Russ the builder, who lives in Folkestone, has been doing some work on our house this week. Russ is in his late 50’s and over a cup of tea he told me that his hobby was bee keeping. He began to tell me all about it. I tried to look interested, but sneaked a furtive glance at my watch.
However, what he said next made me spill my tea:
“The internet’s the way forward isn’t it” he said, “So I’m setting up a bee keeping website and I want to put some videos about bee keeping on it”.
The next day our company, Kersh Media, was out filming some video podcasts at Dover for a life coaching business. As with Russ the bee-keeping builder from Folkestone, the people running it were down-to-earth, fifty-somethings, not trendy young London media professionals.
“We want to put the videos on YouTube and other websites” they said, “so hopefully when people search for life coaching on the internet, they’ll find us”.
Coming away from the shoot I pondered its significance.
When I left the BBC to set up my own video production business in 2004 I predicted that a video revolution was coming. I said that 2011 was when it would kick off, because by then we should all have access to faster broadband (BT’s currently upgrading all its exchanges to ADSL2+ which should quadruple existing download speeds).
I have to be honest and tell you that for a few years I felt like a prophet in the wilderness. During 2005 or 2006, when I suggested to people that they might want to have video on their website, most just smiled politely; many of them didn’t even have a website!
But now almost every day brings fresh evidence that the digital revolution really is starting.
This week a number of fashion and glamour magazines published details of how many pages of advertising they’ve sold for their September issues. It’s gloomy reading:
Vogue will carry 37% fewer advertising pages than its September 2008 edition. GQ will carry 32% less, Elle 21% and Cosmopolitan 18% less.
At the same time a new report by the respected US agency Forrester Research concludes; “In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and traditional advertising less effective, per dollar spent”.
The report shows how advertisers are switching their focus, and their budgets, to online and video advertising.
Which is pretty much exactly what I learned from Russ, the bee keeping builder from Folkestone.
Graham Majin is a former Assistant Editor at BBC South East Today. He is currently Head of Video Production and Video Marketing at Kent based KWIKVID and Kersh Media. kwikvid.com kershmedia.co.uk