Corporate Rebranding
Video Hosts and Facility Tour DME had been a print-only marketing company that used variable data. When I brought video into their arsenal, we expanded across broadcast email, CD-ROMs, and interactive web. |
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Concept
Script Creative Direction Video Production |
Creative@RLeeBrown.com
| Writer/Creative Director/Media Producer |
This project put all of my skills to the test. We updated the company logo, we created all-new taglines and style sheets, and we needed to use all of the exciting media we were touting to our customers to show them variable relationship marketing in action--and how getting customer data would strengthen customer loyalty. |
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It would be a multi-part multimedia campaign. After updating the logo, the first thing we did was create a brand character. He would represent the end customer (in other words, the customer of our clients using our marketing programs). We called him "Jack Schmidt"; it was a common enough sounding name, but it was a play on words from something a little bawdier--in our case, if you weren't getting data on your customer and using it to personalize your message, you "didn't know Jack Schmidt." |
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Popular with management, this concept was cast with perennial everyman actor Chris Hurt, giving the campaign a focus that let me craft a new tagline: "Know your customer. Earn Their Business." The conceit was that having database information on every customer allowed creation of cross-media marketing materials (print, personal websites, email, video, telephony) targeted to them; variable printing and online programming allowed DME to swap out the database info on the fly, personalizing each marketing piece.
We did multiple photo shoots to get pictures of Jack as different types of customer (businessman, homeowner, sports enthusiast, etc.) for print and internet marketing, plus I wrote and directed video of Jack explaining why, from the customer's standpoint, it was smart to collect data and use variable multimediarketing campaigns.
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Jack Schmidt would begin to appear online, in brochures, in DME's own broadcast emails. But he represented the end customer's point-of-view. To complete the marketing campaign across all media, we needed a corporate spokesman to represent DME's point-of-view, to explain not only variable relationship marketing, but how it worked, and information about DME as a company (with an 11 acre site, with up to 500 staff, and the ability to produce everything on campus, there was a lot to tout, and we didn't want to undermine Jack as the representative of customers to talk about such things).
| The clear call was to use actor Tim Powell, who had rocked the house as a video host on multiple CD-ROM projects. He had the perfect tone of authority tempered with casual familiarity. I wrote and directed scripts tailor-made for Tim's cadence and delivery style. Tim would go on to be DME's corporate spokesman for 10 years, hosting many versions of the company website, and being the interactive guide through a video tour of the entire production facility (see below). |  |
| Facility Video Tour - Print Shop meets "EPCOT" |
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The owner of DME had always prided himself on personally giving tours through DME's 11 acre campus. After a trip to EPCOT, he became convinced DME needed multimedia-style tour stations through the facility. Since I had introduced video to DME as part of their marketing media, what better way to illustrate the process?Creating the DME Tour included not only the multimedia/video elements, but working with skilled theatrical technicians and DME programmers to create lighting effects, take pictures, and actually create variable print, email and web solutions that would be ready for a visitor to see when his tour was finished.
There would be anywhere from 3 - 6 multimedia stations created and placed throughout the plant that told the "story" of DME and its multimedia suite. |
Video for "PURL" (Personal URL) Variable Data Tour Station
Campy "News Reel" style open for DME Facility Tour