Marketing your firm

[Devin Johnston]

My firm wants to create a marketing video with a heavy emphasis on architectural renderings and animations. Since I'm the 3d guy it's my job to do this but I've never really done a marketing piece like this before. They want to include interviews of key people, voiceovers, as well as brief history on the firm and some other things. I'd like to see some examples of videos others have done but I'm having trouble finding any. Has anyone had to do this before, do you have any advice?

[Ernest Burden III]

Producing that sort of video is what my father's company used to do a lot of. But it mostly dried up when computers and digital video and websites came along. Firms could do them themselves--not necessarily well, but in-house. I just asked him if he knew where you could find examples and he didn't know of any store of what he called 'target market' or 'corporate services' videos from design firms.

 

One possibility would be to look through the site of the SMPS, which has an annual competition for that sort of thing, though not with those specific categories. It will take some hunting.

[Devin Johnston]

Thanks Ernest I'll take a look and post anything I find, tell your dad thanks for the help!

[Matt Sugden]

my advise would be to keep it short and snappy, and try not to bore people with too much info.

 

keep your interviews down to short sound bites. Marketing is all about engaging people, keeping them watching and interested, and getting the core message over. Maybe a cool little 3d character would keep people watching, with a voice over from one of your 'key people' or perhaps try and create a story line or narrative with your short film. perhaps consider splitting it into an overview introduction, and then a more in depth section if people really are interested and want more detailed info.

 

I did a marketing video for a company for trade shows, and I figured I had about 30 seconds maximum to catch peoples attention as they walked past the stands, so i concentrated on condensing the message, and making it have an impact so they would stop and ask for more info.

[Horhe]

What i suggest is for you to look through videos that market software (of course apart from the videos that actually market firms alike). There youve got interviews and examples of work (although in your case the interviews should be shorter as Bewdy already suggested)

 

My one humble tip would be for you to decide on the mood - subtle one or more dynamic. Guess depends also on the content from the portfolio you choose to include in the animation. Or perphaps you could make a transition between both...?

[Macer]

You could check out some of the autodesk design marketing videos for ideas, they include interviews with customers and animations, images, etc. Might give you ideas on how to (or not to) go about it?

[Limbus]

Hi Maxer,

there are some marketing Videos on the NewTek Site here:

http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/profiles/24/index.php

http://www.newtek.com/shows/siggraph/2007/index.php

 

These might give you some ideas.

 

Cheers, Florian

[pickle]

This is quite a good one.

 

[EddieLeon]

Autodesk did some nice company profile videos. I think they are good examples of what you can do with regards to interviews, editing, motion graphics, etc.

 

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5600839&linkID=5572501

[John Dollus]

http://www.break.com/index/worlds-best-video-production-company.html

 

best one ever

 

saw this one from jeff