Kelsey-video

Kelsey Conference: "Drilling Down Local" -- Santa Clara, Calif.

Four vendors describe innovation in the use of video for local advertising

Tues., March 20: Injecting video into local

Speakers

• Perry Solomon, VP, business developmet, FAST Search & Transfers
• Bob Armour, CMO, http://www.ShopLocal.com
• Matt Crowley, VP, marketing, http://wwww.yellowpages.com
• John McQueeney,business development, http://www.Turnhere.com

What they said

• Solomon says broadband penetration has reached a critical mass and now users are looking for broadband video. the combination of embedded flash players and camera phones has made video portable both on the acquisition and display side. His concept is search as the portal, where video is embedded in the player. "his is the vision of the future, where video is another element in building a community of visualization for the user."

• McQueeney says http://wwww.TurnHere.com is a network of video filmmakers from around the world. They make ads all the way up to content for the Discover Channel. "The ability to now tell stories onthe Internet is really extraordinary," he says. "You used to be able to do it on TV. To be able to emotionally engage the user is a sea change." They make sort advertisements for local customers. You can make a TV-quality ad for less than $1,000 using a one-person crew. Quality no longer means expensive. "We don't use actors and no scripts -- just speaking passionately about something that you believe in." He mentioned a video of a large house for sale at Lake Tahoe that the put on YouTube and it got 1,300 views over a weekend.

• Bob Armour, CMO, http://www.ShopLocal.com, says advertising can become entertainment. He showed an example of a low-tech production video promoting in a guerilla-marketing way a food blender that is featured on ShopLocal.com. The video shows a couple of people putting iPods or scissors or other rediculous stuff into the blender and turning it on and then watching the results. All they did is buy the blender and shoot the consumer-grade video and put it on YouTube.

• Crowley talked about relationship buildling as the key value that directory publishers bring to the local market. "The local plumber is not building his own website," says Crowley. "What local business have come to rely on us for is that consulting relationship to help them build their business and produce that television advertisement."