Click the image to watch the video.

An Adroid tablet for less than $100….

A funny name for it called Ice Cream Sandwich….

A product launch in less than two days…!

A call to WMS media….

Voila! A video showcasing MIPS’ challenge to the iPad appears on YouTube. Tablet fans go crazy with the technology and the price. An overwhelming response creates 140,000 hits in 3 days. And the hits keep climbing. To date, that number has doubled. What a great call our client made to invest marketing dollars wisely. Production costs divided by number of views are merely a few pennies per view.

In a nutshell, urgent need + WMS media’s secret sauce = viral outcome! Put this winning formula to work for you next time you want to do more than just get the word out.

Apple has announced the new iPad with three times more resolution than the iPad 2. According to The New York Times, the question is not if, but when sales for tablets will exceed PCs. Especially when you factor in the Amazon Kindle Fire or the MIPS Ice Cream Sandwich for which WMS media recently created a product release video.

According to a Business Insider report, “Tablet sales are expected to hit nearly 500 million units a year by 2015 and become a $100 billion-plus market. By then, tablet sales are expected to far surpass PC sales of about 360 million.”

PCs will, of course, still be around in one form or another, but they won’t consume as much of the market going forward. Tablet sales will benefit from being cheaper than PCs and allowing for easy web browsing or viewing videos — some of tablets’ most popular activities.

Tablets are making a big push into business and education, thus helping sales growth. For instance, supplying a classroom or company with 20 tablets is cheaper than buying 20 laptops. Plus, the higher resolution screen is just begging to show off what it can do with video. Soon it will be video, video everywhere!

How do your educational or company video images stack up? The need is even greater for ever-more polished and professional material in order to keep up with burgeoning demand. Soon the competition will be for not just who has a video but also who can stand out and express excellence of image quality!

How fun to notice similar expressions between our video and the Oscar-winner, separated by 25 years!

Everything old is new again.

WMS media was a bit ahead of this
year’s Oscar winner, “The Artist,” by employing the now novel silent-picture technique way back in 1986 in our
featured video this month.

In our cacophonous society we’re all bombarded with words, words and more words. That’s why to really stand out, sometimes you have to run in the opposite direction of the pack. Namely, cutting any dialogue or narration. Film and video is all about visual story-telling where less is more when it comes to words. We’re constantly telling our clients that words only play a supporting role in a video and to let the images carry the day. In fact, when approaching the job of writing a script, it’s best to think in terms of writing captions to the visuals.

Old-time silent movies demonstrate this idea perfectly. Directors and actors back then were expert story-tellers using visuals with very few words. Just watch how exaggerated gestures effortlessly convey sadness or happiness. For maximum visual impact in your projects, try employing this technique the old masters knew. Sure, it’s okay to include facts and figures in your communication vehicle, but remember that video excels at eliciting feelings and excitement in the viewer through imagery.

After all, who hasn’t laughed or cried or screamed at some point in their life watching a movie?

“Of course, we’re using it in our social media and as a PSA,” says Lee Kopp, marketing director of Ballet San Jose. “But our volunteer subscription sales teams are also using it as part of their sales kit to fire up people about Ballet San Jose. More than 50 of our subscribers are reaching out to their friends and families, co-workers, churches and social clubs to encourage people to give Ballet San Jose a chance to show them what ballet is all about. So many people think that ballet is just tutus and pointe shoes. They have no idea how broad the world of ballet truly is. We have ballets set to Japanese music, Chinese music, American jazz, rock ‘n roll, Eskimo chants, even whale song! We want people in our theater who have never seen a ballet before. Because once they experience the magic of live dance on stage, they are changed forever as arts lovers.

“When people see a short piece like the one WMS media created, it can really open their eyes!”

Tom Wohlmut and Brianna Klus-Osban of WMS media, Inc. accept award.

We love helping our clients achieve their goals. Winning an award for it is like icing on the cake.

CreaTV San Jose, the most prolific nonprofit public TV center in California, threw its red-carpet bash of The 2011 CreaTiVe Awards on January 7, 2012 at downtown’s historic California Theatre. What the Academy Awards are to Hollywood is like what the CreaTiVe Awards are to “Valleywood.” So what an honor when WMS media, Inc. won the award for best nonprofit PSA under two minutes!

The mission of the winning video is to increase subscribers to Ballet San Jose. We’re happy CreaTV San Jose has recognized this video as one of the best to promote and celebrate the arts.

Nada. Zip. No one.

Imagine getting a chance to show much more! That’s where the importance of B-roll comes in. We’ve all seen it – cutaways during a newscast that show visuals enhancing the story. No PR effort with the national TV/cable news media is complete without having a B-roll handy to send them. Your B-roll helps the TV/cable station show video about your company while the CEO is talking. It’s a sweet opportunity to get out in front of the message by showcasing your company and its products at its finest!

Don’t leave the video editor scrambling to find visuals! Even worse: They might use images of your competitor because that’s all they could find. Give them your visuals on a silver platter; make their job easier; and you’ll be in a better position to control the visual message.

Case in point: Sheri Baer of The Hoffman Agency was developing a PR campaign for their client IDT. Working with WMS media, she created one snappy B-roll file that was picked up when Fox Business News aired a story about IDT. Sheri says: “Whether we’re pitching CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business, one of the first questions we get asked is, ‘Do you have B-roll?’ Everyone knows video makes for a much more engaging segment — and being able to provide those supporting visuals can make or break an opportunity.”

B-roll: Don’t leave your office without it.

Recently we had great fun working on a humorous piece. The goal was to poke fun at old-school, stodgy marketing and presentations. We started with footage of ineffective corporate pomp and brouhaha. But then we created deliciously funny commentary by inserting perfectly timed sounds of cuckoo clocks, snoring, and of course clucking chickens and chirping crickets.

Sound effects are just one more way to enliven your media message. But don’t worry; we also know when not to add the chickens!

Life at WMS media is always interesting and increasingly international. Last week we taped an interview in San Jose that was then sent overseas to be completed by a Chinese team and distributed for viewing in Asia. We had a language challenge: The subject spoke little English and his presentation was entirely in Mandarin. While we did have a Mandarin speaking consultant present, it was obvious when our speaker was communicating well. When he was most successful, the music of his language flowed and engaged us. Many universal cues are also clearly evident on-camera. Body language, facial expression, flow of delivery and tone of voice convey a world of meaning that video captures, even when we speak different languages.

Alison Collins on the opera stage. Click the image to hear a sample of her work.

The polish of professional media may cost more than a homemade or bargain job, but the difference in results can be staggering.

When I was a young, starving performer, I made a momentous decision – to invest in quality media to represent my work. It wasn’t easy. Recording just 10 minutes of music cost over half my monthly income. Little did I know how powerful that 10 minutes would be. When that CD landed a gig that paid me back all I had spent, I was thrilled. And that was not the end of the story. The conductor of that first concert recommended me for an audition I would have not had access to before. That job led to another and then another. In the end, my initial investment resulted in rewarding work for several years and earned more than 40 times the cost!

What is true for artists is true for business: High-quality media opens hearts and minds to the benefits and solutions of your services or products. It keeps working for you even when you aren’t clocking time. It helps you be in the right place at the right time.

Invest well in professional media. I’m so glad I did!

by Alison Collins, associate producer at WMS media