FastCompany Interview: Corporate Comedy Video

After speaking at NYU’s B2B social communications leadership conference, I had the chance to visit with FastCompany’s Drew Neisser about how corporations can help use  humor to build online audiences.    Check out the article here, and an extended discussion on Drew’s blog.

Real-Time Marketing & PR Hits Bestseller Lists

Congrats to David Meerman Scott! His new book has hit the bestseller list in under a fortnight.  He quoted me a few times, and referenced a Cisco comedy video we produced as a case study.

One of my all-time favorite videos that Scott Teems and I worked on is the series we created with David to promote his book Worldwide Rave.  See video #2 in the playlist below.

David’s new book is  filled with excellent examples and practical tips for using social media to connect with your market. Available on Amazon.com

Social Media Strategies Summit

My friend Melissa Mines and I presented at the GSMI Social Media Strategies Summit.  As usual, when I visit San Francisco in September, I forgot that the climate can reach Ice Station Zebra conditions.  Melissa, sporting a sleeveless blouse on the way to dinner in Union Square, hypothesized that most tourists also don’t pack appropriately, forgetting about the temp drop and remedying their mistake by purchasing a cheap sweatshirt from the first street vendor they can find.   Which explains the following:

The next day at the conference, when our teeth stopped chattering, we presented a few case studies on Cisco’s work in the B2B social media space.  In the Service Provider Marketing group, we have a relatively small, technical audience.  I love the fact that we strive to balance the engineering content with some of the funny. Our presentation is below.

SXSW panel: Late Night Comedy meets Corporate Video

Our proposed panel has made it through the first round of the SXSW Interactive selections, and now we need your vote to make it to the show.  Scott Teems, SXSW Film Festival winning director for THAT EVENING SUN and I (contributor to SNL, Letterman, Conan, The Onion) will discuss a few of our corporate YouTube video hits that earned recognition from The New York Times and Comedy Central, as well as lessons learned from near “fireable offenses.”   Bestselling author David Meerman Scott (New Rules of Marketing & PR, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead) will join us.

We’d appreciate your vote for our panel (voting ends 11:59 CDT Friday, August 27.) It takes a minute to register for an account, then click here [note: the panelpicker page doesn't allow for listing of all panelists, hence the above post]

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/7744

Best practices for creating B2B marketing videos

Interview with David Meerman Scott on producing comedy videos for the corporate world.  Thanks to Matt Kaplan and the folks at VisibleGains.

Advertising Age: IBM’s Zany Viral Video Chief

Earlier this week AdAge reported on the case study I discussed on the use of humor in corporate web video.  I showed a few clips including one from our Smarter Planet campaign.  “Mainframe: The Art of the Sale” earned some great press coverage.  The San Francisco Chronicle blog “What are They Drinking in Armonk,” ZDNet compared it favorably against Microsoft’s broadcast ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, industry luminary James Governor blogged “Selling big iron the David Brent way,” and Comedy Central selected it as a finalist in its Test Pilot’s contest.

Case study presentation from the BDI Conference:

World Wide Rave, episode 1

Yesterday I had the chance to speak at New York University on how to produce comedy videos, as part of David Meerman Scott’s book launch of World Wide Rave.  We premiered the first episode of the video series Scott Teems and I produced to promote the book.