Last month I showcased a technical/support video project (read the post: Supporting the Support) that we began in 2014 and continue to update for that particular product. Keep that in mind and know that one of the challenges of my position is that I’m the only video/media person in the entire international corporation (that I’m aware of). With the success of the support videos, another product manager asked for a cleaner version geared toward prospective customers for his upcoming product.
We in MarCom jumped on the idea, but we had to develop a new video standard that was above the support video, below the product marketing video…clean enough to pass the guidelines for being on our website but nitty-gritty enough to be believed by the highly technical people who are our potential (and existing) customers.
So we bought more lights, brought in subject matter expert who loves to be in front of the camera, and wrote a rough script. We kept expectations realistic by reminding all of the stakeholders that this was essentially a proof of concept — that the first time we do anything there is an unspeakable amount to learn.
I think everyone’s proud of what we came up with. The only snafu we ran into is that one vendor neglected to ship one part, so we lost an entire day while our in-house R&D team printed and milled a new adapter for us. Well, “lost” is a strong word because we used the time to practice what Simon was going to say.
Overall, this video was a success. Everyone involved was happy and sees where there is room for improvement going forward. Most importantly, everyone is happy enough to want to produce more like this. Here’s to progress.