Screencult meet and greet

I had a brief chat with Ben Mourra of Screencult yesterday, specifically to discuss their Traction offering, a trailer for which I have embedded below.

On the basis of what Ben told me - and I haven't looked into the history of the company - it is a full-fledged film production company that has been increasingly moving into the corporate sphere in recent years and months, while still making advertising and music videos like the one below.

As we have frequently written on this blog, video is an increasingly powerful and cost-effective way of reaching an audience, educating and changing minds. In Screencult's world, this development is slowly spilling into the Powerpoint-dominated culture of business, where minds are easier to change than behaviour.

Until now, the traditional approach to a meeting is to spend the first 45 minutes of a one-hour meeting plodding through a long "deck", leaving time for a quick Q&A to follow. This is boring, and it is a one-way street rather than a conversation - doesn't the word "meeting" imply a conversation? Ben and Screencult take a different approach, engaging conversation with a 5-minute video featuring genuine people with a real, practical message. The idea is to raise talking points rather than give fixed answers and tell people what they want to hear. The rest of the meeting will then follow the format of a TV discussion show (thik Kilroy), where the mike is passed around from mouth to mouth. The results: Better understanding and greater engagement. Bingo!

Of course, video has many other more high-profile uses. Everyone wants to make the next "viral" video, which might be the first port of call for a company like Screencult. Interestingly, Ben said he first saw the potential of taking video into the meeting room after working with Laurence on a project - commissioned by a big-four firm - to find out why people were leaving. This kind of work requires you to "wear a suit, rather than turn up in ripped jeans and a T-shirt", as Ben put it.

Screencult offers the full gamut of traditional film production services, including a green-screen (fixed and portable), scriptwriters, editing suites, animation, portable cameras, as well as workshops associated with the content they generate. It (almost) goes without saying that they can also build websites and host content themselves, like this: http://www.screenculttraction.com/invensys/l1/subjects

Finally, here are some Screencult client testimonials - in video form, of course:

Libraries are the new Old Spice

The Old Spice guy, and even his excellent video responses to members of the public on Twitter (see below), are old news. How do we know that? Because a library has taken the ad and made it its own. You know, one of those houses where they keep old books that no one ever reads because of the Internet. So, if dorky libraries are going for the image revamp that tired old Old Spice has had, anything is possible. That's because we're all on the Internet, which is bad if you are a library.

Nothing beats hunger quite like it

The video above is an illustration of the old adage that less is indeed more, particularly when it comes to advertising in the multimedia age. As the makers of the Nothing campaign (empty cans sold in supermarkets) explain, the idea is perfect for the multimedia age:

Nothing is an empty can. It’s also an unexpected way to achieve the objective set out to us by the Rhode Island Community Food Bank – to engage a younger audience and drive online donations. You might think that an assignment whose purpose was to drive on-line traffic would result in a hyper “Web 3.0″ approach centered around viral, geo-located, mobile, augmented-reality gaming or whatever the latest trendy web trend is. But it’s not. And it’s certainly not the typical guilt-them-into-a-donation with needy-kid imagery approach.

Instead, the heart of this campaign is entirely analog. A can. 19th century technology. Its profundity is that it gets you at the moment you are connecting with the sources of your own meals. This is a brand of non-food, sitting right next to the iced coffee server and the green beans.

Every can purchased puts ten pounds of nourishing food on your neighbors’ plates. Which makes this can more than a can. It’s an opportunity to do something. Proceeds support the Rhode Island Food Bank, so for now: Nothing is only available throughout our home state. Any marketeer who knows how hard it is to get shelf space for new products – even for existing national brands – will appreciate the efforts it took to get 130 retail locations throughout Rhode Island to participate. I half expect to find it on eBay any minute now.

It certainly has scarcity value... Get your fill at nothing.org.

The thinning line between marketing and customer service

Is Rory Sutherland talking about marketing and perception, or adding value through a closer, more honest relationship with customers?

It's a lot to take in and discuss, but the basic tenet is summed up in this Harvard Business Journal entry on ethical capital:

Economists define many different kinds of capital "stocks." They're different kinds of assets, that shape what business models and strategies are possible in the first place. Today's capital stocks aren't enough to power the shift from mere business to betterness, from pushing mass-made "product" to mattering in human terms. You can think of ethical capital as the stock of techniques, tools, and practices not just for creating value, but for defining and refining values, that an economy possesses.

In other words, the 21st century economy is powered by innovative people, not machines churning out mass-produced goods. And when those people come to the fore, closer dialogue with customers is inevitable.

Why KitKat Jesus leaves me feeling queezy

Viral marketing is fine, but whether people like it or not depends to some extent on their goodwill towards the product in question. And KitKat doesn't have a whole lot of consumer goodwill right now - KitKats kill orangutans, remember. But that's not all, the nature of the message counts, too. By duping the press and Photoshopping the face of Jesus on half a KitKat, what is Nestlé saying about its attitude to customers?

I'm not quite sure if they are saying anything, but when serious questions are being asked about its ethical record, isn't this type of cynical "PR stunt" just another attempt to sweep the orangutan fingers under carpet? What's more, releasing a "making of" documentary using the word "PR stunt" makes the dangerous assumption that there is no such thing as bad publicity. KitKats kill orangutans, remember.

P.S.: For another angle, read this article on how the campaign shows viral will kill off traditional advertising. 

Greenpeace builds "Twitwall" outside Nestlé offices

Right NOW, you can write a tweet containing the word "Nestlé" and it will appear on the Twitwall outside Nestlé headquarters where the company's shareholders are meeting. To see the messages as they come in, click here.

For more on why Nestlé is bad, read our previous post. And click this link to see why Nestlé's real problem is customer relations.

iPad blender delivers the last word in online advertising

This video has been seen over 5 million times. Here's why:

• It's current and newsworthy - everyone is talking about the iPad
• Apple fans cringe at their favorite product being demolished (4,237 of them have pressed dislike to date)
• Non-Apple fans love seeing Apple products being demolished
• It's hilarious
• Internet culture loves wanton destruction
• It's a pastiche of slick TV advertising
• Tom Dickson has a wonderfully cheesy smile that makes you want to watch it again
• The video is easy to share and embed on blogs like this

Now ask yourself: Do you want this cool product? Of course you do! More than an iPad? Maybe not.