Tag: Commercial video production

  • Holiday Marketing: A Great Video Can Help You Break the Clutter

    Holiday Marketing: A Great Video Can Help You Break the Clutter

    The festive season of Christmas and New Year is just around the corner and the internet is the one place that audiences now look to for unique ideas to make their holidays just that little bit more special. Holiday marketing has become an essential tool for businesses during this time, helping them connect with consumers through engaging campaigns and promotions.

    Over the last couple of decades, the internet has facilitated the businesses to extend to extend their reach far beyond their immediate localities. While this has been tremendous in terms of sales, it also means that businesses need to catch up in face-to-face interaction with their consumers. To bridge this gap, product videos are a powerful medium for marketing, offering a way to create meaningful connections with audiences. Additionally, digital advertising is crucial in ensuring these campaigns reach the right people, making it a cornerstone of successful holiday marketing strategies.

    Nonetheless, this can be circumvented by product videos for marketing that connect. Over the years, we’ve seen our favourite brands strike a chord with us and millions like us through their brilliant videos, whether they’re in the form of digital videos or television commercials – especially during the holiday season.

    Holidays are a time for businesses to throw convention to the winds and show their clientele how their products can really make the festive season one to remember. Businesses normally go all out to appeal to their target audiences. But what works? We’ve put together a few pointers that will make your digital video or TV commercial really stand out amongst all the others.

    1. Tell a story

    Holiday videos do not follow the maxim ‘sell, sell, sell’. They are more about connecting with the audience and appealing to their audience. Tell a story revolving around the festival you are advertising your products or brand for. Weave in how your product is going to make this festive season even more special. Holiday marketing is most effective when it feels authentic and relatable, focusing on creating memorable experiences for the audience It is important to keep the sales speak to a minimum to make it sound as genuine as possible. Of course, the odd celebrity can help bring in the holiday spirit too!

    Take a look at Manyavar’s Diwali advertisement that shows how their special line of Diwali apparel can make the season brighter and more delightful.

    2. Don’t be afraid to have fun

    Holidays are a time for giving and much festive cheer. Make sure your digital explainer video fits in with the holiday spirit. John Lewis, the department store, got it right with this advertisement for Christmas 2016. It, strangely enough, revolves around the family dog Buster the boxer. It shows him watching a couple of foxes, a badger and an assortment of other cuddly wild creatures having fun jumping on a trampoline which has been bought as a Christmas present for the little girl in his house. Come Christmas morning, Buster is the first on the trampoline. The tagline accompanies this advert – Gifts everyone will love. Brilliant!

    The advert draws in the audience by appealing to their sense of humour (with the dog) and inculcating that sense of nostalgia (of childhood, with the trampoline) that always seems to revolve around holidays while keeping it light, fun and warm-hearted.

    3. Don’t forget your product or service while writing the script

    While this may sound contradictory to what has been said so far, it is important to remember that this video is meant to showcase your product or service albeit with a holiday theme. Make sure that this does not get lost in the storyline while scripting. This video is an opportunity to showcase your offering – whether or not it is even remotely related to the festival at hand!

    Although the festive season might make audiences more relaxed, it is important to make the video short. 90 seconds or less is the perfect length for your product video. Take a look at this Waitrose Christmas advertisement that has kept it short and sweet while driving the message home.

    4. Plan and prepare for the season

    It is all about timing! Plan your digital video well in advance along with realistic timelines of what you hope to achieve through it. Chalk out a plan for the entire journey from the making of the video to its launch as well as a plan for monitoring its success post launch. Consult your production team to find the best format for your video without compromising on quality. Launch your video well in advance to give it the time it requires to reach your target audience (and to allow them time to act on it).

    Get a professional video production house to make your video – it’s the best approach for holiday marketing campaigns, ensuring your content stands out during peak seasons.


    5. Include a strong call-to-action (CTA)

    As always, it is important to end your digital marketing video with a clear CTA. Tell your audience what the next step is by including one or more CTAs within your video. You could get creative with this – create multiple types of CTAs and then pick and choose the ones that blend into your video without seeming like they have been forced into it.

    At Toolbox Studio, we collaborate closely with our clients to ensure the videos create a lasting impact. Our production teams include some of the finest writers, directors, technicians, editors and artists who make every product (video) stand out in the crowded world of digital advertising. We cover every phase of making the film including script generation, storyboarding, shooting, filming, editing, graphics and animation and audio.With expertise in holiday marketing strategies, we ensure that our videos resonate with audiences during key festive seasons

    Contact us to know what we can do for you to make your product videos for marketing stand out this holiday season!

  • Maximizing Customer Reach: Essential Strategies

    Maximizing Customer Reach: Essential Strategies

    LinkedIn recently announced that the users will now be able to upload video Ads too. Until now Linkedin displayed only images or text for advertising. But now that it has rolled out global video advertising too, let’s see how it can make a difference to the social media marketing scenario and more importantly, how it can help your business.

    Linkedin is one of the most popular business-oriented social networking services.  Launched on the 5th of May 2003, it already had 259 million acquired users spread over more than 200 countries as of June 2013. So you can expect your Ad to reach out those millions out there, but what is more important is, you can be rest assured that your video Ad reaches the right audience too.  With the video Ads, advertisers will be able to import videos or use existing YouTube videos. Ideally, using video Ads will up advertisers’ presence on YouTube since their audience will grow with the addition of Linkedin’s users.

    Linkedin boasts of millions of profiles belonging to various categories; this helps you in segmenting and focusing on a particular segment as per your business needs and effectively targeting the decision makers. Moreover, creating an Ad on Linkedin is pretty simple.

    Creating a video Ad is similar to creating a text advertisement, except you select Video from the Media Type dropdown.

    If you’re a new advertiser:

    1. Move your cursor over Business Services in the top right of your homepage and select Advertise.
    2. Click Get started.
    3. Click Create an Ad
    4. Under the Media Type dropdown, select Video. Name the campaign; add your headline, description, and YouTube.com video URL.
    5. Click Next.
    6. Select the target audience for your Ad and click Next.
    7. Set a daily budget and bid on how much you’re willing to pay for each video view.
    8. Click Save Changes in the bottom right.
    9. Enter your billing information.
    10. Submit the Ad for review.

    If you’re an existing advertiser:

    1. Move your cursor over Business Services in the top right of your homepage and select Advertise.
    2. Click Manage to go to your Campaign Manager.
    • You may be prompted to sign back into your account.
    1. Click Create new campaign in the top right of your Campaign Manager.
    2. Click Create an Ad.
    3. Under the Media Type dropdown, select Video. Name the campaign; add your headline, description, and YouTube.com video URL.
    4. Click Next.
    5. Select the target audience for your Ad and click Next.
    6. Set a daily budget and bid on how much you’re willing to pay for each video view.
    7. Click Save Changes in the bottom right.
    8. Enter your billing information if you want to update or change information.
    9. Submit the Ad for review.

    The Cost?

    When creating a video Ad the advertiser will be able to set a maximum Cost Per View (CPV) bid. This means that the advertiser will only pay when a member clicks to play the video. The minimum CPV bid for video ads is $4.00.

    So it can be said that video advertising on Linkedin is quite cost effective as it offers you a vast yet focused reach.   So when the next time you think of using the social media for advertising your brand, make sure that your brand is linked in effectively with your potential customers. 

  • Three Video Advertising opportunities that Brands in India need to consider

    Ever since the implementation of 12-minute advertising limit on television channels, as mandated by the Telecom Regulation Authority of India (TRAI), the entire television advertising scene has gone topsy-turvy. The sour repercussions of which have heavily impacted both on an equal platform – broadcasters as well as the advertisers. Carriage costs haven’t slipped down an inch, so has the TV advertising tariff – given the massive digitization roll-out, and now the minimal ad content display on TV channels. All put together don’t quite translate into something very profitable for either side.

    In the light of which, we dig this situation deeper to find out plausible solutions that brands here in India can look up to, and, as such, effectively utilise the available alternate resources (read: internet) to maintain grabbing eyeballs and keeping the reach as widespread in tandem with the earlier situation. We are obviously talking of a win-win situation for all.

    On the whole, even if the Television industry maybe in a soup because of the recent TRAI move, the internet advertising industry seems to take the same move welcomingly. A few years ago, digital media experts wouldn’t have predicted the significance that digital media has today. More so, about the digital advertising! Though, it did have its fair share of mention then, but mostly constituted as a secondary or an add-on to print or television advertising. But now times have taken a different stride. Brands now increasingly prefer the digital media for showcasing their value addition to the masses. And why wouldn’t they? Statistics specify a majority of customer base hooked online for most of their times in a day.

    Technology is seamlessly converging with human life today, opening many avenues of exposure right from the palm of one’s hand. Mobile devices are making it extremely feasible for advertisers and promoters to target niche set of relevant audiences without the baggage of huge expenses being loaded onto them. Changing oneself with the changing times has always been a profitable proposition, be it personally, collectively or even technologically. These changing guidelines, regulations and converging technologies call for newer ways of advertising.

    1. Advertise With Online Video – The first and foremost alternative that stands tall effectively is online video. Video uploading and sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo and similar video mobile applications used on smart phones and tablets make it immensely easy to reach the right target audience. Without a doubt, video format is the most interactive and “connecting” medium of advertising. Banner ads are soon being replaced by mini-sized ad videos.

    YouTube is known to dominate this online video scene the most. The pre-roll advertisements played on YouTube have statistically proven to have had a positive impact on sales or even brand awareness. When compared with TV, YouTube boasts of 90% reach amongst the metro youth when compared to a leading Indian entertainment channel. Given the fact that YouTube comes with a much lower cost-per-rating-point than any of the news, infotainment channels, it might not startle you to know that YouTube also only monetises 3% of the entire viewing time. Television does 20% monetisation.

    2. Monetise Your Video Content – In fact, an extension to the above point would mean monetising your online video content itself. There are many ways of monetising your video on the internet. It’s similar to article marketing. Just that here your content is in the form of video. So you’d very well call it video content marketing. This could essentially prove worthwhile for broadcasters and content producers, who frequently generate information in the video format. Like article archive sites, these video archiving sites allow people to revisit and review events/ programmes time and again. Here, if the video content being displayed is live, the monetisation rates are high otherwise they are lesser. But, nevertheless, not insignificant!

    Sites like Hungama.com or BigFlix.com or even BoxTV.com for that matter have a steady viewership as the statistics. Movie and video producers are particularly in a good position here to rake in the money from such sites that allow web users to view any movie or video on demand.

    3. The Niche Called Mobile TV – The recent Idea ad campaign of “mobile internet for everyone” is enough proof of the extensive reach mobile internet today has in India. Mobile TV is the new go-to for the younger masses of the nation. Cause from the comfort of a click and your palm, anyone, anywhere can watch a video on demand. Statistics suggest the enormous leverage that mobile TV has and will eventually contribute to the advertisers.

    Mobile TV platforms like Zenga TV and nexGTv speak of roughly 18 million monthly users with a staggering number of 225 million video views per month. These multi-platform players have a broad coverage of entertainment, news, music, movies, sports, spiritual, and cartoon, etc. channels, catering to widespread audience. These platforms support pre-roll video adverts and in-between banner ads formats, just like any normal online platform. To sum the pros of this sort of advertising, mobile TV promotions cost a minuscule fraction of what is charged on TV.

    If anything, digital advertising only seems to be growing in leaps and bounds from here on. Like they say, early bird catches the worm. Make hay while it’s still less competitive and congested.

  • The ‘Smart’ World of Mobile Video Advertising in India!

    You are playing a cool game on your latest tablet or a smart-phone and suddenly a video pops out of nowhere. Your reactions: 1) You simply skip the video or 2) You go through the whole video if you find it interesting. And if it’s interesting enough, you think of going for the advertised product. A few people, just like you, either skip the video or go for it. When the target audience views the video, half of the job is done for the advertiser. This is particularly relevant in mobile video advertising in India, where the rise of smartphone usage has made video ads a prominent tool for brands. And when the purchase is made, the objective of advertising on this platform is achieved. This demonstrates how advertising in marketing plays a critical role in influencing consumer behaviour.

    But like you can see, mobile advertising does get a mixed response as a few of the people find ads popping out a bit inconvenient and disturbing and a few find it helpful. So how is the mobile video advertising scenario in India? Well, if we go by the facts and figures, it’s booming like anything and is set to touch Rs 430 Crore in the year 2014. Interesting, isn’t it? And to make this more interesting, we have got one more fact for you. India stands second in mobile advertisements, right behind the United States of America! And we seem to be catching up sooner with the USA.

    There was certainly a disconnect between what industry felt about the potential of mobile advertising and what brands thought about incorporating mobiles in their marketing strategy. May be this is the reason that spend on mobile advertising has been just 10- 15% as compared to spend on digital marketing. But this has changed dramatically and mobile advertising is the ‘new cool’ in the industry now. Marketers are more than willingly investing in mobile advertising as marketers feel that m-commerce is opening up as an instrument for financial inclusion and mobiles will act as a key to a potential explosion in advertising.

    So what has really helped mobile video advertising in India?

    India has been the mobile first market as compared to the other nations, which means that we Indians access the internet on our mobiles first as compared to the other nations where desktops/laptops are preferred. Interestingly around 40% of the mobile users in India have mobile as their only internet access point.

    The mobile advertising market has evolved from a stage of mobile internet being used for email access to being used for social media, to now being used for accessing various kinds of content like NEWS, sports, entertainment etc. With India’s app developer base estimated at 250,000 and expected app downloads to be around 8.4 billion by 2016, Indian mobile users are heavily consuming apps.
    The handsets are cheaper and more accessible now. Mobile video advertising in India has significantly benefited from this trend, leveraging affordable handsets and widespread internet access. Also, the relatively cheap data plans have supported advertising in marketing, making it easier for businesses to reach their audience. The introduction of 3G has further facilitated faster streaming of videos, enhancing the potential for mobile video advertising in India and making it more convenient for the target audience to engage with video content effectively.

    So who are the big players in mobile video advertising? Automobile giants like Maruti, Yamaha, Honda …FMCG brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Unilever and telecom players like Nokia, Karbonn and Micromax… are really investing a lot in mobile video advertising in India. This trend reflects a growing acknowledgement of its impact on consumer engagement and the evolving nature of advertising in marketing strategies.

    From the current scenario, no one can deny the significant role mobile video advertising will play shortly. It’s all set to touch the skies, transforming traditional advertising in marketing and offering viewers unparalleled access to immersive and creative experiences.

    Stay tuned for a lot more engaging stuff that’s coming your way soon!