We even had the actors wearing monotone wardrobes so their clothing didn’t distract attention from the message or conflict with the other visual elements on the website, a detail we often see overlooked.

Another detail that is often overlooked or ignored is signature music and sound design. Because we have our own recording studio and in-house producer and composer we are able to create custom music and signature sound design for each client. The proper use of music and sound design provides an emotional atmosphere that signals the appropriate psychological response from the audience, while the proper use of sound design techniques provides the mnemonics needed to draw attention to the sales points and message being delivered. Finally, we massaged some of the written material and the project was complete.

Conclusion

As simple and clean as the final presentation appears, the work that went into it was detailed, and required the skill-sets of a talented crew of creative professionals. The micro site was awarded a 2011 Summit Creative Award for Video Micro Sites, not bad considering there were 4300 entries from 22 countries. The winning site can be seen at http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads/CallLimiter/.

The great thing about awards is not that we’ve a spiffy statute we can display in the office but rather the work we’ve done was acknowledged by a panel of eighteen industry leaders from nine countries; but more importantly it recognizes that the work successfully and effectively delivered the client’s advertising message and brand identity.

Author Bio: Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: micro sites, video micro sites, microsites, marketing, video, promotion, campaigns, branding, ads