Chicago Video Production

Labor Day weekend is upon us and people are preparing to travel. Choosing a destination can be both a breeze and a challenge. While some travelers know they’re visiting Topeka to keep their long-distance relationship alive, others just want to get away. With so many places to choose from, travel agencies and tourism bureaus must be assertive while engaging travelers.

Since Video One is located in Chicago, we encourage tourists to visit our lovely and windy city. After some rigorous YouTube research, the best video we found came from none other than the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau (made with the help of Insider Perks).

The video is short, beautiful, and poetic. It uses some of Chicago’s best imagery, coupled with excellent narration that not only makes Chicago seem exciting, it’s uplifting to those from Chicago. Professional and homemade travel videos about Chicago are a dime a dozen, but this one truly stands out. It captures all the intensity of the city, and delivers in a video that is charming and peaceful.

The Insider Perks website has another video about Chicago. This video is a bit longer, but has higher production values. It uses the same combination of beautiful imagery and inspirational narration, but features well-known actors speaking to the viewer. Together, these are the essential tourist videos for Chicago. If these don’t draw people to the city, nothing will.

For creating beautiful tourist videos that make me proud to be from Chicago, and creating movies that can capture potential tourists as soon as they decide to travel,  Insider Perks and the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau have earned this week’s Video Professionals Award.

What makes your business special? If a person visits your company’s website, how long would it take them to figure that out? What if your company isn’t special? Unless you have a monopoly in your industry, chances are you have competition whose work is similar to yours. Whether or not your competition is better than you is irrelevant, as long as you can find a way to separate your business from the rest. Differentiation should be the goal for practically every business.

One way to make your business stand out is to produce a corporate overview video. A short movie that explains who you are and what you do. It’s a great way to seperate yourself from that other shop down the street, especially if they haven’t made their own video yet. Not to mention a video’s impact on SEO. If your site has video and your competitor’s site doesn’t, chances are you’ll be higher than him on Google. So who do you want to be, the trend setter or the trend follower?

Below is a pretty good video for Chicago DMC, a destination management company. The video is flashy, edited well, and moves faster than some action movies. However, the video can be made more personalized. The video mentions the company’s “experts” but never introduces the viewer to them. There are some bold claims made in the video, promises about affordability and service guarantees, but the piece relies on these key words and carefully placed imagery to engage the viewer. There’s no doubt that this approach will work, but the video isn’t perfect yet. It still needs that human element.

Below is another overview video that can use some improvements. Sod Solutions, a company that sells and produces turfgrass (EXCITING!), created a video that explains the company’s philosophy and methods of operation. Like the previous video, this one only consists of a narration over video and images. However, Sod Solutions’ overview actually introduces viewers to some of the company’s employees and describes their background. It also doesn’t rely on stock footage and photos to fill up the video, but actual footage filmed on the job and within the industry. It isn’t as flashy, but it gives an accurate and detailed description of the company.

The last video is the best of the lot. Alteva is a Philadelphia-based information technology shop that develops networks for businesses and technology products. The video is easy to watch, introduces viewers to company employees, demonstrates some products, and doesn’t rely on any stock footage to fill the gaps. Who ever put that video together is a real pro.

Obviously, the more detailed a video is the costlier it will be to produce. However, practically any video is better than no video. As long as the content is honest, thorough, concise, and pleasant to watch, potential customers will value your company’s efforts to introduce them to your business. If you want Video One to produce your company’s overview video, mention this blog and we’ll take 10% off editing fees. And make sure to check out the overview video we did for Connor Floors, the biggest name in basketball… flooring.

The hair industry requires a lot of trust. People are sensitive about their hair. Everyone’s had a bad haircut and no one likes them. Whether they realize it or not, hair salons are in a unique position to use video to their benefit. Salons don’t just sell a haircut, they sell an experience. When people come to Chicago for the first time, it can take them a long time to find a stylist they like and trust. With videos, salons can streamline that experience.

For instance, one of Chicago’s hottest salons, Sine Qua Non, has a great video that demonstrates all the work they do for young, beautiful models. Unfortunatley, the video isn’t anywhere on the salon’s website, even though it has the potential to be a great marketing tool if it were easy to find online. Not everyone would think to do a YouTube search when looking for salons.

A salon video can be a product demonstration too, as shown by Chicago’s Philip James Salon in this video about Fusion hair extensions.

Above all, stylists can film themselves working with a client. A video like this would work both as a product demonstration, but also as a testimonial. By filming himself, the stylist can explain what he’s doing and his client can give an immediate review of his work. This builds instant rapport between the viewer and a stylist which would otherwise be earned through a direct experience.

Salon videos can also become quite popular if viewers find their content useful. Below is a video with Ian Daburn from Vancouver’s i.Daburn Salon in which he creates Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham’s famous “Posh Bob” or “pob”. The five minute tutorial has landed over 1.5 million views. Who knows what that did for the salon!

It’s a shame that some of the city’s best reviewed salons don’t have videos associated with them. Although a positive review on Yelp is certainly helpful for any business, that doesn’t mean the business is a good match for all potential customers. Connection Salon and Tsubo Chicagomake big claims on their sites, but they have no way to back them up. If a customer has a bad experience at one of these places, that customer is not lost, they might be a source of negative word-of-mouth.

A well made video can be just the right boost for a struggling stylist or salon. If you’re talented but haven’t had enough clients lately, demonstrate your work on YouTube. Want Video One to help film and edit your movie? Mention this blog and we’ll take 10% off editing fees.

Anyone who has been following the trials and tribulations of the journalism industry is aware that many newspapers and magazines are having trouble competing with the Internet. But it seems that Craine’s Chicago Business isn’t even trying to compete with the Internet. Rather, it is embracing the power of the web to deliver news content in a rich media format.

In addition to the typical business news that is covered in Crain’s Chicago, their website has a video series that looks and feels like a nightly news program. Although the videos aren’t as long or detailed as television news, new videos are produced every weekday, they are always available online, and they never exceed 5 minutes.

These videos allow Crain’s to deliver their branded news content in an easy-to-consume format that anyone with Internet has access to. Although their news program doesn’t advertise the magazine, the video established a level of trust among devoted viewers. This type of trust and familiarity with a publication is what newspaper have traditionally relied on to enhance readership. Otherwise, no one would accept their articles as fact.

Tragically, these great videos are hidden behind some pretty unappealing thumbnails. Seriously Crain’s, I’m looking right at you now. I bet if you fixed those thumbnails, changing it from the woman in front of a blue screen to something that reflects how sophisticated your videos are, your click rates will jump up in the first week. Seriously, try it and see what happens. Seriously. Seriously…

Thumbnail or not, Crain’s not only has a good reputation in the realm of journalism, these videos will earn them a positive reputation in the ream of online content. For creating a regularly-updated news program that delves into important issues in news and business, and doing it with free online videos, Crain’s Chicago Business earned this week’s Video Professionals Award.