How wrong I was.

We arrived in Shanghai after an 11 hour flight – which always leaves you feeling a bit worse for wear, greeted by customs who took one look at our 9 flight cases full of filming equipment and immediately pulled us over. As usual I presented the correct paperwork to allow the kit through, but for one reason or another, they weren’t having it…. Ugh! So several hours later and after leaving a rather LARGE deposit, we were through…

Drving through Shanghai was a complete eye opener, even for us who had had no sleep, it truly was a sight to see. Though smoggy, you could see the sheer size of the place. Astounding architecture, and swarming with people at every turn.

We arrive in Wuxi – a large industrial town 2 hours north of Shanghai where we are due to start filming the next day and we are in the most wonderful hotel (Millenium). Don’t get me started on the computerised toilets there – there was about 30 buttons on them and the only one I could work out was the heated seat – wonderful!

We venture out to have a look around, and saw this couple on their modified motorcycle, normally these are piled high, but this must have been after delivery. The speed they go at is really quite extraordinary! And did I mention that scooters are on the pavement!? Yup – You are not safe anywhere!

Ventured out for some food – which was to die for, but prior to that a much needed Tsing Tao Beer was calling..

As you can see from James and Sarahs face, we still hadn’t had any sleep…. Zzzzz

Language barriers were interesting, Wuxi is not a touristy area at all, and very few people bar the hotel staff speak any English. We got by with a great app from Lonely Planet – I truly recommend it if you are going abroad, its about the only one that works., its about £6 but got us through!

The next few days we were filming at the clients premises, which was great, very different from their UK premises, but I don’t want to go on about that, I’ll tell you more about Wuxi J

Waiting for a truck to go through frame – again this took a while due to the er… language barriers!

Wuxi is famous for Xihiu Park, which should you go to Wuxi, I highly recommend, though bring walking boots, it’s a huge park, but as you can see from the picture it truly is stunning.

We met this lady who was fascinated by what we were doing there with this enormous camera! She was a cleaner at the park (of which there are many) She gave us a lovely smile so I couldn’t resist snapping her.

My overall opinion of Wuxi – and filming there, were that we were lucky to see the real China, the China that you don’t see in the big cities. People were so friendly (generally) our hotel was amazing, and the food was to DIE for.

choc pud with jasmine ice cream

the BEST tempura vegetables I have ever had – I don’t know what half of them were!

 local fish called Sweet Fish – seems to be a river fish… we think…

I also bought an array of trinkets for my friends and loved ones, all ranged from about 50p to £3 – and they are ace!

 an array of purchases

the pure randomness of some of the things they sell are brilliant.

I was so happy that this place well surpassed my expectations. Yes its smoggy, and yes you risk your life with the mopeds, and there is a lot of poverty in China, but overall, my first stop in Wuxi – was amazing…

Next we are on to Shanghai and Chong Ming Island, but I’ll leave it there for now.

See ya,

Heather

Producer, And Productions.Limited

2. BRAND BUILDING
Everyone knows that the internet is great for direct response advertising. The ability to measure the performance of online advertising through impressions, click-throughs and conversions means it’s easy for advertisers to optimise campaigns and maximise ROI. However, advertisers are also discovering that online is a hugely effective brand advertising tool. As a result, brand advertising online has grown by roughly 200% between 2008 and 2010.

The advent of online video advertising in the form of pre and post roll ads around video content has provided advertisers with the type of opportunities for brand-based advertising normally associated with TV. Coupled with this, the massively impactful new display advertising formats such as custom backgrounds, billboards and half page skyscrapers, mean that brands can create amazing adverts online that they haven’t previously been able to ex- ecute. The combination of these factors means that online display advertising is changing. It isn’t necessarily about generating an initial response but is more focused on building brand awareness and driving purchase intent.

3. RELEVANCE
The internet allows you to customise advertising more effectively than any other advertising medium, enabling brands to reach the audience that is most likely to be interested in their products or services. Examples include:
• ‘Contextual’ – related to what you are specifically looking at or for
• ‘Demographic’ – an age bracket or a particular region
• ‘Content’ – around a specific piece of content such as video
• ‘Behavioural’ – based upon previous interests / preferences
• ‘Location-based’ – where you are at that moment in time
Two thirds of advertisers using this type of customised advertising believe that it performs better than advertising that was not customised. 

4. CREATIVITY
Online offers advertisers a limitless creative canvas. Back in the day of the notorious “12k gif banner” this may not have seemed to be the case as there were lots of restrictions – from the physical space, to the amount of anima- tion, and even the number of colours you could use. Yet in just a few years, the very technology that makes the in- ternet a living, breathing, ever-evolving platform – together with some clever minds – has created a rich landscape of digital disciplines.
And perhaps the best bit about online, is that it fits into consumers’ lives like no other medium – on the commute, at work, at home, on the plane and even on the beach.

5.  ENGAGEMENT
If we were a brand, looking for true, lasting love, we’d use online.
Why? Because it’s got great chat up skills. It’s more than just sound and vision. It’s interactive and utterly dynamic. It’s contextual and real-time so it can really deliver its line. And once it’s got your attention, online works hard us- ing those skills to keep you engaged, offering you not only choice of format but choice of how deeply you want to participate.
For example, here’s our brand new product. You can read about it, watch the 60-second video demo, beta test it before anyone else or ask questions about the product direct to the people that invented it.

6. SOCIAL
When you consider that TV advertising has been around for more than 25 years and radio advertising 70 years you begin to realise that digital is still in its infancy. And yet since the internet began its spectacular rise to promi- nence in the early 90s, online has found its feet in no time with over 40m active UK users.
Part of online’s success is down to its inherent sociability which has universally changed the way we behave. You can have a water cooler conversation whenever and wherever you want you can look up a new restaurant and in seconds scan dozens of reviews. And when you’ve experienced something mind-blowing you can share it with friends, family and frankly, the world – all at the tap of a touchscreen. All this has led to us as a nation, spending a massive quarter of our online time on social networks.

7. ACCOUNTABILITY
On top of all the brand measures used in traditional media, online offers a vast array of consumer touch points which can tell you about consumer behaviour, your campaign’s effect and the return on investment (ROI) of almost every pound you spend.
An online advertising campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk in 2010 was able to show a delivery of 30 million ad impressions, reaching 6 million unique users (10% of the entire UK population).

8. INTERACTIVITY
The internet is both a push and pull medium that lets people click, type, talk, film and drag their way around web- sites, emails and other online services. And even better, it allows advertisers to directly respond and interact with their customers.
Interactivity makes for an incredibly engaging, immersive experience for consumers. Online display adverts can deliver a brand message, but they can also offer much more – e.g. forms to collect customer details, video clips, games and even shopping functionality.
The only limit to online interactivity is your imagination and the imagination of your consumers.

9. REAL-TIME
Unlike any other medium, the internet lets you see results as they happen and adjust your activity in real time. This unique ability is unbelievably powerful, yet so simple to use. Whether you’re using online display advertising, search, email or social media, you can launch a campaign and see the reaction of consumers within minutes.
Online’s real time nature is a revolution in marketing that’s engrained into every aspect of the medium.

10. MOBILE
Year on year, mobile continues to flourish. Indeed the usage of the mobile internet in the UK grew at the fastest rate on record in 2010. As of May 2011, 21.3m people used the mobile internet each month and 19.8m used apps. Mobile media has become a part of daily life, with the average mobile media user reaching for their phone 18 times a day – and this doesn’t even include calls and text! 30% of overall Google restaurant searches were made via the mobile internet.
Importantly, not only are consumers surfing on their mobile, but they are also actually buying.

What a lot of sense… want to talk more about your brand awareness & engagement online, get in touch.

Hannah – Production Manager, And Productions
Sources – iab (Internet Advertising Bureau UK)

And Productions has worked professionally with charities over the years from Mental Health to Helpless Animals. This year Heather set a goal for And Productions to make a contribution to a cause to make a difference.

I am fortunate enough to have a Mother who has devoted her time over the last 10 years to working directly with the needy and underprivileged far and wide, from Kosovo to Bulgaria and primarily the last 8 years in Uganda. After conversations with Heather we concluded that it would be amazing if we could go straight to the source so to speak. So we formulated a strategy for me to travel to Uganda sponsored by And Productions to give my time to work with the girls of Wakisa Pregnancy Crisis Centre. Having trained as a Doula in 2007 and watched my Mum make an impact on the girls’ lives it was just right!  Whilst there we will be stringently taking note of what is really needed in the financial sense too. Sadly last year there was a fire in the dormitory so I know there will be lots we can help with.

A little background on the centre: Wakisa was created in 2005 by Vivian Kityo and her passion for young women with unwanted pregnancies in Uganda.  In Uganda abortion is a criminal offence, however an unmarried pregnant girl is often outcast by their family and society, regardless of whether the pregnancy was forced upon them through abuse (and often is). Having seen the destruction and death as a Nurse that illegal abortions can do, Vivian vowed to help these young women learn how to birth, be a mother and for many get them sponsored back into school. Ultimately providing them with a much brighter future for them and their children.

I will be documenting my time in Uganda with photographs and a video diary to help raise awareness of the cause and improve the lives of the girls who really do deserve better.

Last year I used the mighty force of social media in the form of Facebook to collect maternity clothes for the Centre as most of the girls turn up only in the clothes on their back. Mum took them out to Uganda with the free extra luggage allowance obtained through British Airways. Here is an awesome image of the girls donning the donated clothes.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you.

If you are interested in finding out more about Wakisa feel free to get in touch! 

Hannah Walker – Production Manager

We thought we’d start with Mr Beckham….

Launched in America at the very end of January, the ad is now boasting 2,848,202 hits on Youtube. I think the advert speaks for itself… tighty whiteys and nice tats…. subtle yet powerful!

Ecotricity had us smiling in the And office… such a simple yet effective advert! Animating the tumbling power stations… the music certainly adds to the mood and what better way to help make your video go viral… Facebook link the last shot…

Britain Loves – T-Mobile

A genius little number by Saatchi & Saatchi. The year for Britain, with the Olympics almost here and the Queens Jubilee it’s time to love your country. We love the video viral mention of “FENTON” in the commercial too, just goes to show how quickly something can go viral… if you haven’t seen it, search Fenton on youtube. Back to The Full Monty, check this out…

In March we saw the Guiness “Round Up Your Mates” add receive the most amount of shares in March with 147,180 shares. A great homage to St Patricks Day…

I wanted to end on The Guardian viral campaign of the debate into the story of the Three Little Pigs… very clever and shows in great detail, how much social media can sway opinions and turn stories around in a matter of hours not just here in the UK but worldwide. It is also showcasing the medium across phones, tablets, newspapers and computers… its mobile and instant… Brilliant!

I hope you enjoyed those as much as we did researching it! What is your favourite ad of the year so far? If you’d like to ramp up your ad campaign and increase your SEO, drop us an email to find out how And can help you.

Hannah – Production Manager, And Productions

Sources – Youtube, iab (Internet Advertising Bureau UK)

The Charity

Care for and rehome over 5,500 animals including the introduction of rehoming ex-battery chickens in 2008. With three sites, Heydon, London and 52 acres in Godmanchester, it’s vision is of a world where all pets are well cared for in loving homes for life.

Challenge

Create a 30 second tv ad which will initially be used over the Christmas period to run as an integral part of the Hungry Mouths campaign. Increasing the number of new donors and income to the charity by recruiting donors directly via the tv advert and enhancing responses to other fundraising activities.

Key Considerations

• Budgetary Constraints
• Television advertising guidelines
• Portraying emotion without causing upset

Solution

The below heart-felt appeal advert ran for three weeks on ITV in the lead up to Christmas, during day time television. Featuring animals from the centre to keep within budget by not using trained animal actors or expensive locations.

Results

• Big increase in legacy donations
• Regular donors
• One off donors

This was the first time Wood Green had done anything like this and a big step for them as a charity. We’re so pleased they’ve directly benefited from it and they can continue to help and care for the 750 animals they have at one time. They have no government funding and rely completely on donations.

“Working with And Productions has been a great experience. They understood the needs of our advert and captured what we wanted perfectly, the end result being an advert that looks great and works exactly how we need it to. Professional, experienced and very friendly, we would be very happy to have And Productions work on our filming needs in the future”

Rosie – Wood Green, The Animal Charity.

Now, the ad campaign I’m featuring on the blog today has very little to do with the product the ads are selling, this is important. No matter what your company sells or what service they provide, an interesting and memorable ad campaign can be produced and be successful. The key message here is to have faith in the production company, don’t play it safe with videos explaining your product… you want your message to be shared and watched by many… so have some fun… it works!

The first in the series of the Foster’s Good Call ads:

Every single one makes me laugh. Each one has been shared and posted online. I tried to research how many hits they get but there are SO MANY videos of the same adverts on Youtube it is an impossible task. I think I’ve upped Foster’s SEO in a one woman mission to find some stats alone! There is a Brad & Dan Facebook page as well as spoof videos of the adverts on Youtube and even Jimmy Carr & Alan Carr did a Comedy Gala special of the infamous Suncream one… Budgie Smugglers – pure comedy.

Some background on the adverts: Foster’s parent company Heineken UK hired a new firm after the Saatchi group had made many Fosters adverts over the past 14 years and invented tag lines such as ‘Get some Australian in you’ and ‘Drink Australian, think Australian’.

Despite being impressed with Saatchi and the ads, the campaigns were only of limited success as they did not do enough to raise the profile of the drink and in turn the profitability. This lack of return was the primary catalyst for the switch.

The success of the adverts aren’t just down to the comedy value but the themes of the jokes are observational, the viewer can relate to having “been there” at some point, especially the target audience of 20-30 something year old males. Dan & Brad are depicted as stereotypical Aussie lads but they are Likeable and this has been a key triumph for the campaign.

To round up, I think my favourite is the haircut one… FIT! or the suncream dilemma… oh and Space Invader! you see it’s hard to chose… which is yours?

Hannah – Business Development & Production Manager, And Productions

Thinking of braving a change in your marketing? Give us a shout to find out how And can advise you further.

Sources: Youtube, Fosters.co.uk, regionalfoodanddrink.co.uk

I wanted to submit some thought provocation today, starting with the Social Media Revolution and the Rise of the Virals (as in Video!). I’ve been doing some research and the facts speak for themselves really, here are 10 that I felt the need to share…

1. 50% of the world‘s population is under 30 (ahem, that is moi included….just)this shows the importance of having a cutting edge marketing strategy.

2. If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world. Quickest way to reach a vast audience, no?

3. Online video viewers will reach 169.3 million this year

4. Visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not.

5. Mobile video viewers will reach 54.6 million in 2012

6. 93% of marketers use social media for business.

7.  Video results appear in about 70% of the top 100 listings, the type of content most often displayed in universal or blended search results.

8. 53.5% of the population and 70.8% of internet users (up 7.1% from 2011) willwatch online video in 2012

9. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

10. Smartphone video viewers will reach 51.2 million this year.

It certainly got me thinking this morning, what about you!? Give us a shout to find out how And can advise you further.

Hannah – Business Development & Production Manager, And Productions

Sources – Hubspot Inbound Internet Marketing, Internet Retailer, Marketingweek

With Hannah joining the And Team last week, we thought it only right to give her a good grilling so that you could learn a little more about her. So we put a few questions to her and this is what she said:

Absolutely! ha! Seriously though, I love movies, film, images, everything visual. I used to be a Video Conferencing consultant so understand the importance of video in business, whether that’s for meetings or for fantastic marketing, it is most definitely the way forward. The big thing for me was to make the jump from the 9-5 rat race and switch to a more creatively challenging environment. Oh and Heather makes a mean rack of ribs

I’ve been working in a sales & business development environment for years and the last couple of years I played a key part in marketing too. Writing content for websites, email shots, promotions & events. I’m also a Professional Photographer and run my own business Casey Avenue Photography.

Over the years I’ve had lots to say! I started up a website when I was maternity leave with my daughter and wrote a couple of blogs. I also wrote for a top national parenting website and had featured articles in magazines and newspapers. Social media has gone nuts over the last 6-7 years and will always be a huge tool asset to me in whatever I do.

The beautiful steel toe capped shoes that Heather kindly lent me for the last shoot in a factory… bang on trend!

Besides the shoes…It’s always different! meeting different people on site talking to them about what we’re doing so they feel comfortable having us there with our kit. I love the way the And team bounce off each other with ideas, we help each other out and get the job done good!

That’s such a hard one to pinpoint! True Romance is awesome I love the content of the quotes by Clarence & Alabama you can tell it’s Tarantino! I once dressed as Alabama for a Quentin Tarantino themed Halloween party!

I’m not a girly girl, never been one for lotions and potions but I have recently succumbed to Soap and Glory… I was drawn in initially to the Sexy Mother Plucker lip gloss, then The Righteous Body Butter and even loving the You Won’t Believe Your Eyes cream for eye bags!It’s the cool names, fun graphics and actually the products do what they say!

Some are awful aren’t they?! I absolutely love the current Foster’s series, in particular the Haircut, Suncream and Space Invader ones (is that all of them?! ha! FIT! Oh and the ikea advert “You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties” very clever marketing, almost like observational comedy, people connect with it because we all know the party is always in the kitchen!

I’m about 2/3′s of the way through I think the sixth book in the Roy Grace series by Peter James “Dead Man’s Grip” very good.

We need to talk about Kevin… I watched it on Box Office the other night after reading the book. It’s a bit screwy but I like a film that makes your mind work. Definitely worth a watch and definitely read the book too.

Its been a hectic couple of weeks here at And hence no blogs for a while!

We have been doing some research into the latest statistics for online video marketing – looking at the benefits to our clients and thought it only fair really to share this with you guys. Our findings have been astounding.

When And was created back in 2009, we knew that there was a huge market for online film, and we could see it growing. What we didnt anticipate, was how much it would grow.

FACT: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL are among the hundreds of search engines that give   priority listings to websites that host video content. In addition to this, you can build in ‘tags’ on the video and this enhances it’s potential on the internet.

FACT: The number of people viewing video on mobile devices has increased 66 percent in the past year to 12.1 million mobile consumers across the EU5 countries (U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy).

FACT: 5.5 billion videos were watched in the UK in February 2010.

FACT: In March 2009, 80.1 percent of the total UK Internet audience viewed online video.

FACT: More than 27.4 million UK Internet users (78% of the total UK Internet audience) viewed 3.2 billion videos online in June 2008.

FACT: In 2008, 16.46 million UK households had Internet access. This represented 65 per cent of households and an increase of 1.23 million households since 2007.

FACT: Almost 85 million viewers (84.8 to be exact) watched 4.3 billion videos (Thats “B’ as in BILLION!) on YouTube, alone!

FACT: Viral video marketing campaigns increase clickthrough rates by 750%.

FACT: 68% of people who watch online videos, will in turn, pass links for these videos onto their friends…turning them into viral traffic machines.

FACT: More than 65% of the people who watch online videos are between the ages of 35 and 64 (and 67% of these folks earn middle to high incomes).

Really fascinating isn’t  it!? Give us a shout to find out how And can advise you further.

Cheers,

Heather- Producer, And Productions Limited.

Sources: MarketingExperiments.com, November 2006, comScore, 2008 – 2010 and National Statistics Office

If you’ve been on Facebook over the last few days then you’ll have no doubt seen the latest craze sweeping through the social media platform; ‘The Museum of Me’. This very clever little interactive campaign has been designed by Intel to promote their new Core i5 processor.

The app invites you to create your own virtual museum of your social life. Upon connecting to Facebook (where you will have to agree to allow the app access to all of your personal data) the application pulls a broad range of information: friends, likes, wall posts, videos etc, and loads them into a beautifully designed virtual museum of you.

The result: A 3 minute video tour through your museum, taking you through rooms which display different elements of your social media life. It’s quite strange to see your social media persona displayed so well, with your friends photos neatly displayed on the museum walls, and a video wall of you likes and status updates, but we have to say this is a beautiful example of a very clever tool.

You can create your own museum here, one thing we will say is although this is one of the best promotions that utilises Facebook integrations we’ve come across, we wonder how many of the end users will really think ‘Intel Core i5, that’s the processor for me!’ after seeing it….