I would like to evaluate two promotional videos of the same festival, in this case California WorldFest. From an e-marketing point of view, I think we can all learn from these examples by sharing constructive feedback. In my opinion we have one bad and one good example here.
This was the first video I watched:
http://www.festivalorganiser.com/jeroen-mourik/videos/event-promo-videos/california-worldfest-stages
Here is the second video:
My opinion:
First Video
The video starts of good, a nice opening-shot and as viewer I feel welcomed. It is okay to state the festival’s number of stages, as it tells the viewer that there are multiple performances to choose from at any particular time. But then the video becomes boring and pointless.
Why show us stage after stage, highlighting the names of the stages without giving us any additional information? Who is interested in the names of the stages and why not tell us at least what the differences between the stages are (if there are any)? The only thing we can conclude as viewers is that one stage also presents dance and that they also have a workshop venue.
It would make a lot more sense if we could experience the sound of the actual showcased performances. I noticed one performer with an interesting musical instrument and I cannot hear him play. With regards to the dance shot, I can only hope that it is not representative for the rest of the dance performances that the festival offers and find it hard to imagine that this was the best video snapshot of the dancers of this particular group. If I were the video-editor that dance shot would not have made it in my final cut.
Second Video
I was so pleased to see this video, although wondered why it had less than 50 views at the time I watched it, whilst the first video had already more than 250 views and they were both posted at the same day.
First of all, the title made me curious and as soon as I started watching the video it became clear. In 2007 there was “that one guy at California WorldFest” that everybody was talking about and he is coming back in 2010!
Well unfortunately I was not there in 2007, as it seems my kind of festival, but just seeing the great performance of ‘that guy’ in 2007 on this video, I now want to go and see him perform live at this years festival.
Conclusion, as promotional video and at the same time as a snapshot of 2007 highlights, I think this is a good video. However, two simple things would make this video so much better.
1) Promote your website at the end of the video. I know, if you click on the YouTube profile page of WorldFest, all the info is there, but not everybody clicks on the username of the person who posted the video to see the profile.
2) If you decide to give credits to the makers of the video, at least give ‘that guy” also some credit. I want to know who he is.
There is a great opportunity here to motivate me to go to the festival’s website, by ending the video with something like: “learn more about his amazing instrument at www.worldfest.net”.
Do you share my opinion? And what other constructive feedback do you have on these videos from an e-marketing perspective? Please join the discussion.
Both videos are too long to be considered promo clips. 1:30 would have been fine, but 3:20 for “that 1 guy” was more like hearing a cut off of an album. I wanted the clip to hurry up and get to the point: tell me the what-where-when- and how-do-I-get-more-info details without making me wait two more minutes. I got impatient.
Neither video did a good job promoting the festival – other than listing the dates and imposing the CALIFORNIA logo on the backdrop of the stage, other details like city, website, contact information, ticketing info were woefully absent. My best guess is that this was more about the filmmakers/videographers and less about the festival.
Of the two, the first clip did a better job giving an overview of what to expect; the second clip was more entertaining, but if the purpose was to promote the festival, it succeeded only in promoting the performer, who was quite fascinating.
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