An Entire 30-Minute Video Presentation on Your Business Card?

Brandweek, July 10, 2000 by Angela Taylor

How one freelance producer got the ad agencies to knock on her door.

Freelance commercial producer Chantal Houle is now able to market herself like never before. In the very competitive production field, a freelancer's major sales piece is her reel, a series of video clips demonstrating past work. The tremendous expense of duplicating and shipping videotapes to potential clients prevents most freelancers from pursuing a broader target market. Last year, however, Chantal was hired to produce commercials for Powerdeck, baseball cards on CD. She was inspired. She thought, why not put a business card on a CD? Enter Precise Media Services of Ontario, California. President Darrell Smith took Chantal's reel, the same one she had been reproducing on VHS and 3/4" video, and created a "Presto CD," a CDROM the size of a standard business card that plays on any computer equipped with a CD-ROM Drive. Chantal now has a reel that any account executive can view without leaving his or her desk.

The presentation begins when the Presto CD is inserted into the drive and finishes off with a "Presto Menu," giving the user a choice of three buttons: one to replay the video; one to eject the CD and return to the desktop; and one that connects the user to Chantal's Web site automatically to get more information about her professional background. Handing out business cards at a professional meeting or convention takes on a whole different meaning when those business cards can give a presentation of the company's structure, testimonials from satisfied customers, and deliver new customers directly to an e-commerce site. "The Presto CDs can contain any number of elements," Smith explains. While Chantal's is virtually all video, the CDs can also incorporate graphic elements, Web links, Power Point presentations and pdf files. And it needn't be expensive. "Most companies already have video, Power Point presentations, and sales materials in digital formats." It is a simple matter to blend all of these ingredients into a professional, high-tech presentation of the company, all on a miniature CD. Because she already had the video she wanted to feature, Chantal was able to get 500 of the business card CDs produced for only $1500, which included not only the layout of the CD, but the jacket design, as Well. The face of the CD incorporates the logo she uses for all of her work and includes other standard business card information. For Chantal, the Presto CD ushers in a completely new kind of self-promotion. "I got a mailing list of ad agencies," she says, "and just mailed them out. I never could have done that with my video reel. It would have been too expensive." She mailed the CDs in a standard envelope with a 33 cent stamp. The response? Chantal estimates that she has been contacted by 20% of her target mailing, which she considers a good response for an unsolicited reel. What's more, the technology itself is encouraging people to pass the CD around, granting Chantal's reel even more exposure. "Everyone thinks it's very cool."