There’s something uniquely intimate and direct about video shot on a mobile phone. One of the examples we often point to is the work we did with the cast and production team of the hit West End musical Wicked.

The show’s leading man Oliver Tompsett took a mobile phone behind the scenes at the Apollo Victoria Theatre for a month to show what it’s really like working on a big London show.

His videos of cast workouts, dressing-room banter and backstage action in the wings were a big hit with the show’s vast army of passionate fans. The video blog approach made you feel you were getting much closer to the cast and crew than even the best fly-on-the-wall documentary crew can achieve. As a viewer you know you’re sharing something personal between the people on the camera – you’re not seeing it through someone else’s lens.

Oliver’s video blog was part of Wannabe Wicked, an initiative designed to give fans of the show the opportunity to get closer to their heroes, to actively feel a part of Wicked – and, for one lucky person, win a walk-on role in the show.

Fans sent in videos of themselves performing a song from the show and these went into a knockout contest decided by the votes of customers of Orange, the show’s official communications partner.

Orange wanted to raise awareness of its mobile portal Orange World among the valuable Wicked fan base, typically female, aged between 16 and 24.

Orange and Wicked used fan sites and groups on My Space and Facebook to reach out to fans – as well as the show’s large fan club – and the fans themselves set up their own social networking groups and uploaded their clips to YouTube to discuss the contest and appeal for votes.

The effect was to create a real buzz around the fan base and drive a completely new audience to Orange’s multimedia services.

You can still see some of the entries – including winner Louise Henderson’s – at www.wannabewicked.co.uk.

Michael McCabe, UK Executive Producer for the Wicked, said: “IMP have created a completely new way for us to interact with our audience and give them a unique chance to get closer to the show and feel intimately involved.

“We’ve been hugely impressed by the way IMP combine genuine creativity and innovation with the technical capability to deliver services that fully exploit the combination of web and mobile.”

Posted by Mark on 16 October 2009, 16:54

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Asda has emerged this year as a real pioneer in the use of video, blogging and social media to transform the way a business engages with its customers – and we’re helping them to do it.

Back in May we sat up and took notice when Asda’s chief executive Andy Bond gave a keynote speech talking about the need for radical transparency and openness if businesses are to build trust with customers and employees in the future.

Since then we’ve been working with Asda to start down this path by replacing their old-style corporate website with a completely new site, Your Asda, which uses raw video and a much more open, conversational blog-style approach to interact with customers and seek their feedback and involvement.

Andy Bond himself is a fan of the way video blogging can give you a much more personal, honest view of of the people within an organisation and its culture. We followed Andy on a 1200-mile charity bike ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats, helping him and his colleagues capture the epic journey in a live video blog and bring to life the objectives of the Pedal Power campaign.

Now Asda has rolled out a new blog, Aisle Spy, where 14 people around the business take Flip video-cameras wherever they go, capturing what goes on behind the scenes and lifting the lid on how things are done.

Our work with Asda also covers communication among the company’s 167,000 staff through The Green Room – and some of Asda’s wider online activity in areas such as Twitter and YouTube. Here’s another recent example of how Asda’s people really “get” social media.

Posted by TC on 15 October 2009, 08:33

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The rise of social networks, blogging and collaborative online communities has created fantastic opportunities for businesses to change the way they listen to, talk to and discuss with individual customers and involve them in helping shape their products and services.

As with anything in the internet age a lot of time and effort can be wasted by running to jump on the latest bandwagon … only to discover that by the time you’ve settled into your seat the world has jumped on to another one.

The secret is to stand back and work out the really clever things your business could be doing in this “social media” world as it exists today, knowing it will change radically tomorrow, but being bold about the first steps you’re taking.

The big mistake is to listen to agencies who come along with their painting-by-number list of the social media must-haves they can manage for you: lovely channels, feeds or groups on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Bebo. Too often they help you knock up some beautifully-crafted pages on each of the big social media sites then leave them sitting there alongside a growing list of abusive and irrelevant comments, all going unanswered. It makes money for the agencies – but it underestimates the real significance of what’s going on in this space.

Our approach is to work with clients on an ongoing basis on initiatives that use social media in a way that’s much more relevant, impactful, constantly changing, and core to their current activities.

Some current favourites (they’ll change!):

BLOGGING

We’re big fans of a blog style of communication to create a more human, conversational way of interacting with your customers.

Asda went so far as to ditch their entire corporate website to adopt a more conversational way of engaging with customers in the Your Asda site we manage for them – and launching a blog called Aisle Spy, where a group of Asda colleagues “lift the lid” on the Asda business in posts using photos and videos recorded on Flip camcorders.

We help our clients set up blog sites and give their staff the tools to create compelling video-based blog posts – and we provide our own blogging support teams to cover live events.

Asda’s chief executive Andy Bond is a big believer in the use of raw, honest, straight-to-camera blog-style video to open up the business and give a greater insight into the people within the business. We followed Andy on his epic 1200-mile charity cycle ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats to help create his Pedal Power blog.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE…

We help clients manage their presence on the big social networking services. The key is not just to concentrate on what WE the brand/business want to say on Twitter or YouTube but to be out there checking what everyone else is saying about us, about other related things, and joining in the discussion. And then, yes, also throwing in new stuff of our own.

For major consumer brands Twitter – and the next big thing that will surely come after it – heralds a step change in understanding your customers. For the first time you can see in real-time what people are saying about you to their friends and acquaintances. People share and open themselves up in previously inconceivable ways on social networking sites. And if you watch kids using Club Penguin and other virtual worlds you’ll get a glimpse of how that trend is going to snowball in the future. It’s a powerful vision of the future, and an exciting one.

So – in the here and now – when we help a client set up and manage a Twitter feed we don’t start by talking about micro-blogging corporate messages; we work out how their customers and stakeholders are already using Twitter and talking about them, and how we can fit into those conversations.

Here’s another example of a use of social media that we think really hits the nail on the head. It’s another Asda example – this time on You Tube. [link to Asda Fulwood story]

Posted by Mark on 13 October 2009, 14:48

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