piksie!

As I promised in my blog yesterday, in today's post I want to give you a bit more insight about how we picked the winner in the Best Video Contest. I also want to use this post to give our producers some general guidelines about what we're looking for in videos featured on :piksie.com.

It's very easy to get excited by a well produced video. Some high energy music, quick cuts, cool camera angles. They all make the video look great but we're not looking for cool looking videos. We're looking for videos that will help consumers. Don't get me wrong. Making your videos look great is very important but that's not the bottom line.

So one question we had to again and again ask ourselves was: "What would consumers get out of this video?" Let me quickly share a lesson I learned during my tenure as a TV production executive: "Pretty pictures don't sell products." Two things sell products:

1. The product itself
2. The message or the pitch

From time to time, you also hear me talk about the phony nature of television. The truth is that advertising agencies charge their clients enormous amounts of money to produce gorgeous looking commercials full of cool tricks, computer generated graphics, beautiful models, etc. But they have no skin in the game. The commercial may bomb but the agency would lose nothing; they'd simply add another great looking commercial to their already impressive portfolio. But I got news for everyone. Things are changing. Things are changing in a big way and :piksie.com is right there as one of the pioneers of this revolution.

So, let me try to methodically give you the reasons why we picked Robert Kiss's video about the Sony HDR CX-110 camcorder as the winner of our 1st Best Video Contest.

We had two criteria in picking the winner.

1. The value consumers get from the video. Specifically:
   1. Video must help consumers with their purchasing decisions
   2. It must educate them about the product or the product category
   3. It must be unbiased
2. Production quality
   1. Video capture i.e. camera angles, selective zooms, image quality, etc.
   2. Lighting
   3. Editing techniques
   4. Audio

So, let's now analyze how Robert's video hit the mark on these points.

In the video, Robert clearly positions the product by mentioning key features:

Robert scored HUGE points with his demonstrations. This next one is absolutely brilliant where he's demonstrating the camera's face recognition feature (starts at 1:03). Let's take a closer look at the set up. Robert's using two cameras for this scene. You can actually see him talking to his audience through the LCD of the first camera which is the featured product. Then he's using a second camera to demonstrate the feature. Like I said, absolutely brilliant.

Here's another great demo -- though you won't fully appreciate it by looking at a still shot I'm using here. You need to watch the video to fully appreciate it. In this scene (starts at 1:17), Robert is demonstrating camcorder's slow motion capture capabilities. He's using the "Picture in Picture" effect and showing a clip he'd captured earlier while explaining the feature. This scored points with us at multiple levels. First, he's demonstrating something that may be hard to understand for some. When you see it though, you immediately get it. Secondly, by inserting this visual aid, Robert breaks the monotony of "talking heads". People will look at a talking head lecturing them for so long. After a while, it gets boring. So, using visuals every once in a while will buy you time.

At first glance, you may not fully appreciate the importance of this next demo -- which is incredibly simple and lasts only a second or so. However, once I tell you why it's supremely important, you'll agree with me. In this next demo, Robert displays still shots of memory cards you can use to store videos captured by the camcorder. Like I said, at first glance, you may think "What's the big deal? A memory stick and an SD card". Well, the answer is in the question. You'd be surprised to find out how many consumers may not be clear about the difference between a memory stick which is a proprietary Sony technology and an SD card which is a format used by many vendors. Showing them side by side and calling their names is a fantastic way to clarify this important point.

These all scored points for Robert but we also deducted a point or two here and there. Here's an example:

Let's now move on to production quality. Clearly, this is one area Robert really shines. One thing that captures viewer's attention from the get-go is the great, high energy music combined with nicely synchronized cuts that give the viewer a chance to see the camera up close and personal while drawing his/her attention to some key features such as this 25x Carl Zeiss optical zoom. Also notice the shallow depth of field that allows unnecessary details to gracefully fall out of focus.

Another important point is lighting. As you can see in the following image, though simple, all the scenes and Robert's face are nicely lit. Here's something YouTuber's can learn from Robert -- sorry, couldn't resist it! Another nice touch here is the high key lighting effect -- though not perfectly high key, it comes pretty close.

In the audio category, Robert scored lots of points and lost only one. Music selection is fantastic. Audio levels are fairly consistent -- this is a big one for us. Fluctuating audio levels is a huge turn off. However, we did deduct one point because Robert speaks a little too fast. We actually appreaciate the fact that Robert keeps things perfectly natural by not changing his regular speed. Nevertheless, it's important to remember why we're making these videos: To help consumers. Therefore it's important to slow down when making an important point and speed up to keep things nice and dynamic.

As I mentioned it many a times before, :piksie.com is a pioneer in social commerce. This position comes with some responsibilities. Our videos have to be far better than those you see on video sharing sites. They have to offer great value to consumers both in terms of content and production quality.

I want to wrap this up with a hugely important point. Don't think for a second that the iPad is the grand prize here. It was the grand prize in the contest but in reality it was only a symbol, a token of our appreciation for our producers who offered their great videos to consumers through :piksie.com. The real grand prize is winning the hearts and minds of consumers. My prediction is that many of our producers will generate significant income for themselves through the Revenue Sharing Program once consumers begin to take advantage of :piksie.com's unique, completely honest and open approach to online shopping. Just mark my words!