March 14, 2006
Video Press Release: "The Ballad of Jesse James"
Yo, you gotta love the trend of video press releases. (And this is written by a true Luddite.) Just got one from Joe Hanrahan of the Midnight Company, re: the upcoming production of his "The Ballad of Jesse James," a quick piece done in a rather Ken Burns-ey style, at that.
Here 'tis:
http://www.midnightcompany.com/site/james/
And you gotta love the fact that Dave Wassilak is a cast member. Don't know how much comedy is this piece - can't imagine a ton, what with all the killin' and gunplay - but this is one funny, funny man.
Ted, you got me thinking here...
Posted by thomas on Thu., Mar 16, 2006 at 10:42 AMAfter further discussion with some coworkers here's what we came up with.
It's a video press release and not a commercial simply because the organization didn't pay money for it to air.
A traditional press release works similarly. It's up to the media outlet to follow up on a PR piece and write a full story.
Video is certainly more engaging than a text-only release and gives the viewer a better idea of the play than a text release.
However if the subject of a video press release was something less visual (than this play for example) I would expect it to be less effective.
And to take it further, once video press releases are common at what point then do they lose their effectiveness? Who would have the time to sit and watch 20 of these vs glancing at 20 PR printouts?