The next marketing revolution is here... now! (online at http://www.digitalmediamarketing.org/articles/nextrev.html)
Four months ago, I completed a lifelong dream by writing, directing and acting in a feature film with a cast of 60 and an incredible cinematographer named Isidore Mankofsky who also shot the memorable film Somewhere in Time. The film I produced is called Divorce: the Musical.
The film was shot entirely in Hi-Definition Video and then transferred to 35mm film. It was one of the first films ever shot in this manner and certainly the first musical.
I became more of a pioneer than I could have possibly realized. The format is now being used by several television shows in place of film, and George Lucas is using it to shoot the new Star Wars film. The process of filmmaking is going through the most profound revolution since the advent of talking pictures.
The reason I bring this up is simple. With the recent announcement by Apple that their new high-performance G4 Macintosh will be bundled with Pioneer DVD Studio Pro's new SuperDrive and Apple's iDVD software, we are on the verge of a marketing revolution even more powerful than desktop publishing was 20 years ago.
In case you haven't yet heard about this dramatic breakthrough, let me briefly explain it to you. Pioneer developed a SuperDrive that can not only read and write to CDs, but also read and write to DVDs in a format that can be played on standard set-top consumer DVD players. To fully maximize the potential of this SuperDrive, Apple has created iDVD, a software package that's bundled with the new G4 Macintosh and makes the process of authoring a DVD easy enough for a ten year old to master. The authoring process (burning a DVD), is literally point and click, with no instruction manual required. To be fair, Compaq is also bundling the SuperDrive with one of their machines, but without the innovative Apple iDVD software. Instead they bundle it with authoring tools that only a professional film editor would find useful. Apple took a two-prong approach by releasing iDVD for general use and a higher-end package called DVD Studio Pro that serves the professional filmmaking community.
Two secrets you need to know to understand the significance of this. In 1993, I sponsored a conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City that demonstrated to advertising agencies and major consumer brands the significance and power of direct response television.
Marvin Traub, the ex-Chairman of Bloomingdales and a marketing legend, got on stage and stated this simple fact, "In my entire marketing history, nothing has moved product in such huge numbers at retail like a successful infomercial."
What prompted him to make such a remark? Bloomingdales had two products sitting on their shelves gathering dust. Suddenly, out of nowhere, those two products started flying off their shelves faster than they could keep them in stock. Those two products were juice machines and clothing steamers. Why did this happen? Because two very successful infomercials had just hit the air for The Juiceman juicer and the Sassan clothing steamer. But here's what's truly amazing-those two infomercials didn't just generate retail sales for their own brands. They generated sales for the entire product category. Bloomingdales couldn't keep any brand of juicer or steamer in stock.
A little over a year later, Philips Electronics developed a new game system that retailed for several hundred dollars. They spent a small fortune building kiosks and putting them in retail stores across the country. Retail salespeople reported that the demonstration time to sell a potential customer was 20 minutes long. Very few units were sold. Philips then produced an infomercial that demonstrated the machine. Within the first 30 days on the air, they sold more units than they did in the entire previous year. As an added bonus, because the units were so effectively demonstrated on television, the sales time at retail was reduced to only 5 minutes.
The problems with infomercials. No one can dispute the effectiveness of a successful infomercial, but they have two major problems. First, you can't target market the audience. Media time is purchased based on price and effectiveness of results, not demographics. Second, the cost of television media time has skyrocketed over the past ten years and the number of viewers watching any given channel has significantly diminished.
The most powerful sales tool is a disc. Show a person how they benefit from a new product or a service, demonstrate it thoroughly and completely so they are not intimidated by it, and then emotionally make them feel the excitement of how much better their life will be by using it and you have a sales tool that can change the world.
With a DVD you can do that better than with any other method. First, it's portable. It's easy and inexpensive to distribute. A customer doesn't have to look at it in their office-they can watch it from the comfort of their living room where they'll experience a beautiful digital image that's sharper than their standard television picture. And they can hear it in full stereo sound...even Dolby surround sound if you want. The Internet can't compare with this-their tiny, poor quality video images stutter in comparison.
With the DVD viewing experience, you can share it with your spouse, parents, family, friends or business associates. And unlike a standard VHS videotape, a DVD has interactive menus that enable a viewer to jump right to the information they want and need.
An infomercial's loss is your gain. While you can't target market an infomercial, you can definitely target market your DVD.
You can send DVDs out to your existing customers, past customers, or potential customers. You can rent any multitude of mailing lists to reach new leads. With attractive packaging and the right sales message on the cover, 80% of all people receiving them will watch it within the first three days of receiving it, according to a study done on VHS tapes mailed in a similar fashion.
A picture is worth a thousand words... If you're anything like me, your mailbox is full of brochures and direct mail pieces on a daily basis. Very few of them get read. But a DVD carries value. DVDs aren't thrown away-unlike the ridiculous amount of direct mail pieces we receive every week.
And while a photograph is powerful, a moving picture is even more powerful. It can make us laugh, cry, and become filled with excitement and desire.
Think about the tremendous power of that. You can actually demonstrate how your product or service is going to make someone's life better, easier, or more enjoyable. But the amazing thing is that you can now create all of this from the comfort of your own desktop.
iDVD vs. DVD Studio Pro. If I was producing a DVD to promote a new automobile or some other high-end consumer product, I would never think of using iDVD to master the disc. I would probably employ a top producer, cinematographer, director, cast, and post-production house to put it all together. After all, image is important and I want to show my product in the very best possible light.
But by using Apple Computer's professional products I could easily accomplish the same level of quality using DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro, their professional editing programs. DVD Studio Pro enables me to do multiple soundtracks, various foreign languages, moving background menu plates and many other capabilities that iDVD does not provide.
But let's put that into some real world perspective. The majority of printed sales pieces produced as marketing materials by companies in this country are produced in-house. With the state-of-the-art printers most offices have as standard equipment you can create some pretty dazzling sales and marketing pieces. Not to mention the millions of plain old business letters that are generated every single day by countless businesses.
It's almost like magic! Despite the fact that I love editing on an AVID and I've worked on some of the most cutting-edge High Definition systems in existence, nothing gave me the sheer delight of using Apple's iMovie and iDVD. Within 15 minutes I understood iMovie enough to edit a corporate video-all nine hours of it. The capture of the video was flawless. It rendered titles, dissolves, fade-outs and even special effects at a click of a mouse. It wasn't work! It was fun.
Was the finished result pro-fessional? I sold that set of tapes for $395.00 each.
iDVD is even simpler to operate than iMovie. Apple provides you with a large number of preformatted backgrounds to use for your menu. Don't see anything you like? You can create your own. You can use a scanned photograph, or create a backplate in Photoshop. After your background is chosen you simply bring your edited video clips into the program. Each clip resides on the iDVD desktop as a button. You click on the button and the clip plays. You can even select the exact still frame from the clip you want displayed as the button for the clip. You can even add text over the button to label the clip.
Once you have it looking exactly the way you like it, you simply hit the DVD burn button and in two hours or less your DVD is finished and ready to view.
If you've ever experienced how complicated it has been until now to author any type of DVD, you know that what I'm describing is pure magic.
A brainstorming session. What can you do with such a tool? Here are just a few ideas off the top of my head: € Real estate offices can film and edit DVDs of their properties for sale, giving you a full walking tour of each home or building. € Clothing stores can produce a mini fashion show. € Bookstores can promote upcoming books and include interviews with the authors. € Art galleries can promote their local shows and include artist profiles
