How quickly did January go by? Anyone else feel that? Well, at least now all of the snow has gone letting us get on with some filming, although we did get some cool shots in the snow for a music vid we’re putting together.

Other than that we’ve been busy getting our low cost promos & animations out the door for events and small businesses. We’ve done quite a few now and each one is as fresh and fun as the last, but one that really stands out is a short promo we’ve produced for Web Design & Marketing company Cocoon FX Media.

James Blackman contacted us for a short promo that would incorporate his logo designs and services in a cool, fun way, at low cost and within 45 seconds. So we came up with this -- check it out and play it on full screen.

Well, you’ve probably noticed that the promo is not only widescreen, but in some super aspect only seen in classic  movies like Ben Hur. This is what makes the promo different.

But there is a good reason for this. James, being the marketing and web expert that he is, wanted the promo not only on You Tube and other video sites, but also as an animated banner for their own site, therefore really making the most of his investment.

So instead of a standard widescreen or square format, the promo was produced to 800 x 160 pixels and delivered in multiple formats. This really highlights the flexibility of our low cost promo videos without compromising creativity and quality. For more info on how Digital Lithium can bring your logo and brand to life please feel free to contact us today.

Here we are again into a brand new year and hopefully a better one for everyone than the last. Above all the big questions from here on are 1. What will we call this decade? Teenies maybe? (what about 2011/12?) and 2. Do we begin from now to give the year its traditional title of ‘Twenty Ten’ instead of ‘Two Thousand and Ten’ as we’ve been calling them for the last nine years?

Tricky ones indeed and ones that I’m sure will be answered as time and trends pass.

So, what have we been up to over Christmas? Well, non-stop here. We’ve been on location filming a new short movie and are trying to get everything ready and agreed for post production. I’m told by the producer that it’s been penciled in for a festival for mid February, so it’s going to be a big challenge to get it all done and dusted by then, especially with the amount of graphic design and effects involved. Still, stay tuned and we’ll bring you the updates as they happen with maybe a short docu on the processes we use.

We’ve also been developing some animated storyboards for another short movie (this time a full Digital Lithium production) ready for shooting beginning of February.

Before the break though we had been just as busy with promos and so I’ve added one here:

We were contacted by Jonathan Wheatley of HD Forensics and MC Ware, based in Middlesbrough, to create a low cost 30 second promo for both companies and asked how we would tackle them based on the type of companies they were.

HD Forensics are a digital forensics company specialising in the retrieval of data from hard drives, mobile phones and even data recovery. We suggested an energetic ‘CSI’ type style Zap Promo and to keep the costs as low as possible use a mix of motion graphics, stock footage, and high quality images. We tried a few different soundtracks and eventually settled on the one you hear now. Hope you enjoy it and get a good idea of the kind of promo that can be produced at suprisingly low costs.

And if you need any data recovery be sure to check out HD Forensics’ website at www.hdforensics.co.uk.

Keen to see the MC Ware promo? We’ll cover that one in our next post -- in the meantime check them out at www.mcware.co.uk.

One of our customers contacted us recently telling us they’re rebranding and the changeover will happen this December. As part of their rebrand they want some new videos for their website, a nice new promo and a testimonial.

What’s this got to do with summer? I hear you ask. Well, looking outside right now it looks cold, not wet, but still cold. I love the summer and watching the promo videos we did for them back in July really gets me looking forward to it again next year.

Anyway, our customer, Horizons Unlimited- a motor caravan manufacturer based in Tamworth, are rebranding themselves as Horizons Leisure Vehicles. Before we begin their next project I thought I’d show a few of the promos we’ve done for them in the past.

Just a little background first – Our brief was to deliver a couple of teaser spots for their latest vehicle that would be launched at their factory open day in August. Working with a leading motor caravan magazine the videos were to be promoted nationally and should be teasers showing the product, but not too much. Horizons Unlimited wanted to draw new customers to their open day to see the new vehicle – Ikon.

Additional to the content they wanted something very contemporary that reflected the Ikon, something cool that moved away from the traditional ‘stuffiness’ of motorcaravan promotion and gave a feeling of mystery.

Here are the two teasers, with very different styles and personalities, that were eventually selected:

Once the Ikon was launched at their open day Horizons Unlimited wanted a video to promote their Ikon in more detail for their website, so by continuing the style we created a longer, brighter video, that highlighted the Ikon’s features whilst retaining the contemporary theme as requested by the customer.

It seems getting your customer’s attention is hard work – I know for sure. Search engine optimisation or SEO as the professionals call it is a must, not only to get you into the search engine rankings high enough to get you on a page a visitor will see without loosing interest in the topic, but to keep you there too.

Oh, yes – the web’s a funny thing. There’s so much content being uploaded every day, each competing for top spot that just staying in a good spot is a full time job.

Video was promised as the next big thing in internet marketing with Google ready to lauch video Adwords a few years back, but bought You Tube instead. Still there is much exitement in the marketing camps surrounding video and how it can leverage your SEO and get you more visitors. And I mean leverage, and not replace!

So, not being experts in SEO ourselves we worked with a leading SEO company to test out how effective a vdeo would be once thrown into web.  The results, I’m sure you’ll agree are suprising, but not in the way you’d think.

We took a short 30 second Zap 2 Go promo and uploaded it to multi video hosting sites remotely using Tube Mogul and Vid Mirror to as many sites as we could. And then we waited in anticipation. Now, the theory is that the video should appear in search results within 48 hours. I was sceptical, to say the least.

Google search Screenshot

Just out of interest the next day I did a series of searches based on keywords used in our Adwords campaign and tags added to our video. A few didn’t return any positive results, but on a search for ‘Promo Video’  we finally struck gold. In the image above you can see the full screenshot of the search and even our Zap Promo Adwords ad in the column to the right.

Okay, it’s at the bottom of the page, but I’ve highlighted the bottom line and it shows that the video had only been uploaded for 12 hours..!! I just wasn’t expecting a result as good or as quick as this. If that wasn’t in itself amazing, heres the bit that suprises me the most:

My Google search picked up an AOL video of our promo!

This suprises me in two ways – one, that it was in my search within 12 hours and not the 48 as expected, and two, that it was found on AOL video and not YouTube. This is not just because Google owns YouTube, so you’d expect them to work most efficiently together, but that I didn’t actually upload to AOL via Tube Mogul or Vid Mirror!

I know that the link doesn’t actually take you directly you our website, but you can clearly see our URL in the first line. Once the viewer has seen the promo there should be no reason why they shouldn’t check out the site too. So, you can see from that little experiment (and it’s not over yet) how your Zap Promo can be used to leverage your ongoing SEO campaign.

It’s been a month or so since we launched our low cost Zap promos and they’ve gone down really well. So well, in fact, that we will soon be able to launch a range of exciting promo packages at an even lower cost.

As you will have seen our Zap promos start at just £495.00 for a bespoke 30 second promo. By really simplifying the process and content of the way we produce our Zap promos we have been able to reduce costs further still with our Zap 2 Go packages starting from only £249.00.

We at Digital Lithium believe that every business with a website should now have it’s very own video content. Think about it -- how many times have you been surfing for something on the web and all you come across are sites after sites of static content with nothing new to show and nothing different to say? Then you find a site that’s that little bit more fun. Maybe something interactive, or even a You Tube posting. Got your attention, right? That site stands above the rest because it’s interesting, entertaining. If the content was related to their products it more than likely influenced your decision to contact that business, or even make a purchase.

That’s the power of video -- it gives your site an edge and our Zap 2 Go range will bring a promo video for your business within a closer reach than ever before.

So what’s with the WANTED -- Your business bit in the title? Right, that’s simple -- We’re developing a new website specifically for the Zap product range that’s due for lauch in the new year and want you to be part of it. As part of our portfolio development we’re looking for a diverse range of businesses that would like to take advantage of an unbeatable offer for a dynamic promo vid for your site or event.  If this could be you then please get in touch right now (sorry, we must limit the examples to 50 for the site).

Anyway, here’s an example of the kind of production you could expect for such low costs.  Hope you enjoy…

UPDATE:- Our Zap Promos website is now live -- there’s still a bit more more we need to do on it as we’re building an automated site. In the meantime please click on the image below.

Promos at Low Cost

Okay – you’ve already had a peek of what a Zap Promo could look like in the Coming Soon post a few weeks back, so now I want to look at them in a little more detail.

Well, you’ll already know what a video promo is, right? Yep, a video promoting a product, service, or event – easy. By using the term video here it’s assumed that 1. video footage is used almost exclusively, 2. the video footage was shot specifically for the purposes of the promo, and 3. the video was produced, shot, and edited by a production company like Digital Lithium, using specialist video equipment, exotic ( or at least relevant) locations, possibly with actors and delivered to the client in a number of media friendly formats.

Such productions also come with a price and can take weeks to organize, shoot, and edit.

By understanding what a promo video should say, we have now launched our ‘Zap’ range of promos. By eliminating the need for location shooting we are able to create visually exciting short promos that takes the very essence of your business, or event and wrapping it in a dynamic and striking package that can be turned around in days, not weeks.

You probably already have photographs or diagrams of your services, so why not use them? Zap promos take these photo’s and images and breathe life into them, giving them personality, a soul. Call it animation, call it motion graphics, we call it getting your business Zap’d.

Our packages start from only £495 for a 30 second promo, and believe me; you’d be surprised at how much information you can squeeze in to such a small amount of time.

You can even tell a story. We work closely within your marketing planning to produce material that sits within your brand strategy and we can bring our creative expertise and develop a theme that really packs a punch.

Just think how you can transform your website by adding a Zap Promo to your homepage, or even how you could increase your customer base with an effective, visually striking video marketing campaign for such a low cost.

If you think that your business or event could benefit from a Zap Promo get in touch today and we can look at giving you the marketing advantage you’ve been looking for.

So, who’s Gia Silk and what’s an EPK?

I knew you’d ask that. Well Gia is a singer from Chelmsford who’s just launched her first album ‘Unique Features’ (available from iTunes). Gia contacted us for a short promo vid featuring tracks from her album, live gig footage, and a bit of documentary footage. Which brings me to EPK.

An EPK is an Electronic Press Kit and is a music industry tool for promoting arists for gigs and performances. An EPK is a vital tool for artists and managers as they capture the personalities and characteristics af a performer that music videos often wash over and are sent as a kind of moving, singing brochure to the entertainment promoters.

You may not have come across EPKs before – I know that some of the bands and artists we have worked with never knew about them, but that’s probably because EPKs aren’t intended for public distribution, but if you go onto You Tube and search EPK then you’ll come across these industry promos for most artists, maybe even your favourite.

Gia’s currently on tour in Canada with Japan and the Far East to follow, but you can listen to more of her tracks at www.giasilk.co.uk

A few weeks ago we were contacted by Simon McNeilly of FIT CAMP UK (I don’t know why I used capitals -- just seems more appropriate) for a short promo vid for their site and to hand out as DVDs. Having already produced a number of energetic sports vids we said ‘of course we can’. So there we were sat down with Simon and his instructor partner, Dave Hughes, and they asked for the ideas we had for the vid.  Having done our research on both their site and others we gave them our take -- which was basically a military type theme with some intense training, loads of sweat and a few tears, you get the idea.  Well, I don’t know whether I should admit this, but how wrong we were.

As it turns out FIT CAMPs core market wasn’t that of your extreme, chiselled fitness fanatic, but of a wide cross section of everyday people who want to take part in group sessions with friends and strangers who are there for the same reason -- fitness, toning, well being, and fun. These are the type of people who don’t necessarily enjoy the cold, clinical environment of a gym and left alone to work out never entirely sure whether they’re doing it right anyway.  So this vital discussion with Simon and Dave changed our vision of the vid completely which reinforces a belief that nobody knows their market better than those in it.

To get an even better idea of the sessions we were invited to come along and give it a go. As apprehensive as we were we donned our shorts, T shirt & trainers, loaded the van and a couple of us lugged the camera kit across fields on a fantastic summer morning. We thoroughly enjoyed the session and got some great footage too, and by being involved first hand we were able to get the energy of the FIT CAMP an the personalities of both Dave and Simon across perfectly – and if you look closely everyone in the vid are smiling and that’s not an editing trick. Don’t believe us? Well we enjoyed the session so much that we’re now weekly regulars and I can’t recommend it enough, so for more info visit www.fit-camp-uk.co.uk and you won’t look back.

Pretty cool huh?

Well, this is just one example of our Zap promos we’re going to be launching soon. I don’t want to go into too much detail (I’ll save that for a dedicated post), but basically a Zap promo is for any business or organization with very limited budgets that want to showcase their products or service with some video motion without the time and costs associated with location filming or crews. This is achieved by using only still photographs and logos that are usually supplied by the client, who have already spent time and money creating, so why not make use of them.

Rebecca contacted us for a short promo vid to add onto her website, but didn’t have the budget for a real video. We suggested that jsut as much impact could be made by using photos that she already had on her site. Rebecca sent us a selection of the original images to select from and we came up with the fun & groovy lttle piece you see above, and above all probable bringing more personality into her creations that could ever have been achieved by filming them. If you want to see Rebcca’s creations go see her website on www.cakesbyrebecca.net

So, keep your eyes open for our Zap promo piece coming soon.