Greg Grimmer – Become friends with the Prince and the Frog

In his first monthly column for Newsline Greg Grimmer, partner, Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer, looks at the beneficial effect of high production values and bespoke content on the web…

For those readers unlucky enough to see me speak at Media 360 this year you will probably remember one thing from my speech on why television advertising will never recover its golden age. No, not my golden prose or fantastic comic timing, but instead the ninety second film I showed for the Princes Rainforest Project (PRP).

My agency, Hurrell, Moseley, Dawson, and Grimmer (HMDG) have been working over the last year with the project to produce a campaign that is both jaw droppingly amazing in its cast list (from the heir to the throne, through Harrison Ford, and the Dalai Lama) but crucially, also has Hollywood-esque production values.

However this film (which for various reasons will never appear as a television commercial, although it has already received exposure in such high profile editorial environments as Good Morning America.) has many reasons why it has ‘gone viral’. It is not only the good cause, and the ‘A’ list cast, but also the fact that it has benefited from having a professional creative director’s eye on the overall process. Whilst we have produced a five minute version for YouTube, we treated the film in the same way that we would a TV commercial for any major client. It rewards the viewer for watching, without preaching, but in an entertaining and informative way that still leaves the viewer wanting more. The high production values also mean that the film stands out from the vast majority of video content produced specifically for the web.

I recently contributed to an article on the current commercial failings of YouTube and the other video advertising based web properties. It was only after then reading the same article that I realised, like all the other contributors, I had concentrated on the media arguments of why the format was still in a nascent form, rather than the more obvious error – poor production values.

By producing high quality bespoke web content for the PRP we have captured something that other brands could learn from.

Over the last decade I have been involved with many clients and campaigns that have trumpeted the ascent of web based activity, now for the first time I have actually worked on a campaign that lives entirely on the web and relies upon word of mouth alone to gain exposure AND has been successful.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still a believer in the power of paid-for advertising. Most people reading this, and almost certainly all MediaTel subscribers, rely on the paid for model for their livelihood but it has been a lesson to me and my advertising agency colleagues that the work we have done around the non paid channels (or social media as I think the current buzzword is) would be as powerful for a commercial brand as it has been for PRP. We have drummed up Fans on Facebook or Friends on MySpace, attracting subscribers to the YouTube channel and followers on Twitter. Whilst they will never replace the well targeted paid for advertiser, they add a level of involvement in a campaign that was not available to our agency fore fathers.

But back to the Frog for a second, the second golden rule of God’s own interweb is to get one to one interaction which the viewer can then share. So the second aspect of HMDG’S input into the PRP campaign was our personalised ‘Make your own Message’ application. Unique technology within the website – www.rainforestSOS.org/frogmessage – allows users to record their own message of support, add their chosen list from the original cast in the main campaign film, and appear in a clip with an animated frog, our symbol of the rainforests.

Once submitted, each user receives a unique URL of their Frog Message and/or Campaign Video that they can share with their friends, as well as post onto their social networking pages and blogs. Frog Messages and Campaign Videos will be featured on the PRP website. This application only launched last week but already tens of thousands across the globe have made a film, starring alongside Daniel Craig, Pele, and Kermit the Frog.

The campaign is obviously altruistic in its nature and does not ask for any financial contribution, but as I said earlier there is no reason why a commercial brand cannot follow the same rules with the same effect and crucially use the media totally in their control (ie paid for advertising) as the catalyst for this. Rather than disregard one or the other as irrelevant those campaigns that embrace both will be the ones that we will be remembered in the years to come.

Do you agree with Greg? Send us your opinion – news@mediatel.co.uk