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Give us some ‘Props!’

By SKY HANSTEIN

For every project, the production team sits down for an initial project kick-off meeting. Among a variety of other topics related to the project, we talk extensively about props. Props as in give each other compliments? No... I mean we talk about what items we will need to have in both the foreground and background to make our product shine.

The ultimate goal of these meetings is to choose props that enhance the scene. While the product featured in the commercial is the star’, props can be looked at as the supporting cast’. As a team, every prop is chosen carefully so that it never distracts or pulls focus from our 'star' of the show, the product.

As the project continues, the script is written, and this is where the props team kicks into high gear. Every scene is dissected by what is written for the visual as well as the audio. Here is an example of a visual: ‚“NEGATIVE: Woman in kitchen creating a mess making soup”.

To the untrained eye, that vague description means very little. For my Producer eyes, it is a treasure-trove of information... It means we need to scour our prop warehouse to organize cutting boards, pots, pans, knives, ladles, hand towels, and kitchen trinkets for the background. I start making a list of items we need to shop for. For this example, visions of carrots, celery, onions and other soup materials start to dance in my head. And I don't mean just one celery stalk... We need to prepare for 10 plus takes to get the shot just right which adds up to a lot of veggies at the market! This list of items is just for one scene out of 20 plus within any given commercial, so you can imagine how quickly the list of props grows for one spot!

After days prepping, shopping, and packing we get to the shoot day. This is where I put my proactive producer hat on and the team kicks into overdrive. Every prop and background trinket gets organized on long tables by scene order. These massive tables of ‚“stuff” may look like a disaster area. To me, it is chaos organized and re-assurance that we have done our part to ensure each scene change goes smoothly and our shoot remains on schedule.

As the shoot day moves on and scenes are completed, the prop tables slowly empty out. Trinkets that appear in the background for a mere 1-2 seconds, are sorted, gingerly wrapped up and packed away into awaiting production cars. The prop warehouse is re-stocked, purchased items are returned and the cycle repeats itself with the next project kick off call

So the next time you watch a DRTV commercial, take some time to give us props’ for a job well done!

 

 

Prop table from a recent shoot, Note this is just for 3 scenes!

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A small sample of our prop warehouse

 

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Top 5 Products You Need to Get the Summer Body You Crave

BY Lauren Fahey-

Summer is around the corner and there is no time to wait to get your body right for the warm weather. If you have a wedding in 130 days (but who’s counting), a vacation, family reunion or you just want to feel good about yourself than keep reading this blog is for you!

Here are some products that I have had the opportunity to use at Concepts TV Productions. I know they will make you feel refreshed and ready for some sunny days!

  1. no!no!

Wouldn’t it be nice to be hair and care free for the summer? Don’t do what I’ve done and waste hundreds of dollars at a professional lasers treatment center. They are painful, costly, take forever and they do not guarantee the client will see results. no!no! is fast pain free and promises immediate lasting results. One of my favorite things about no!no! is that I can easily carry it with me every day and use it wherever, whenever! Say goodbye to that peach fuzz and hello to the undeniably smooth, hair free skin you deserve!

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  1. Maxi Climber

For those of you interested in toning all of your muscle groups on just one simple machine, this one’s for you! Maxi Climber works your entire body - combining weight resistance, muscle toning and aerobic exercise. Climb your way to that summer body you’ve always wanted! Maxi Climber will help tone, shapely arms, rock-hard abs, sexy six packs, and help to get leaner, shapelier legs.

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  1. Veggetti

We all know that healthy diets and exercise go hand in hand when it comes to losing weight. But did you know with Veggetti you do not have to compromise with the foods you love? Veggetti is the vegetable cutter that makes healthy "pasta" out of veggies. You can prepare a delicious, low carb meal out of zucchini, squash, carrots, cucumbers and more! Perfect combination with MaxiClimber to get the lean, mean body you have always desired.

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  1. Ped Egg

Oldie but for sure a goodie! ‚“What sexy dry feet you have!” said NO ONE EVER!

Before you even think about putting sandal on or going barefoot to the beach please make sure your feet are groomed!

In just seconds you can go from dry and cracked skin to smooth and sexy skin! Simply rub Ped Egg across the surface of your soles to reveal younger, smoother, softer skin. The dead skin is neatly collected in the egg so there is no mess to clean up after. Show off your summer soles with the help of Ped Egg.

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  1. AB Archer

Nothing screams ‚“SEXY” louder than chiseled abs. If you want awesome abs without killing your back doing crunches you’ll love AB Bow! It’s the safe and most effective way to get the results you want. It’s like having your own personal trainer right in the comfort of your home. Does it get any better than that? There are different resistant levels so you can start today at the beginner level and find yourself at the advanced level in no time!

Now you know what products to use to be hair free, fit, hygienically groomed and eating healthy. These will help bring out the best version of you there is.

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Act Now... Don’t Wait!

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The Best Selling Drug on the Market: Online Video

There is a new drug on the market that is the biggest moneymaker yet to date. Crushing the numbers of Viagra in 99, this drug is proven to increase sales, influence buyer decisions, and create brand loyalty. With more clicks than a Kardashian and more smiling faces than Cialis, this new drug is quickly increasing web traffic, building brand loyalty, and establishing itself as a game changer and thought leader in the world of Pharmaceuticals. What is this magic drug you ask of? None other than online video!

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Today’s customer uses online video for just about everything. From learning the latest hairstyle to buying a car, online video is one of the biggest influencers on buyer decisions. When a customer lands on a page, they don’t want to read about your product. In 2016, customers want to be entertained via online video. According to Cisco,, “consumer internet video traffic will be 80 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2019, up from 64 percent in 2014.”
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Marketers are taking note, with “64 percent of respondents indicated video content will dominate their strategies moving forward” (Brafton). Online video can include how-to videos, tutorials, infotainment, advice videos, and product demonstrations.

  1. Better SEO: While purchasing ad space online is a proven way to complete your ROI, joining social media and video together makes for the greatest organic reach. Google, the largest search engine in the world is the owner of YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world. Using video can easily boost a pharmaceutical companies search ratings, promising you more organic (unpaid) eyeballs for your videos. Make sure to include a clear call to action and/or link that drives the viewer to take action in the sense of clicking through to your site.

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2. Teach with Entertainment: Consumers are educated individuals and they’re jaded to the typical slice of life advertisements they see on television. When it comes to influencing buying decisions and capturing a lifelong customer, Pharmaceutical companies need to provide unique, useful information in an entertaining way. GlaxoSmithKline’s YouTube channel is filled with engaging informational videos on a wide variety of subjects. GSK takes a typically boring subject like research and transforms it into an entertaining video with their “Finding New Ways to Fight Antibiotic Resistance.” By telling their own personal story and utilizing quick cuts and graphics, GSK completely renovated the way to communicate an issue. These educational videos create brand awareness with an up and coming young demographic.

3. Influence Buyer Decisions: If you want to acquire customers and influence buyer decisions, you have to go where the eyeballs are; in 2016, that is online. People don’t want to read long editorials or blogs. They want their information with the click of the button and they want it conveyed in an entertaining, captivating fashion. They’re also getting information in different ways than ever before. People are going to YouTube and Facebook for their news, scrolling through Instagram for entertainment, and getting almost all of their information through their mobile devices. The Pharmaceutical industry has an opening in the market and an opportunity to influence buyer decisions by using persuasive and compelling videos across mobile-friendly platforms. Videos should be optimized for mobile phones, tablets, and iPads, and live across all social platforms as well as a company's website to elevate customer acquisition.

While optimizing for all these platforms can be laborious and time consuming, it’s stretches the use of any one video.  At Concepts Video, we specialize in optimizing videos across all platforms with our editing team.  Instead of only getting a few thousand videos on one platform, with our “Social Media Edit Package,” we optimize your video for each platform to ensure proper viewing and expand the video’s reach beyond the normal commercial’s reach.

 

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4. Non-Audio Video: We’re not talking about black and white videos made before “talkies.”  We’re talking about creating video content that can be viewed without sound on a Facebook or Instagram feed.  Many viral videos are made with eye-catching scenes and simple, yet educational subtitles.  These videos are great for viewers to watch while on their commute to work or in an area where audio cannot be used.  This format pairs perfectly with Facebook’s new automatic video feed.  Once a user watches one video, another is queued and starts automatically after the first.  This automatic player is great for video ads as users tend to watch video ads as much as viral videos.  These sound-free videos are shared easily and can generate millions of organic views.

5. Make it Professional: With the rise of video content, your videos need to stand out from the rest. You need to hire a professional production company that can properly light, hire talent, and edit your story so that it clearly conveys your message without being distracted by poor production quality. When an individual reads a brochure, he or she only retains 10 percent of the information 72 hours later, according to Business 2 Community. In video's case, the retention rate is 68 percent. Everyone retains information more easily through visuals. Johnson & Johnson’s YouTube channel is filled with entertaining, informative, and professional videos. Their “Distinctly Dad” film has almost 1,000,000 views on YouTube and places the Johnson & Johnson in households without yelling and selling.

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6. Turns a Story into Conversion: How can a Pharmaceutical company connect with their customers without alienating them online? By including a story! How can your company become relatable? When GlaxoSmithKline created their YouTube channel, GSKvision, they loaded their channel with patient stories and short films offering nutritional and wellness advice. By sharing real life user testimonials, they are able to share the benefit of the product and the story behind it, and thus, earn the valuable trust of their consumers.  This alternative method of gaining consumers can pay limitless dividends as entertaining and emotional stories will be shared and watched organically.

7. Stop Selling, Start Educating: Having a clear call to action at the end of a video will drive traffic and sales to your website, but it must be done in a non “yell and sell” fashion. Consumers are weary of buy now buttons and can see right through an overzealous sell. By displaying concise, targeted, entertaining video that is short in length, Pharmaceutical companies can drive traffic to other parts of their website, acquire email addresses, and build lifelong customers. The world of online video means that Pharmaceutical companies need to take an informational and educational approach and stay away from the sales pitch.

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8. Video Annotations: When creating a video, it’s important for Pharmaceutical companies to overlay clickable text on a YouTube video to give the viewer easy access to a website or other pertinent information to keep the viewer fully engaged. Renovate products, special offers, frequently asked questions, and interactive links to keep articles fresh. Even better, include an email capture to capture precious email addresses and interact with customers. One of the most searched topics on YouTube is “How-to” videos.  Many companies like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline,  and Eli Lilly have developed themselves as influencers by generating free informational videos for their users. These videos build trust with users and generate more brand awareness.

9. Build Customer Service Through Content: Let’s face it, between all of the news stories and television advertisements, it is hard for consumers to fully trust Pharmaceutical companies. There is one way to change that – through video. There is a new way to build customer service and that is through content.  When made in an entertaining way, video allows businesses to have a conversation with their user.  There is a new way to build customer service and that is through content. Provide your customers with pertinent, helpful information and you will have a place in their hearts and their wallets.  Make it easy for users to find answers to new products with simple “How-to” videos.  Users are more likely to watch a “how-to” video from the manufacturing company than another user.  Eliminating any confusion and headaches will make a happy and loyal customer.   

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10. Shareable: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Sharing is the new word of mouth marketing. By creating an engaging, entertaining, and informational video for viewers, they can easily share this video with their friends. Instead of spending precious ad dollars on television, creating a viral video can organically reach millions. When Concepts produced a video for the product Woof Washer, we placed the video on Facebook. Because of its jaw-dropping demos, the Internet went crazy over. It was shared so quickly that in a week’s period, the video was viewed over 66 million times. Pharmaceutical companies have an opportunity to create videos that users will share with their friends, boosting their organic reach and unpaid acquired customers.

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All photos from https://pixabay.com/

 

 

Sources

 

Brafton. “Survey Says: Marketers Increase Social & Video Content Budget.” 16 April 2013. http://www.brafton.com/news/survey-says-marketers-increase-social-video-content-budgets/

 

“Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2014-2019 White Paper.”

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.html

 

Long, Courtland. “Why Video is a Compelling Pharmaceutical Marketing Tool.” Oct 8, 2013. http://news.medterasolutions.com/integrated-marketing/why-video-is-a-compelling-pharmaceutical-marketing-tool

 

Trimble, Chris. “Why online video is the future of content marketing.” The Guardian. 30 July 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/jan/14/video-content-marketing-media-online

 

“Video in the C-Suite: Executives Embrace the Non-Text Web.” Forbes. http://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/Video_in_the_CSuite.pdf

 

 

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