Case Studies
Buffalo Niagara CVB
When the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) needed a video that would help accentuate the positive and sell Western New York as an ideal destination for visitors, they positively made the right choice when they hired Flynn & Friends to create it!
What made our telling and selling of the Buffalo Niagara story compelling was doing it without having an announcer say a single word: we took the old folk classic "Buffalo Gals" and updated it, using its tempo to drive the production from beginning to end.
Here's how we did it.
The Idea
One of the things we like most about video is audio. It's also one of the things we like least. Which simply means that, used well, audio compels, and used poorly, it's a bore and a bust.
This philosophy, if you want to call it that, combined with our viewing of other cities' promotional videos, led us to the conclusion that what would best sell Buffalo Niagara would be a less-is-more approach. Keep the video short and short-winded.
And thus our idea.
Uniqueness being the holy grail of marketing, we looked for a singularity in the collective WNY cultural experience and married it to our creative approach. We chose the old chestnut folksong "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" (made famous in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life", among other places) for our soundtrack, gave it a rock guitar treatment, and went without any narrative voiceover whatsoever, telling our story solely through images and on-screen titles.
In just five minutes, we gave potential convention-goers a breathtaking, not-to-be-forgotten tour of the Buffalo/Niagara region they wouldn't want to miss! (Typical comment made by local residents who saw our work: "Gee, I'd like to live in that place.")
Following is a look at the production process.
The Production Process
There are generally three phases of video production: pre-production; production; and post-production. The quality of each phase hinges on the quality of work done in the phase before it. Pre-production is ,therefore, the most important because it's where all the planning happens; including research, budgeting, script writing, scheduling, and hiring the key players.
The next step was writing the script. The script is like a blueprint. Just like you wouldn't build a building without hammering out the details on paper first, you wouldn't produce a video without doing the same. We wrote, revised, and revised the script again, until it finally was nailed down.
We hired a local director and photographer who knew the area well, worked with Chameleon Studios to produce the music, then retained a nearby Western New York editing facility to put all the pieces together. While editing is usually the biggest expense in a project, it's from this stage that the final polished product emerges – and top-notch editing can truly make a message come alive, which is exactly what it did.
The Invitation
Once the video was completed, the CVB asked us to create an invitation for hospitality industry members, friends, and area politicians for an official unveiling.
Result: we turned an empty video cassette box into a mailer with the outside teaser message "Come to the premier of our new video and you'll..." and inside, the payoff headline "Have a Ball" with actual rubber balls intended to fall out and bounce their way into the recipient's consciousness. A Flynn & Friends trademark mailing with a memorable play on "having a ball" that immediately involved the recipients and tied back to the idea of the video as a rock-on sing-along.
The Point Of All This
Flynn & Friends is good at video because our combination of conceptual, writing and production skills, and knowledge of and experience with most of the major players, not only in Western New York, but also in Toronto, New York City, Nashville, and Los Angeles.
We act as general contractor, doing the planning, budgeting, and coordinating; we write the scripts; hire the talent and production people; and oversee everything from beginning to end. We hire the best people to do the best job every time.
The CVB video has been used to promote the area to hundreds of potential visitors. It's been shown on local TV stations and national networks, including The Food Network, HGTV, HBO Sports, and The Travel Channel. Local companies have used it to recruit out-of-state employees. Travel agencies as far away as Japan use it.
So if you're interested in having a video or TV commercial produced, but don't know where to begin, give us a call or send us an e-mail. We'll be happy to work with you!
Our simple call to action message rolled in the opening sequence.
"Reasons why" to visit the area can't ignore the fact that we have one of North America's most compelling natural features just 20 minutes away.
And to promote cultural tourism, we have the draw of six Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses, also a key element of our video.
ChunkMail® – inside a standard video cassette box used as a mailer – came to the fore in this invitation to the local government and tourism community to the video's premiere.