Grantastic Designs’ Blog

In a recent I wrote for Search Engine Watch, I discussed how search marketers can better position themselves for the video search space by integrating traditional video marketing (e.g., television) in their video search strategy. One of those companies I covered was Spot Runner, which provides for its clients a prepackaged video in an online library on its website, along with video customization services and media buying for carrying the final piece over to targeted local television markets.

The following is an interview I conducted with the co-founder of Spot Runner, David Waxman, including on how search marketers can benefit from pairing off-line media strategies with their search campaigns.

Spot Runner uses an online interface (i.e., its website) to combine turnkey video planning and production with reaching local markets in the offline televsion ad space. With much being made about how online video marketing is being more affordable, you seem to have also found a pricing plan on the traditional side that’s more affordable as well.

Local businesses now have access to television, the most powerful marketing tool available – that, due to its traditional cost and complexity, was previously out of reach.

Spot Runner offers a complete solution for television advertising—commercial production, media planning and media buying—in a single turn-key, self-service system. The entire process, which traditionally takes months and hundreds of thousands of dollars, now takes just days at a fraction of the cost.

What’s a typical turnaround project time?

A typical first campaign is one spot. The typical time from actually starting to running on air is 2-4 weeks. The ad production time is typically much shorter, depending on the client’s own timetable for reviewing and approving the ad.

What is the typical length of your spots?

They’re typically 30 seconds in length, but we have done customized formats of 15 – 60 seconds. Our primary offering is 30 seconds, because that is what’s typical.

You have a service featured called “Personalization Plus.” Describe the custom features that come with this service over your standard features.

If you go to our ad library, you’ll see the scripts are pre-defined, except for certain areas that are customizable, such as company name and info. If you want to go further than that and really veer from the script, and have one of our professional writers handle that for you, that’s where we get into the “Personalization Plus.” That could include fully customized text for the voiceover or part of the voiceover being re-recorded; it could be a graphic change, such as letterboxing the ad, or having your URL appear for the entirety of the ad. (Some of our ads already come that way in the library.) Or if you want to include an animated graphic, such as a phone number, or submitting your own script and having it recorded with our own voiceover artists – that’s also what Personalization Plus allows for.

Do you ever have clients submitting their own multimedia clips, and wanting that included in the final piece?

People do request that. What we often have is a number of library ads set up to receive still photos, which can be rendered and moved around to fit in with the video. We less often get the request to take video footage, but we can accept and work with that as well.

Another scenario, some people will send us an ad in its entirety – an ad that’s already been made for them and we’ll integrate that ad into all of the other services that Spot Runner does, such as media planning and buying and placement.

Describe your “Express Launch service” – who is this typically for?

Anybody who wants help with their TV campaign strategy. It helps the client identify their campaign goals and their audience, helping them select their ad, and maximize their budget. Anyone who wants to actually talk to a person and get a little more guidance than our self-service website can provide.

Are you also able to help people out with where to publish their original television spots for online conversion and distribution, including video search (i.e., the search engines)?

Yes, on a case-by-case basis. We are very seriously looking into offering online video as a full product, but we haven’t yet released a date for that.

Let’s talk budget. Where does the budget range start off at, and what’s a typical budget spend for a package?

There are two very distinct pieces, and one of them varies a lot by market:

One of them is ad production. Our standard rate for that is $499. Personalization Plus is an additional $249. Express Launch is an additional $99. That’s the most typical an ad will cost without customization. Its almost always under a $1,000 for the ad in terms of production.

Media varies a lot by market. An ad running in one neighborhood can be a lot less expensive than an ad running in a larger area. Duration adds another variable. Typically we’ve had people who are very successful for as little as $2,000/month with their media.

I understand that along with providing a television media buying strategy for your clients, you can also plan a basic online strategy with the client of how their television ad can best bring traffic to their website.

Media buying for television is an integral part of our service. We will take the ad, and either via the website or by phone, help them figure out what they want to achieve – whether that is driving traffic to their website, or store, or just driving greater brand awareness. We will use our very powerful media planning engine to create an optimized media plan for them, and we’ll then deliver the ads for them (in the television market), and get the reporting back to them. It’s a very end-to-end service.

Would you ever run into the issue of having duplicate (pre-produced) video content running in the same television ad markets, between different clients?

No, we have an exclusivity provision, meaning that if you run one ad in a certain area [in the TV ad space], no competitor ad from us can be run in that same area (when you’re running your own ad).

Have you had any of your ads produced appear in the online video search space?

Search and television can be very complimentary, and we do offer search as a product to our customers. Not yet in the video space, but certainly in the keyword space. Our clients have told us that when they run television ads, their web traffic increases dramatically. When they promote their website correctly on television, they can really get a push from television. The “push” medium of television, and the “pull” medium of the Internet can really go hand in hand.

How would you recommend search engine marketers do an online campaign that can best integrate traditional video marketing (television) with online video marketing?

Most search marketers probably don’t realize how localizable and targetable their search marketing campaigns can be. You can locally target down to the neighborhood level with television, and you can also use your ad to target keywords on a site network basis. For instance if you know your keywords deal with sports, you can target your video for sports sites only, such as a host of sports-related televsion shows, such as ESPN or Fox Sports.

With rapid advances in Internet technology, professional-quality web video is not longer the exclusive domain of creative ad agencies and big brand companies. Costs have gone way down, with both viewer and content quantity going way up.  The rapid growth of the online video and video search space has spawned some innovative companies on the technology, production, marketing and distribution sides. One of those companies whom I’ve covered in previous blog posts is the internet video production company TurnHere the self-proclaimed “full service Internet video solutions provider.”

The following is a recent interview I conducted with TurnHere’s Founder and CEO, Bradley Inman. Search marketers can benefit here from Bradley’s elaboration on the project management aspects of preparing online video content for search engine distribution.

A good part of an online video project’s success is the initial planning stage. Explain how TurnHere plans out a video production with the client.

We plan how it can be very entertaining, informing, and interesting for the user, but also that it will fit very much with the web. We use real people telling their story, no matter what that may be; and we use a mini-documentary style, such as the back story behind their story for whatever business or project they’re doing.

We don’t have scripts, therefore we don’t have long treatments; and we don’t have actors and actresses. That separates us from the old world of television advertising, which relies more on a brand-lifestyle and fictional narrative. Our pieces are non-fiction, but it is a narrative and there is a story.

Consequentially, TurnHere’s pre-production isn’t elaborate because you’re not faking it; you’re telling the truth of real people. Our filmmakers are videographers are also journalists or mini-documentarians, so they know how to interview people (for 2-3 hours), get the b-roll, get them commenting, and get them to be a real person talking about their passion, whatever that may be – a product, neighborhood, business, etc – and that’s edited into a 2-minute piece. Pre-production is really different in this world from the traditional television advertising room.

That also explains the differences in planning and preparation for online video advertisements, compared to the traditional commercial video – that being, television.

That’s our main message. We believe that people are inherently experts at what they do; they don’t need to be coached by a marketing team or a PR team; they don’t need scripts and they don’t need lines. They are inherently insightful into the neighborhood around them, and they know more about their business than any marketing person.

That’s where advertising is going – particularly, authentic believability on the Internet, rather than large media agencies trying to constantly “brand our brains.”

You’ve managed to lower much the production by finding videographers local to your clients. How did you manage to establish such a wide base of videographers?

We’ve hired a great team of producers who each had their own networks. Then we had a massive recruiting campaign around the country, and then its word-of-mouth from other filmmakers. We then turn to these local filmmakers who then produce on our behalf with the client. They know with TurnHere they’re getting a reliable source of income.

What makes your production people and work model successful? Do you give them  a certain degree of freedom or do certain formulas need to be followed?

We have a very talented group of filmmakers and producers, and they know how to tell stories. There’s a bottom-up creative enterprise here. They and our Marketing/PR have wonderful ideas.
The process is deciding what the formula is. We really let our filmmaker go. It’s really between the filmmaker and the client with how the video is produced. If too many people are involved it can negatively affect the final work.

A good example of that is the hundreds and hundreds of videos we’re now producing for CitySearch, where it’s a very hands-off thing. Our filmmakers really make it happen.

Do you make it an option for clients to review the portfolios of the videographer in advance?

Yes, but its not really part of the process of clients to review the resumes and portfolios of our videographers, because they’re really coming to TurnHere, and we’re putting our stamp and our brand behind it. We have producers who manage the process. Otherwise that company has to take on all other responsibilities, such as pre-production, managing post, communicating with the filmmaker, and that’s very inefficient. The whole idea is they can outsource that so they don’t need to worry about it.

In a few cases [clients] get obsessed with meeting the filmmaker and all of the background, and we relay that to them; but it isn’t that type of model where we would just refer you to any filmmaker and hope it will work out. We really take responsibility for the end-to-end.

What other quality controls do you have in place?

We control the quality, through training, systems, and back end password protected areas. We create a standard and formula for every partner.

Describe a typical crew for a TurnHere video shoot.

We do it in a lot of different ways. But the bottom line is, all that equipment and all that overhead– trucks, travel tickets and airplanes– and all that other stuff that went into television production – has been eliminated thanks to technology.

Here are two typical scenarios: A filmmaker shows up with a professional lighting kit and a semi-pro cam, lavalier mics, and a tripod. They can shoot high-quality video. (A good example of this setup is the video done for the Intercontinental Hotel, on the TurnHere site.) That’s a single filmmaker setup. In other cases there are teams (part of the business of the filmmaker) where they shoot and have an editor.

But in most cases, not only is the filmmaker using a semi-pro camera,,  but they’re also doing the editing, often in Final Cut Pro on a Mac (and sometimes right on the plane ride back). This gives them a very quick turnaround. But we leave that to the filmmaker. Some of them prefer to do solo, and some prefer to do combos; and that’s fine with us.

How do you establish an affordable budget and monetization model with your clients?

Its really important that we work closely with the partner. We’re working with big television networks, big travel agencies, big publishers; this is all about the economics of Internet video. How are you going to monetize it? Are you going to put ads on it? Then it’s a CPM. You got to get the cost of media to a price point that makes rational sense.

So with all of our partners we sit down and work out that with them strategically, and we have a lot of information to go over. If it’s a conversion tool, then what’s the conversion rate they need to get at in order to justify the cost? If you’re using it as a search marketing tool, how do you justify the content with its intended audience? And then there’s companies like CitySearch which are using it as a conversion tool for local merchants – that’s about converting with customers. For publishers, its about spending a certain amount on collateral to publish their books. So we start with the economics.

One of the economics that are going to drive your business with video is commerce in these cases. Then we come up with what’s your vision for the video. If they’re only going to produce one or two videos, we tell them to turn to a local production company [instead of us]. Our filmmaker network is best utilized when we leverage its breadth and depth. Therefore, we’re interested in clients and partners that want to produce lots of video. And when they produce volume, we can give them price discounts since we can produce it more inexpensively.

Our videos can go from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, depending on: their needs, how they’re using it, how much volume, and how we can leverage our network to produce more. We believe in paying our filmmakers well, and at the same time creating a piece of media that makes sense for the client.
Now, we’re all Lewis-and-Clark in this world; there’s no book you can pull off the shelf on “How to Monetize Internet Video.” We’re all learning together, what works and what doesn’t, how to integrate the video, where to send the video; all these issues are still unresolved.

So you’re saying for TurnHere to be effective at what they do for the client, episodic video is highly preferential.

Yes. Its about price, its about experimentation.

What is a typical (recommended) length of a single Internet video ad piece?

2-3 minutes.

What digital file formats can you make it available in?

Being that its digital media, we can deliver it however people want it

Do your clients often use your (online) service distribution?

A big part of our business is the service distribution. A video is only as good as how well you can distribute it. We’ve had 2 years of Internet distribution experience working with Google; we’ve created branded places on YouTube, building presence and opportunity there. So yes, almost all of our customers want those services as well.

TurnHere offers promotion services through what you have listed as distribution partnerships with the search engines. Does that include video search optimization services?

Yes, that’s a core part of our business (with our distribution service).

What’s a usual expectation a client can have for video completion turnaround time, from start to finish?
2-3 weeks. We can do it faster; we’ve had something shot up on Friday and delivered on a Monday. We’re dealing with a network of independent contractors, so we get in their queue, so 2-3 weeks is a safe bet.

What are the best preparation tips you would offer for a client (and their agent) for a video production with TurnHere?

Work with us to establish the economics of your media. Help us establish a system to create the style and approach that you want. Then let go. Let go and let your people be who they are. It becomes a really great turnkey solution where you don’t have to worry about it.

I recently did an interview with a spokesperson for “online video solutions firm” TurnHere on both their announcement today (new distribution partners including BookVideos.tv) and their new video widget for book publishers.

TurnHere’s “Deep partnership with Google?”

One of the more interesting notes that seemed to have been missed out in other media coverage is TurnHere’s distribution network having the implication that they might have some kind of special relationship with Google, not afforded to other online marketing firms. (TurnHere does both production and online distribution, and claims also to do actual video optimization.)

I would have thought that a company obtaining an implied special partnership with Google would be able to have their videos actually embedded in Google’s Universal Search, and not just relegated to their vertical (Google Video Search). Was this not part of their implied special. partnership with Google to include in their “distribution network plan?”

The answer I received from a TurnHere spokesperson was as follows:

TurnHere has a deep partnership with Google which spans Google Local, Google Earth, YouTube, etc. At this point in time, Google Universal Search doesn’t provide video, however, once this service launches, you’ll be able to find TurnHere videos there as well.

Google Universal Search not providing video? Actually, it already does, albeit in select cases. Just take my own video samples, for example. And I don’t even have a “deep partnership” with Google.

So upon my further inquiry, I was told that TurnHere’s just has a “straight distribution deal” and that nothing further could be disclosed at this time. Without any additional information, it would seem that what could be understood by the language as a special arrangement between Google and TurnHere, could be just elevated terminology without a specific business arrangement between these two. Now of course, TurnHere’s current “formal” video partnerships are certainly considerable themselves – CitySearch, TripAdvisor, BookVideos.tv, not to mention a host of others. But for a search markter like myself, I would have to wonder if all of those flashing logos of search engines on the TurnHere site are just to show that they simply sites where the videos are submitted, and not any actual submission advantage, as seems to be implied.