Category: nature

Introduction

The Convention and Visitors Bureau in our area launched a promo video through YouTube on 9 December 2015. Within 24 hours it already had over 10,000 views. About a week later, the views were over 25,000 with a 98% satisfaction ratio.

The featured song and theme is “Great Big Storm” by Nate Ruess which conveys the abundance and diversity that comes together in Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, and surrounding area. Further commentary is below.

Enjoy and share!

Broad Use and Application

The video is a great resource for employers, businesses, educators, realtors, web designers, and anyone wanting to share a glimpse of the opportunities in this area.

The YouTube version embeds nicely and looks great on just about any platform. The Vimeo version is also excellent.

A Non-Profit Community Resource

This is a ‘first of its kind’ project that’s receiving national attention (see the visitor map below).

Most videos of this quality and scope are developed for a narrow purpose with a specific business or commercial purpose in mind. This video was produced as a service to the entire community and made available free of charge.

With it’s general branding, this video is a valuable community asset that can be embedded on social media or websites for a variety of purposes.

Community Videos Done Right

Think about this… In just about any metropolitan area, hundreds of businesses, organizations, non-profits, groups, and individuals could conceivable have need for a generic video like this one.

Rather than have all of them independently contract with a firm to produce such a video, it really makes sense for a public interest organization (like the Convention and Visitors Bureau) to help facilitate the production of such a video.

It enhances the way people view our community, and that benefits everyone. To the extent that businesses want to enhance their brand image, a video like this one helps achieve that.

About the Producers

The video was a community collaborative project guided by the skilled team at DPD Productions. You can visit DPD Productions on Vimeo to view their recent portfolio of work consisting of 90 professional videos. Follow DPD Productions on Facebook for the latest news.

Best Practices

This video sets a standard for how to produce a high quality metropolitan area welcome video. For producers, here are some elements to make note of:

• Activities and Movement. The video predominantly features people engaged in activities, rather than footage of things.
• Broad Use.  In any video like this one, some people will feel left out wondering why one restaurant or golf course is featured rather than another. The think to remember is that a video like this one is presenting a few highlights from the area. It’s not an ad for any particular business. If anything, it’s an ad for an entire metropolitan area. Given the mix of video images, the average viewer isn’t going to walk away from the video with a particular business in mind. They will have an overall impression about an area. That’s the goal.
• Diversity. One of the mistakes made when producing video or print materials is that the resulting content is narrowly representative of whoever is producing it. Their close circle is represented rather than the community being represented. Diversity is either forgotten about, or there’s an awkward over-compensation that results in a dozen friends depicted with each person of a distinct and different nationality or race. This video strikes the right balance or presenting organic representative diversity that is reflective of what a person would experience when visiting the area.
• Contextual Aerial Views. When presenting a broader metropolitan area, it’s helpful to cut from wide open shots to closeups. This offers context. To achieve overhead visuals, tall poles can be used (like a big selfie stick). When combined with being on a truck, and using image stabilization, it’s possible to create a floating effect. Drones can also be used, but certain regulations and safety guidelines must be followed. This video was produced by professionals very experienced with drone flight who followed the best practices with regard to their operation.
• Great Music. The music used in any promotional video is a very important part of setting the mood. The Great Big Storm song featured in this video is upbeat, positive, and uplifting. This helps create a context for the overall message.
• Open Branding. Imagine getting to the end of an amazing movie, and having no credits scroll by. That would be impossible, right? There’s usually a list of a hundred people who want credit for their contribution to a project. So, it takes a lot of setting egos aside to create a video with no specific business recognition. Yet, this is very important for any video to be used broadly and effectively by everyone.
• Real People – Not Actors. One thing you’ll notice about the video is that while some of it seems to have been planned, the footage is not staged. It’s mostly taken from actual events and features real people, not paid professional actors who have been brought in from somewhere else. This results in a real genuineness and sincerity that is conveyed through the video. It’s particularly important in this video, since genuineness and sincerity is part of the message.

Video Views

Below is the view trend for the video in the first week after launch, beginning with 10,000 views at 24 hours after launch.