It was friend and client Barrett Prelogar, CEO and founder of Winntech. Winntech was building a huge, interactive video display for the H&R Block flagship office in Times Square and they wanted August Hour to help produce the video content.

photo from NY Daily News, Gabel

Now, Winntech produces the most sophisticated and thoughtful interactive experiences I’ve ever seen.  I like this because it challenges August Hour to produce compelling video content that matches that level of quality and meet the reputation of a top-notch company like H&R Block.  At the time we partnered with Winntech, we didn’t realize what a massive undertaking this would be. At the end of the project August Hour – with Winntech’s creative guidance – produced over 850 separate High Definition videos in under two months; 543 of which were produced in 16 days for the H&R Block grand opening on December 7th, 2009.

Photo courtesy H&R Block

Working with Winntech required August Hour to pull together all of our core capabilities including: casting, pre-production, chroma key and digital animation, live-action HD shoots, music composition, digital photography and editing, sound design, and audio recording and mastering.

In Kansas City we shot five days of live-action video to produce eight different interactive host segments (H&R Block employees). After shooting wrapped this footage was edited into 331 chroma-keyed videos combined with digital interactive animation that guide the viewer through the interactive process.

Next we spent two days filming on location in New York to produce 20 short biopics about each of the Tax Professionals who work in the flagship office on Times Square (my personal favorite part of the project).

Finally, the project involved producing the content for the huge video walls and tickers that are displayed on 7th Avenue. This meant August Hour had to help conceptualize, produce, direct, render and output a dozen videos that were over twice the resolution of HD video, all in under two weeks.

We’re proud to say the work was completed on time, on budget and the flagship office is open on Times Square.

These projects are successful because of clients and project partners like Winntech and H&R Block who bring creativity, expertise and experience to the process. We owe a debt of gratitude to everyone from H&R Block, Winntech, DDB, and all the folks who worked long hours to pull this project together.

Just some of the client feedback on the project:

WOW…I am speechless!!!!! Seriously – you guys rock, and you just made my weekend and my whole week next week. What talent! Thank you so much for all your hard work and everything to come. Please have several drinks to celebrate – you deserve it.

Sarah Nichols
Marketing Manager, Retail and Digital Experience
H&R Block

If you’re interested in seeing images of the work first-hand, we suggest a little trip to New York; the flagship office is located at 555 7th Ave. If you would like to see some images of the video work we did for the project please contact us.

Read an article on the H&R Block Times Square flagship location here: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/01/11/2010-01-11_hr_block_adds_razzledazzle_to_tax_prep_in_times_square.html

Food Power by John Evans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at augusthour.com.

Do you still want a paper phone book?

83.3% NO
10% MAYBE
6.7% YES

Some of you have heard me in the past talk about how wasteful the Yellow Pages is in terms of consumption of resource.  You’ve seen pictures we’ve taken of stacks of un-claimed Yellow Pages in building lobbies, books never picked up by building tenant.  You’ve even heard us question the tactics of Yellow Pages Advertising Consultants who now, having seen the writing on the wall, claim themselves to be “web advertising experts.”

The reality is at hand.  In this economic environment, where every advertising dollar has to be spent efficiently and carefully, we all need to spend so that each dollar spent can return even more on our investment than before. In this poll of consumers who are right in the “sweet spot” of many of our target demographics; less than one in ten people even want a paper phone book of any kind.

Not only are these consumers not paying attention to the ads your business is paying good money to place, but they don’t even want your ad in their home.  Your ad is one of thousands that they consider “no longer necessary” or “handy for helping start the charcoal grill up.”

We don’t all share the same audience demographic. But for those of us who’s audience is increasingly mobile, internet focused and using PDAs, our advertising dollars can be put to better use elsewhere. There are all kinds of media that people actually want to consume. Those media purveyors actively work on ways to increase their appeal to their audience.

Besides exit polling, Edison provides strategic polling data for radio stations all over North America. Given that their listener base can be jeopardized by Podcasting, you can understand why radio stations are keen to understanding who’s listening to Podcasts, and why they are listening to them.

Here are some of the highlights from the Edison report:

• 43% of Americans have an awareness of podcasting.

• One in four Americans indicated that they have downloaded and watched/listened to an audio or video podcast.

• The number one reason given for podcast consumption was time-shifting — the ability to consume content whenever the consumer desires.

• Podcast consumers continue to be attractive advertising targets; yet are increasingly unreachable through traditional, interrupt advertising.

The upshot?

As a business, if you’re not podcasting you’re missing out on a tremendous targeted advertising medium. The fact is, traditional advertising is becoming less effective at reaching a burgeoning consumer base; busy people. People working 50, 60, or 70 hours a week (read: people who are making more disposable income) have fewer and fewer opportunities to listen and watch traditional, interruptible media like radio shows, television programming, etc..

Even if you have “traditional” advertising methods like broadcast radio, television, or print, podcasting is a lower-cost medium that is definitely worth looking at. The cost of production is lower because traditional broadcast standards (dimensions, time, duplication, etc.) do not apply. The cost of media placement is almost non-existent. The most important and often challenging aspect of podcasting is promotion. However, if your business has a website and takes advantage of social networking sites like facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. you have a built-in promotional base.

Podcasting, much like this email, eliminates the distribution and speed limitations of traditional media. You can be “on the air” after a brief editing session and your content is easily consumed all over the world. Broadcast radio or print media cannot offer you that.

More importantly to your busy potential customer, podcasting is something they can consume on their schedule. Your sales message is not languishing just because the target audience is not seated in front of the TV set or listening to the radio exactly when you ad airs.

Applicability.

Finally and most importantly is what we’ve come to term, “applicability.” Applicability refers to an ad’s ability to apply to the people that see or hear it. I’ve been monitoring applicability lately. While watching TV I’ve been counting the number of ads I see for products or services I’ve actually bought or consumed in the past 12 months.

What percentage of TV and radio ads do you think I’ve consumed in the past year? 50%? 80%? 85%?

Try less than 12%. That’s right, less than 1 in 8 ads.

Am I typical? Maybe not, but I may be typical, and for your business, that would be wastefully typical. In either event, the ads on TV simply are not that applicable to me, and I’m right-smack in the middle of the target audience most TV advertisers are going for.

Now, with podcasting – where the audience is generated by sharing the link among people who are part of your social network and current referral network – you have a much greater rate of applicability. Also, as the content is spread, it’s preserved in a digital format so the audience can go back and listen to it repeatedly, they can pause it, re-play it, save it, email it, and your audience can distribute your message for you all over the world at no cost to you.

How do we start podcasting?

If you’re interested in producing a podcast, August Hour has several options available including audio-only, video and audio podcasts, or podcasts featuring music and talk programming. In addition to our professional recording studio – Guttersnipe Recording Co. -, we have a solid group of professional voice-over and on-camera talent available to really bring that polish to your podcast.

Good thing for us, boredom isn’t a problem right now. Between scoring the documentary and portrait photography we’ve been busy these few months.

We’re amid a re-branding effort for a cycle retailer and are about to begin the re-branding process for an industrial HVAC company here in Kansas City.

Along with that work we’re in pre-production for a promotional video for our friends at Winntech. The variety is different than this time last year, and it’s certainly better than the alternative.

The Next American Dream - poster

The film is set to air nationwide in April 2009 . We’re honored to be working on this project with the great folks at Inland Sea Productions and Take 2 in Kansas City. The topic, urban planning and development, sustainability, and human scale architecture is very important to us.

Every scoring project poses new creative challenges. For this one it’s conveying the sense of humanity while thinking about the sound of America’s future development.

The most exciting part of this project is that it’s part of a program of community planning throughout the nation sponsored by several organizations. The film marks the starting point to exploring how we live in our country in the future. To be a part of the dialog that may prime a discussion of how we live in our built environment is humbling and exciting at the same time.

As more information comes available we’ll be sure to keep you updated. For now, you can click the link above to view the trailer for the film.

Meanwhile you can visit the recording studio and take a look around here:

guttersnipe recording co.

Around here we’re fortunate enough to call Alejandro Escovedo a friend. If you know Al, or his story, you know he’s had a rough patch — if you can call nearly dying a “rough patch.”

Recently Al performed his new song from his upcoming album with Bruce Springstein live in Houston. Yeah, it’s really cool to see Al playing with the Boss and Steven Vansandt. But what’s really stunning is seeing my friend having such a great time. Listening to the unmastered mixes of his upcoming album one thing is clear; that sense of enjoying music again is alive in Al’s music as much as Al is.

“Every once in a while let your love show
Every once in a while, honey let your love go

Nobody gets hurt”

When you get beyond 30 – hopefully – you get beyond those to bigger dreams; moving people with your music, saving a life with your words, imparting some bit of life’s lessons, or even just bringing a smile.

In the business of art we get wound up tightly in the perils of thinking that youth is a metal stronger than wisdom. Maybe what we truly should remember is that feeling is a scion more precious than ambition.

Nothing illustrates this better than the Young at Heart Chorus. Watch this video and see what I mean. Watch it all the way through; if you still have dry eyes maybe you should re-evaluate your approach to your craft, if not your life.

Not that it’s a stretch – if ever there was a company who needed to be associated with arm fuzzies it’s the coffee bohemoth. But even in my home town the Starbucks that opened next door to the local coffee house is closing.

But this ad is good. It’s simple, it’s human, it’s touching and it even made this cynical guy smile and feel good.

I should also add that Starbucks gets props from us for being environmentally conscious and a good stewart for their suppliers’ future.

So, thumbs up to the agency and the client. Thes ads are a win/win.