The scene: Four executives of a company sit at a long table. “Ms. Beisenhirtz, please send in the next candidate.” Enter a young woman, sneakers and a colorful dress, talking into her phone: “You know I got 25k on Insta, right? Do you know who’s following me? Celebrities, baby, celebrities.” She gets off the phone and tells the panel to wait a moment and if they could move in closer for her selfie. They acquiesce.   She tags them on social media and then says, “Sorry I don’t usually tag people under 15k.” She sits down and is now all business. "All cell phones off and everyone look over here. I brought a concept. Hand this out please but don’t look at it yet! First of all, only one thing matters to me: Sell. Sell. Sell. High-quality products for the benefit of the customer.” She tells them how many “A-list” followers she has and says, “Now l ...

In his 2019 SIPAward-winning entry for Best Use of Video in Marketing, Behr's Verlag CEO Arno Langbehn wrote that it was a coincidence that as he played the accordion at the port of Hamburg—yes, really—and then started talking up their Annual Conference QM!, a cargo ship moved across the background named "RELIABLE."

"Gas station owner Mike is struggling to keep up with the times, and not just in his wardrobe."

When Jean Ellen Cowgill of Bloomberg's TicToc told us a couple weeks ago how video has stirred their success, she made it a point to tell how important those first few frames are.

I was curating our other morning newsletter last week where we post the top media stories of the day and came across a Washington Post article on the imminent sale of The National Enquirer. I clicked on the link to the story and up popped the headline with a big photo and then the article.

More than half of the adults polled in a new Pew Research Center Survey say video is important for helping them make purchasing decisions. The survey also reports that users are turning to videos—and that means YouTube, of course—for much more than entertainment.

On the first day of the SIPA Annual 2018 Conference yesterday, Brian Malone of Malone Media preached what he practices. "People are drawn to mystery," he told us. "You have to tap into that in your video."

Persuade. Humanize. Convey information. Initiate action. Video can do all of that and more in a relatively short time. Here are 10 examples of how SIPA members (and one Connectiv) are using video on their websites: 1. To accentuate a story in your publication. CPA Magazine features an informative, breezy video at the top of their website. It’s called The Bottom Line Weekly News, and it’s a quick minute delivered by Steel Rose, editor, and Joshua Fluegel, managing editor. Fluegel said that they work on these in between the trade shows they attend. It finishes with “For more on this and other headlines, visit www.cpamagazine.com," and Fluegel saying, “Great, lunch!” and walking away. Traveling around the country, Rose will interview his freelance columnists for these segments. 2. To sell a specific product. EB Medicine features an entertaining, mostly animated, minute video showcasing their “Affordable Trauma CME Solution.” ...

Effective video takes various skills, Brian Malone of Malone Media told me a couple months ago. He called video a technical process "but you also need a creative person... Recognize what other companies are doing online [with video]. It might be training, webinars, webcasts..."

On a Thursday a few weeks ago, Brian Malone, president of new SIPA member Malone Media, was telling me about an important shoot that he had the following Monday morning. (I love saying "shoot" with video people and "gig" with my music-performing friends.)