The explosive growth of video on the internet – and the ability to create and access video inexpensively on mobile devices – brings huge opportunities for businesses, at the same time as letting individuals do things we couldn’t have dreamed of a decade ago.

Video is core to our products and services. Some examples:

VIDEO BLOGGING:

We help companies cover live events, tell stories and communicate with their customers in a much more honest, genuine, conversational way by using blog-style video.

We help businesses create and manage complete video-based blogs, we help you to ditch old-style corporate websites and replace them with a more human way of communicating, and we use realtime video blogging to capture the raw excitement of live events. We’ll even send out our team in their mobile blogging support van to help you do it.

Take a look at the some of the work we’ve been doing with Asda chief executive Andy Bond and the communal blog we managed for Orange at this year’s Glastonbury Festival: 100 Hours In A Field.

UGC VIDEO

Whether you’re aiming to “democratise the process of creating movies” or you just want to get your customers sending in funny video of themselves, we’ve got the tools you need to let people do it, and we’ve got production teams who can help package UGC (user-generated content) into really compelling products.

Our Profusion system is designed to make it easy to manage videos, photos and supporting text uploaded by mobile or web – and we provide managed editorial and moderation services for brands running UGC-based competitions or ongoing products. One of our favourites was Wannabe Wicked, which combined fans’ own video competition entries with behind-the-scenes videos recorded on mobile phones by stars of the West End show Wicked.

VIDEO ON MOBILE

More and more people are using their mobiles to download and view videos as phones become more sophisticated and the operators introduce simpler charges for using data.

We build and manage mobile internet sites featuring high-quality video content optimised for different devices. We also provide video advertising solutions allowing you to automatically stitch short ads in realtime before, during or after the video content a user has requested depending on their profile, the context, or the nature of the content. See an example in our Zap! service.

VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT

Every day we’re taking in live feeds of video from the UK’s top broadcasters, TV production companies, film distributors and games companies to turn into a range of different interactive services on web and mobile.

One example: We manage the Orange Film service uses trailers, clips and behind-the-scenes features to help people decide what to go and see with their Orange Wednesdays 2 for 1 tickets. We make sure clips are optimised for the device you’re viewing it on – your specific mobile phone, a PC, a TV screen – and we create supporting images and editorial material for the service. Find out more here.

Posted by admin on 15 October 2009, 09:39

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At IMP we create new ways for businesses and brands to engage with their customers across mobile, web and social media.

Our team has a unique blend of complementary skills and experience – we’re great believers in the power of multi-discipline teams to achieve breakthrough thinking and true innovation.

So at IMP you’ll find creative thinkers, practical thinkers, software developers, interaction designers, strategic planners and deadline-driven producers working together at every stage of the product process – from idea generation to launch and ongoing management.

The result is that our clients can rely on us not just to deliver a great one-off product based on their brief – but to constantly and quickly build on and enhance live products through watching what users are doing and spotting key developments in technology and media.

That’s what makes us very different from traditional, campaign-focused digital agencies. Our background is in creating and running media services, so we know about managing a constantly-changing, constantly-developing relationship and dialogue with viewers, readers, users.

We’ve also got a great track record of anticipating and acting on the technological and social changes that transform the way people live their lives and the way companies do business. We’ve steered businesses through the hype-driven ups and the bubble-bursting downs of new media by judging which are the bandwagons to avoid and which are the behaviour-changing breakthroughs to pick up on fast.

Before setting up IMP in 2006 Mark Hird and Tony Cuthbertson, IMP’s founding directors, built and ran the UK multimedia operations of mobile operator Orange, developing a range of innovative information, entertainment and communication products at a time of rapid advances in mobile data network and device capabilities.

Prior to Orange the team ran the pioneering new media division of the Press Association – which was sold to Orange in 2000 after the creation of the Ananova news service and the world’s first virtual newscaster. Take a look back at the worldwide TV coverage Ananova received.

Back in those days we predicted a world where everyone would be empowered to access or create live information and multimedia content on mobile devices and be able to share it and act on it instantaneously. Within a few years all that was happening.

Now our focus is on how businesses and brands can change the way they interact with their customers by harnessing the power of the mobile phone – and its very intimate nature – as part of wider multi-platform services and experiences.

Linear consumption of media and entertainment services on the TV, mobile phone or PC has been giving way to more sophisticated user behaviour as people rapidly switch modes from passive viewing on one platform to active participation on another depending on their changing needs, mood or situation.

This – and the growing popularity of social network sites where people are comfortable to converse, share and publish on the web – opens up huge opportunities for media owners, retailers and brands to be much more creative in the way they engage and interact with audiences and individuals.

Posted by Peter on 14 October 2009, 16:16

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We’ve been designing and managing innovative information, communication and entertainment services for mobile devices for the past 10 years – so we’ve got a good grasp of what works and what doesn’t work for different types of mobile phone user.

We manage a range of rich multimedia services for video-enabled phones – now a significant and fast-growing proportion of all handsets. But we also recognise that mobile developers (and the networks themselves) are often guilty of rushing on to the next big thing and ignoring some of the basic properties of the mobile phone, and the still untapped opportunities to create simple but hugely effective new ways for businesses and customers to interact.

Here are some of the areas we cover:

MOBILE-OPTIMISED INTERNET SITES

It’s not that long ago that early-adopter mobile customers were complaining that “wap is crap” – we’ve come a long away since, and today there are many great examples of internet sites and services optimised to work well on a small screen.

High-end devices like the iPhone make a pretty good job of presenting up full-blown web sites but for most phones it’s still necessary to design the user experience with the screen size and other functional considerations in mind. Most of our clients want to reach the widest possible number of their customers so we specialise in creating services that can be optimised to work on a broad range of devices.

We create everything from simple single-purpose mobile microsites designed to complement broader communications all the way up to sophisticated interactive video-based services tailored to the interests and context of the individual user. We design and test each service to ensure the end user receives the best possible experience for their particular handset.

MESSAGING SERVICES

Text messaging is a great, simple way to kick off a dialogue with a customer – and within a couple of further interactions you can be well on the way to a deeper level of engagement where you’re able to deliver back a highly personalised service.

We manage shortcode-based services ranging from the simple “Text KEYWORD to 60300” to receive back a specific piece of information through to using the SMS as the first stage in a more detailed exchange, potentially leading the user to richer media such as video or a mobile internet site.

MOBILE UPLOADS

We make it easy for clients to launch services based on their customers’ own content – pictures, photos, stories – by providing the tools to make it easy for individuals to upload directly from their mobile phones.

It’s a simple call to action to ask people to send photos and videos by MMS to a shortcode with keyword – and our Profusion system helps manage all the incoming material with tools to edit it and forward it to its final destination.

We also provide complete managed services for user-generated content including full moderation to sift out unacceptable content pre-publication in line with the client’s own editorial guidelines.

VIDEO ON MOBILE

More and more people are using their mobiles to download and view videos as phones become more sophisticated and the operators introduce simpler charges for using data.

We ingest video material from a wide range of sources in every conceivable format – we take in raw content from end users using our Profusion tools; we have live feeds of professionally-produced content from major broadcasters and TV production companies; and we even deal with video supplied to us on physical tapes or discs.

All the material is transcoded for different types of devices – and the result is a database of optimised video ready to be integrated into an end service.

We are connected to mobile operator billing systems so you can charge for video downloads – or you can make video available free of charge (other than data costs). We also provide video advertising solutions allowing you to automatically stitch short ads in realtime before, during or after the video content a user has requested depending on their profile, the context, or the nature of the content. It’s the beauty of mobile – the most personal of all media touchpoints.

Posted by Mark on 13 October 2009, 14:53

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