Promoting your company in today's world of multimedia. Some thougths and ideas to think about.

One of the questions I am asked quite frequently is; "How do I promote my company today on the internet?" or "What is the latest craze for marketing my company on the net?"

Well, these questions have about half a gazillion answers. And no matter who you ask - no two answers are quite the same. One hears about everything from Social Network Marketing (perhaps the acronym for this is SNM?) to SEO or Search Engine Optimization and then there is SEM or Search Engine Marketing, and you need to do this all while eating M&M's. Okay, the last part just sounded funny, hence, why I wrote it.

Rules? What rules?

Every once in a while I get a challenge from a client. Many times as in this case, it was a fairly new client. Hence, there was not much to work with. So what does one do in such a case? You have to step "out of the box" so to speak and break just about every rule. Of course, I love breaking rules anyway. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even tell you the rules to be followed if my life depended on it. But having spoken to many producers, production houses, directors, actors and, well you get the point... they always seem to talk about rules. Yet, I never get a clear answer about what these rules should be, look like, or even remotely resemble.

Advertising has rules. I think. But again, I am not so sure. Having paid much attention to all walks of advertising, I see quite plainly that there are no rules except for one. No. Make that two. And even these are not always really clearly used or implemented. But, they are probably the best I have been able to come up with.

1. Get the message out of what you are trying to say, and keep it short.
2. Finish up with a "call to action".

Wow. It's really that simple? I suppose so. I would imagine that the difficult part is to squeeze things of this nature into that short little 30 or 60 second thingy you watch on TV, the web, your phone or whatever other Steam Punk device you can think of. So what do you do when you just are getting started and don't really have a lot to work with... you cheat. But heck, if it gets the point across, then do it.

I thought, not bad considering I only used one picture and simply created a finishing logo to help make the point. It's simply "twisted".



The point: Even with very little, very big things can be created. If you see yourself in this predicament, and need a new "flavor" or approach, drop me a line and I will put on my creative cap for you.

Or, if you produce stuff, show me what you have. You know - the comment section here. Who knows, maybe we can even bounce some ideas off of each other.

By the way, the last two paragraphs were an actual "call to action".

VaderVideo site is finally coming to life...

This is the very first of what will most likely be many entries into this here blog. ;D

Yup, the day is finally here where I can somewhat launch my new website "VaderVideo - where imagination and imagery meet."

I hope to keep this site informative, entertaining and inspiring.

• Informative - I hope to discuss tips, tricks and other such information as I discover them. I learned that there really are no rules to shooting video or photographs. I have also found that some so called "professionals" are only that in their mind. So I will be honest and never claim to be a pro. I'm just a guy that loves to experiment and sometimes really gets lucky.



• Entertaining - My writing will most of the time not be boring (I hope). I love to use humor and exhibit or draw pictures when so needed. This is why I put up some galleries. They speak for themselves.



• Inspiring - I hope that I can inspire all age groups to exploit the wonderful image technology of today and not be afraid to go for it! I did, and look what happened. I created this! :)

I do not plan to bore you with long drawn out descriptions of new products, but rather show you. I do not want to keep so called "secrets" to my self, but rather share them in hopes of helping you have a great and successful time.

So what are we talking about? We are talking about creativity with cameras, software and your mind. Truly, we must remember, this is where imagination and imagery meet.

As a first entry, I figured that I should at least exhibit just one thing that explains the above.

This is simply a 30 second spot that I submitted for a contest on You Tube. The contest was/is sponsored by LG and the theme was to produce a "Life's good when..." message. I literally threw this together from an idea I had and figured, what the heck. I made it into the top 20 and finals. Winners to be announced on Dec 3rd, 2007. I never expected to get as far as I did but rather did it for the experience and practice. One can never practice and experiment enough. In any case, having made it to the top 20, I at least won a cellphone from LG. Not bad.

The point is, anyone can do this, just keep it legal. Don't infringe on any one's copyright, ever! Whether it be video, photo or music, stay clean and be creative.

Enjoy:

Andreas (Vader) Hohl - Imagineerest ;)