Jacinta Kelly, founder, Firm Thinking, which has come up with a new service called My Video Shorts
Our tech start-up of the week is Dublin marketing consultancy Firm Thinking, which has come up with a new service called My Video Shorts to create bespoke video shorts and social media marketing services for companies.
Jacinta Kelly, a marketing consultant who is the founder of the strategy and marketing consulting firm, says she came up with the idea for the new service last year while she was completing a diploma in social media marketing at the Digital Marketing Institute.
“It started with a client request to produce an engaging video short that would showcase their technology.”
She says the client’s brief called for bespoke infographics blended with audio, motion graphics and film footage to explain the concept.
“I took the project in-house and sourced various graphic design software, editing software and video tools to deliver a professional production within budget,” explains Kelly.
Part of her strategy is to banish the myth that companies need huge budgets for video as part of their digital and social media marketing campaigns.
“With online video being one of the fastest-growing areas of digital marketing, we want to create premium video content for companies that do not have massive budgets or lack the time and capability to do it themselves,” says Kelly.
“The video shorts we are aiming for are less than two minutes, but they are averaging at about over a minute. We want to add more templates even around short video adverts, which would be around the 15-second mark. Even sites such as LinkedIn are moving to video ads now as opposed to picture or text-based ads,” she explains.
Right now, three people are working on the My Video Shorts service, with Kelly leading the business development side.
“We also have several partners in the areas of pre-production and post-production working with us to broaden our video styles in animation and illustration.”
Plans for 2013
Kelly says the plan is also to spin out My Video Shorts as a start-up, separate from Firm Thinking.
“We have secured private investors for My Video Shorts as a standalone business. When that process is completed we will be better positioned to pitch for Enterprise Board and start-up banking supports.”
The service will be having its official launch in the new year, and Kelly is enthused about how video is a key growth area in the digital marketing space.
Targeting SMEs
So what type of companies is the My Video Shorts service targeted at?
Kelly says the aim is to provide creative videos with a quick turnaround for companies that have a modest budget, especially start-ups and SMEs.
“Many of these businesses already have great product imagery, which we can bring to life in video and get their brand narrative into the public sphere,” she explains.
“We would be targeting image-rich businesses that would have a lot of collaterals already, such as photos and maybe even some footage. That could be businesses in retail, restaurants and hotels.”
For instance, she points to the video short sample that My Video Shorts created for Electric Ireland’s recent Powering Kindness campaign.
Kelly says that what will make My Video Shorts stand out is that the service will be “pricing into the market”.
“In my experience, for a lot of companies, video has been perceived as being inaccessible because of price.”
Plans for the My Video Shorts service include focusing on content video templates that can be customised for companies to use in event marketing, product launches and digital advertising.
“Additionally, we plan to augment the video creation side with social media marketing services, from collateral development and brand identity to customised Facebook tabs and app development,” she says.
“To achieve this we plan to extend our current partnerships and add to our team next year.”
Finally, Kelly’s advice for self-starters out there is a paraphrased version of advice given by video games entrepreneur Dylan Collins when he was speaking at the Digital Marketing Institute.
“Ask yourself: are you solving a problem and will you get paid for it? If the answer is yes, just do it,” says Kelly.
