Client: Storyboard Media
HQ: Durham, NC
URL: https://storyboardmedia.co
Company Type: B2B Video Marketing Agency
Project Focus: Branding
Case Summary: happy holidays, old friend.
quid pro quo:
you watch this video,
we won’t make another holiday short until next year.
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…
Client: Just Kibbitz
HQ: Asheville, NC
URL: www.justkibbitz.com/
Company Type: B2C Technology
Project Focus: Marketing
Client Product/Service: Dating Site targeting Jewish mothers and their single children.
Case Summary: Just Kibbitz is the only dating site that empowers Jewish mothers to play matchmaker for their children. Just Kibbitz approached Storyboard Media six months before their launch date seeking a marketing video that would speak to their target audience –– Jewish mothers. We did our homework, learning everything we cloud about their audience –– from why Jewish mothers would be drawn to a dating platform like Just Kibbitz to their hobbies, mannerisms, and go-to Yiddish phrases –– and after months of close collaboration with Just Kibbitz, the Eggplant concept was born. The not-so-subtle innuendo of Eggplant aims to underscore one of the most important advantages of Just Kibbitz as a dating platform, while making it easy to understand how it works.
In the end, we created a core anchor video (1 minute in length, ideal for native upload on Instagram), a subtitled version, eight promo pieces (designed for use on Instagram Stories and YouTube preroll), and multiple animated thumbnails to use in a content mix on social media. Just Kibbitz launched in October 2020 –– and quickly saw an increase in user sign-ups and positive media attention.
Client: UDX
HQ: Durham, NC
URL: https://udx.io
Company Type: B2B Technology (Web Development, Automation, and DevOps)
Project Focus: Marketing
Case Summary:
UDX provides its clients with advanced web development and custom automated solutions to help them “grow faster than the market dictates.” What that means in practice, however, can be challenging to articulate since the critical work they do varies from client to client.
GlobalLink from TransPerfect provides B2B language services to facilitate international business communication. GlobalLink NEXT is the largest company event where all parts of the GlobalLink equation come together: users, product developers, prospects, support staff, and salespeople.
For us, corporate events aren’t just an opportunity to capture keynotes and B-Roll of the event itself. They enable us to take advantage of all those parts of the equation being in the same place at once, and leverage that opportunity to create content that serves marketing and sales.
We launched a Springboard to understand the greatest needs for video content for GlobalLink NEXT as an event series, GlobalLink NEXT in DC, and GlobalLink as a product. We determined that our strategic event video package, The Ballroom C, would provide TransPerfect with the most valuable content ahead of, during, and after the conference.
The Ballroom C includes three phases of content:
• Phase One – video to promote your event ahead of the event
• Phase Two – video to deploy during the event
• Phase Three – video created from footage captured at the event
For this GlobalLink Next initiative, we executed Phase One and Phase Three.
The first phase of our strategy included the promotional video content we created leading up to the event, which you can learn about in Part One of this case study.
The next phase focused on creating videos from the footage we captured in DC while GlobalLink NEXT was taking place in September 2018, including speaker presentations and customer stories. In the end, our strategy enabled us to take advantage of the GlobalLink customers and partners who attended the event to deliver multiple story-based campaigns.
GlobalLink, as a product, provides B2B language services to facilitate international business communication. GlobalLink NEXT is an invitation-only event where all the parts of the GlobalLink equation come together: users, product developers, prospects, support staff, and salespeople.
Part Two of our roadmap focused on capturing the Speaker Presentations at GlobalLink Next, as well as creating a series of Customer Stories: testimonial videos from existing GlobalLink customers who were willing to share their personal experiences using the product. The coordination of these video shoots presented unique challenges in their own right – and required another strategy altogether to execute successfully.
First, we identified the key personas that TransPerfect needed to target through their Customer Stories video campaign: Prospects, Existing Clients, and Independents (e.g., consultants).
We determined the distribution channels through which we would publish and promote the video content once it was produced. This included TransPerfect’s website, as well as their most relevant – and rapidly growing – social media followings: LinkedIn, which saw a 52% increase in followers YOY; Facebook, which saw a 34% increase YOY; and, of course, YouTube, which saw a 173% increase in subscribers YOY.
Customer Stories
We wanted to leverage the perspective of existing GlobalLink users to address potential concerns from new prospects. It wouldn’t do us much good to interview any random GlobalLink user we came across in the conference hall; rather, we strategically selected our subjects ahead of time. To achieve this, we identified the users who could provide the most value for our target prospects, such as leaders from the gaming industry and customer support experts.
Prior to the event, we pre-interviewed our subjects to help us get the full story. This is an essential, but often missed, element of creating compelling customer story-based content. The pre-interview lets us design the right questions that elicit the right answers to craft the story we want to tell, while also making the actual on-camera interview process more efficient. We also began the process of securing releases from the subjects and their companies; it is critical to get permission from the company to use footage of their employees, even if the subjects themselves sign your release.
The worst time to uncover the story is when you sit a subject down in front of the cameras for the interview. Often times, production companies will not consider this and end up scrambling on the day to find subjects and pull something insightful out of them; by eliminating this element, we made the interviews much more focused and the content more valuable.
On the day of the event, our production crew set up a green screen studio in a meeting room down the hall from the main conference room which gave us more opportunities to separate our subjects from the background, and introduce motion graphic elements. We did this largely because we all know how boring talking heads can be, especially as they describe the technical aspects of their niche industry. The producers who conducted our pre-interviews directed these interviews, as well, so they knew exactly which questions to ask to draw out the right story.
Often, you’ll see B-roll covering these shots – but we didn’t have the luxury of capturing B-roll. Motion graphics gave us the ability to create dynamic, engaging, and most importantly, educational backgrounds during the post-production phase.
Ultimately, the production was intricately designed to help us create the most and the best content we could in one single day, thus ensuring a higher return on investment for the client.
During post-production, the producer who conducted the pre-interviews and on-camera interviews reviewed the footage and transcripts to identify the most valuable sections of the testimonials. Working with our editor, the team was able to build powerful customer stories that served the goals laid out in the early stages of our strategy. Last but not least, our animators developed a consistent animation style to tie all of the videos together into a coherent campaign.
Speaker Presentations
We believe that our clients own the thought leadership content presented at their events, which is why it was so important to capture the Speaker Presentations throughout the GlobalLink conference. So while we conducted our testimonial interviews throughout the day, our stage team captured the content being delivered in the various ballrooms.
Although we conducted pre-interviews for our customer stories, we wanted to be flexible enough to capture some additional information during our interviews if opportunities presented themselves. We had a producer taking notes during each presentation in case one of our subjects delivered new insights while on stage, giving us the ability to ask them questions related to those new discoveries during the testimonial interview.
For example, during his presentation, one speaker compared the differences between “life before TransPerfect and life after TransPerfect.” His concise, pointed summary of how TransPerfect changed his business for the better was something we knew we wanted to capture, as he would already be prepared to discuss it on the fly.
Over the course of the conference, we filmed nine presentations, with the expectation of delivering five final Speaker Presentation videos that featured the “best of the best” content. This was determined by identifying the speaker content that was highly engaging and expertly delivered.
Prior to the event, we pre-interviewed our subjects to help us get the full story. This is an essential, but often missed, element of creating compelling customer story-based content as it lets us design the right questions that elicit the right answers that help us craft the story we want to tell. The worst time to uncover the story is when you sit them down in front of the cameras for the interview; you may miss golden opportunities to craft the perfect story if you don’t do this ahead of time.
On the day of the event, our production crew set up a green screen studio in a conference room which gave us more opportunities to separate our subjects from the background, and introduce motion graphic elements. We did this largely because we all know how boring a talking head can be, especially as they describe the technical aspects of their niche industry.
Often, you’ll see B-roll covering these shots – but we didn’t have the luxury of capturing B-roll. Motion graphics gave us the ability to create dynamic, engaging, and most importantly, educational backgrounds during the post-production phase. The studio team captured pre-designed interviews while our stage team captured the content being delivered in the various ballrooms.
In other words, the production was carefully planned to enable us to capture more video on the day, thus ensuring a higher return on investment for the client. During post-production, we collaborated with animators and editors to develop a consistent animation style to tie all of the videos together.
In the end, we delivered over 60 assets, including nine full-length Customer Stories videos plus .gifs, thumbnails, and cutdowns.
TransPerfect created a Customer Stories page on their website featuring each of the testimonial videos. Each video is paired with a lead generation contact form.
In addition, these videos are available for their sales team members to use in their cadence to help move prospects – and existing clients interested in new TransPerfect services – further along in the sales cycle. The videos offer social proof to prospects in similar verticals as the customers featured in the campaign.
In July 2019, TransPerfect announced that it has hit a new sales milestone for the company: $357 million in the first six months of the year, or a 6 percent increase over the same period in 2018. In fact, their second quarter of 2019 was the largest Q2 in the company’s history.
Client: Storyboard Media
HQ: Durham, NC
URL: https://storyboardmedia.co
Company Type: B2B Video Marketing Agency
Project Focus: Branding
Case Summary: all work and no play makes storyboard a dull boy. so we made something for fun. happy holidays!
Lucidworks
Artificial Intelligence Software, B2B
Marketing, Sales
Artificial Intelligence solutions for business
Lucidworks initially came to Storyboard Media seeking a few animated explainer videos that could communicate the benefits of their advanced AI software to the average executive. Our strategic Springboard process ultimately led to the creation of a live-action video series that launched a new YouTube channel, Lucid Thoughts.
Lucidworks approached Storyboard Media requesting a quote for a set of animated explainer videos for AI methods related to the Lucidworks Fusion platform. After conversations with several key stakeholders within the company, we were able to better understand that the specific goal was to create content that could “refill the well” at the top of the sales funnel.
Through our strategic Springboard process, we determined that the best way to achieve this goal would be to target the “pre-awareness” type of prospect and position Lucidworks as an expert in the field of AI-based B2B services. Given the complicated nature of AI and its intimidating (and often misunderstood) reputation, we felt that this project needed a slightly more… human touch.
We developed the concept for the Lucid Thoughts channel by working closely with the Lucidworks marketing team. Rather than deploy a series of animated explainer videos to achieve the goal of addressing the “pre-aware” prospect, we felt a more engaging solution would be to create a series of videos featuring a real person breaking down AI concepts in a straightforward manner, with minimal use of jargon and mumbo-jumbo.
Devising a distribution strategy early was key: these videos would live on a dedicated, branded YouTube channel, the Lucid Thoughts channel. This would give Lucidworks the best opportunity to take advantage of search on YouTube (the world’s second largest search engine!), make the content easy to find, share, promote, and provide future opportunities to expand the series down the line. The separate channel also offers a safe place for those unfamiliar with AI to learn in a sales-free environment, without salespeople, cookies, and otherwise gated content getting in the way of their self-education.
Together, we decided that the first ‘season’ would focus on the ‘Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence’, and season 2 would take a deeper dive into deep learning, machine learning, and search technology. From a creative development standpoint, the scripts would need to break down complex technical concepts in a way that was easy to understand, yet technically accurate. Once we knew which core principles we wanted to touch on, we broke those out into six episodes per season and got to work writing the scripts.
We hired energetic, relatable hosts who could connect to our target audience. Finally, we turned to our talented network of freelancers to add creative editing, colorful animation, and upbeat music to enhance the viewing experience further and drive the episode concepts home.
The Lucid Thoughts YouTube channel launched in November 2018 with 0 subscribers. At the end of the second season’s campaign, we had accumulated 4,000+ channel subscribers and drove hundreds of educated, qualified buyers to live demos with the sales team.
After two seasons we delivered a total of 12 full episodes, 3 promo videos for each episode (36 total), 6 channel promo videos, and a brand new, uniquely branded YouTube channel. We also provided Lucidworks with promotional thumbnail images and .gifs for each deliverable to really make their new channel shine bright.
To facilitate the distribution strategy, we provided Lucidworks with a detailed plan on how to upload and optimize the videos on YouTube. We also designed the paid ad campaign strategy, primarily focusing on Adwords and LinkedIn Sponsored Content to reach their target audience.
Last, but not least, we set Lucidworks up with our partner, Vidyard, and helped them migrate their video content to the new platform. Vidyard will aggregate data generated from the Lucid Thoughts videos, as well as all of their video content across multiple platforms (including much richer viewer behavior than what YouTube would provide). This enables Lucidworks to better understand who their viewers are, which videos those viewers are watching, and even see which parts of each video those viewers have revisited (among others). These insights can help Lucidworks better understand their audience and identify more qualified leads.
We also helped them get set up with Vidyard’s GoVideo, taking video a step further by allowing the sales team to implement video strategies into their process by either sending personalized messages to prospects, as well as leveraging Marketing’s video content in new channels. It’s the perfect example of the power of video in sales: you can both educate your customers and learn about them at the same time, all while making a stronger connection and giving the viewer more of what they want: video.
Check out Lucid Thoughts Season Two below, and Lucid Thoughts Season One here.
Client: Lucidworks
HQ: San Francisco, CA
URL: https://lucidworks.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/lucidthoughts
Company Type: Artificial Intelligence Software, B2B
Project Focus: Marketing, Sales
Client Product/Service: Artificial Intelligence solutions for business
Case Summary: Lucidworks initially came to Storyboard Media seeking a few animated explainer videos that could communicate the benefits of their advanced AI software to the average executive. Our strategic Springboard process ultimately led to the creation of a live-action video series that launched a new YouTube channel, Lucid Thoughts.
We worked closely with the client to determine the topics for Season Two and write scripts that would speak to our target audience in a fun, engaging way.
We knew it was important to have a relatable host convey these concepts. Brynn brought charisma, energy, and a sense of humor to the performance which made the information easier to absorb. Our post-production team kept the animation style light and easy to follow.
We produced six episodes of Season One and one promotional video announcing the creation of the YouTube channel.We also created animated thumbnails and keyword-optimized YouTube titles and metadata for each video. In the end, we delivered over 50 unique assets.
GlobalLink from TransPerfect provides B2B translation technology and services to facilitate international business. TransPerfect was looking for a way to promote their service, their brand, and their annual GlobalLink NEXT user conference using video.
Through our strategic process, a Springboard, we set out to understand the greatest needs for GlobalLink NEXT (their premier international event series) and recommend video content to address those needs.
We ultimately executed a comprehensive video strategy that communicated the specific value propositions of the event, helped to justify the real and opportunity costs of the event for potential attendees, and provided tools to the marketing and sales team to hype the event and drive attendance.
GlobalLink from TransPerfect is an enterprise language translation and localization service. GlobalLink NEXT is an annual, invitation-only event where all the parts of the GlobalLink equation come together: users, product developers, prospects, support staff, and salespeople.
Initially, TransPerfect reached out to us to craft a new event teaser from b-roll and interview footage internally filmed during past events. Upon reviewing the footage, we discovered that it was unusable in a final video product.
However, this process allowed us to gain a better understanding of the event and TransPerfect’s suite of products. It also enabled us to approach our strategic engagement with fresh ideas.
Before settling on specific concepts, we knew it was critical to first understand the specific goals that the TransPerfect team wanted to achieve and the audience personas they wanted to target, and how to distribute the videos once they were produced.
All corporate event video falls into one of three categories:
While we knew we would develop strategic concepts that promoted that year’s event, we also realized this was an opportunity to leverage the event itself to promote future iterations.
So, during the Springboard process, we conducted interviews with several key stakeholders involved with TransPerfect’s GlobalLink NEXT initiative. Through the course of these interviews, we were able to determine the specific goals the team was trying to achieve and, equally important, the personas they were trying to target.
The goals included an increase in headcount at the 2018 GlobalLink NEXT, communicating the value of the event to potential attendees, and developing a stronger social media presence on relevant channels.
The personas included prospects in the marketing and IT space with some awareness of GlobalLink’s potential, existing GlobalLink customers who wanted to learn to use the platform more effectively, and independent consultants who interact with the GlobalLink platform in their professional ecosystem.
This process gave us the insights we needed to move forward with developing our strategic concepts. The concepts we developed included a ‘Save the Date’ video campaign to formally announce the 2018 GlobalLink NEXT date and location, a ‘Top Reasons to Attend’ campaign highlighting key value props, a ‘Convince Your Boss’ video campaign to “level-up” previous years’ Convince Your Boss email template, a ‘User Stories’ video campaign, and an ‘About the Speakers’ video campaign. While each concept was designed to achieve a specific purpose, they were also intended to integrate with one another.
At the same time, we determined the distribution channels through which we would publish and promote the video content once it was produced and the variety of additional deliverables necessary to execute those campaigns. The key focus for distribution would be through LinkedIn.
At the time, TransPerfect boasted just over 50,000 LinkedIn followers and as a B2B company, it is where they can most directly connect with clients and prospects. YouTube would also be an important network, though subscribers here would not necessarily translate into conversions. Email, Vimeo, and additional social media networks were also included in the distribution plan.
The two ‘Save the Date’ videos were for the GlobalLink DC and GlobalLink Amsterdam Conferences. Featuring footage from previous events, these high-energy spots were specifically designed to hype up the event and raise awareness among the target audience – concluding with one clear call to action: Register Now.
The ‘Top Reasons’ campaign featured four event reminders intended to be released at specifically chosen dates ahead of the event. Each video focused on the top reasons to attend (e.g., gain product insights, stay ahead of the competition, hear user testimonials, mix business with pleasure) to move the target audience personas from the awareness stage to the action stage.
The ‘How to Convince Your Boss’ campaign featured entertaining “tips” for convincing your boss to let you attend the GlobalLink NEXT Conference. This campaign included an extended feature video as well as four shorter promo videos, all of which gave viewers the tools they needed to secure time off and travel expenses from their superiors.
Additionally, our event video strategy enabled us to do more than craft an effective promotional campaign; We also leveraged the GlobalLink NEXT event itself to capture several customer stories and testimonials for ongoing marketing content, which we detail in this case study.
In the end, we provided TransPerfect with over 75 deliverables, including 11 videos, 8 promotional video assets, and over 50 customized thumbnails and animated .gifs.
The videos, hosted on Vimeo, were launched according to our previously outlined distribution strategy via LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and through Email newsletter blasts. All of these distribution channels were aimed at attracting TransPerfect’s target audience to reach people who would be most interested in attending GlobalLink NEXT 2018.
“Love, Durham” featuring local hip hop artist J. Gunn highlights the best of what the Bull City has to offer.
This Economic Development piece was produced as part of the pitch for REDACTED to develop an East Coast HQ in The Triangle…