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Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar gives a two-minute look at the Chamber’s 2018 legislative priorities for the Indiana General Assembly session. Read more about the nine priorities, along with other key areas of focus here.
This commentary, written by Indiana Chamber VP Rebecca Patrick, originally appeared on Inside INdiana Business.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, exactly what is a video worth? That’s a question more and more organizations have been asking in the last few years.
We’ve all seen something “go viral” on YouTube and make its way around social media and even the traditional news. And the frequency of business emails with video content continues to rise – and with good reason: Consumer surveys reveal those emails are noticeably more effective.
The list goes on and on about the emergence and power of video messaging, whether it’s used for external marketing or rallying the troops inside your company. The population in general – thanks to continued technology advances – is increasingly more visual in how it wants to receive information.
In 2014, the Indiana Chamber opted to devote space in its office to a video studio. We built it with three types of communications in mind: 1) messages to our 17,000 members and investors; 2) public policy advocacy to a broad, public audience and 3) media-ready footage.
The studio was possible for us – and for other businesses our size – because the equipment prices have come down to meet the demands of the masses who want to film videos for webcasts and more. So a suitable video camera, lighting equipment, teleprompter and accessories for our studio were quite affordable.
But before we made that leap, we did our homework. We talked to member companies in the communications/marketing field and to videographers to make sure our studio would be capable of doing what we wanted.
Over the last 18 months, the Indiana Chamber has produced more than 50 videos – ranging from legislative calls to action and television commentaries to event promotions and membership testimonials.
Tom Easterday, our current chairman of the board of directors who is executive vice president at Subaru of Indiana Automotive Inc. in Lafayette, believes video messaging is “effective for communicating with a lot of different generations; it can be used as part of social media, as part of your web site and direct communication.”
At Subaru, Easterday films various videos – many for internal use.
“Frequently we will have messages we will need to get out to our associates before it breaks in the press or before the rumor mill starts. We’ve found that having our own in-house closed-circuit television system and utilizing video allows us to get the same message out to all of our associates at the same time. It’s a very valuable communications tool in that regard,” he explains.
“It helps us be more effective in getting associates to understand what is happening, and gets their buy-in and cooperation regarding whatever the next move is we need to make as a company… It’s a very clear message instead of hearing it second or third hand, or via written communication, which may or may not be read.”
Subaru has also used video to maximize the time of its dealers and suppliers. The company produced a five-minute video introduction on the plant when dealers from across the United States were arriving with limited time on their hands. A virtual tour of the facility is also available on the company web site.
Easterday says videos are a welcome option for material that is “very difficult to put into print or would be tedious to read on a web site.”
He also encourages companies to not dismiss video production out of concern over price.
“There are a lot of companies out there that do them so you can shop around, or we have our own internal videographer. That can definitely cut the cost down,” Easterday shares. “But if you shop around and ask the communications companies to provide you samples of their work, they will do that.”
Over the holidays, a video went viral showing complete negligence by a FedEx employee, just tossing a computer monitor over a fence rather than properly delivering the item. See that video below, as well as the company’s response, which has been viewed rather positively by communications critics.
If you paid attention to the news at all in Indianapolis last week, most likely you’ve heard about the “Indy Super Bowl Shuffle” video and surrounding hullabaloo.
I vaguely remembered a co-worker saying something about a “Super Bowl Shuffle,” but in all honesty didn’t pay attention – I’ve never actually seen the original. I was born the year the thing came out, am not a Chicago Bears fan and have never apparently been bored enough to look it up on YouTube.
The Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association (ICVA) created a parody video called the “Indy Super Bowl Shuffle” to demonstrate all of the city’s hotels and amenities. An article in Thursday’s Indianapolis Star said the video was created to attract meeting planners who are headed to Chicago for some big tradeshow. And, apparently on the level of attracting these planners to take a look here, it worked – at least one is now considering Indianapolis for a big convention.
But after an apparent backlash from Internet-goers, the ICVA took down the video from YouTube (though it’s back up now and linked at the bottom of this blog). I’ve read some of the comments posted and most are just downright mean and nasty. Someone even took the time to make a Facebook page petitioning to take the video down.
Finally, I got the chance to watch the five-minute-long video, expecting to see the most ridiculous thing of my entire life. And you know what? It wasn’t great.
But it wasn’t as terrible as everyone made it out to be. I caught myself giggling and rolling my eyes and thinking about all of the great hotels we have here in Indy. It also reminded me of every Weird Al Yankovich parody I’ve ever seen and people fawn over that guy – something I’ve never understood.
All of the people in the video just looked like they were having fun, and obviously this wasn’t ever something to be taken very seriously. We get to host a Super Bowl – we should use that to our advantage at every possible turn. And, the video did exactly that: it built up interest in Indianapolis to a variety of convention planners around the country.
Have we completely lost the ability to laugh at ourselves? I’m thinking there are real issues that we should be concerned about – and a silly video promoting Indy’s hospitality district is not one of them.
In the grand scheme of things, this will all likely be forgotten. But we need to remember to relax and regain that ability to just have fun and be silly. It’s not going to kill us. Watch the video below and decide for yourself.
Is your business finally in a position to recruit new talent? Sure, you could just place a job announcement online and watch the myriad resumes pour in like … sorry, I have no appropriate simile prepared; typed myself into a corner there.
But if you want to attract the best and brightest, it wouldn’t hurt if your message was original. Check out Twitter’s simple, yet creative recruitment video recently launched on YouTube:
I’m not sure what to make of this, but it’s related to business and internships and this video is hot right now — so it’s going on our blog. Meet Cisco’s rapping intern:
If you’d like an intern of your own — rapping or otherwise — check out our fine affiliate program, Indiana INTERNnet. The INTERNnet team, led by executive director Pam Norman, is doing an amazing job connecting Indiana businesses with eager interns. You can also follow the program’s blog at www.indianainternnation.com.