Peloton 3 - Bradley 1.

The champagne is flowing at ThePeloton.tv this week. We are celebrating our 3rd birthday and crikey, what a 3 years it's been.

We launched ThePeloton.tv as we saw that there was a space for a team that could make broadcast standard video at the kind of cost that traditional production companies would have turned their backs on. We saw that online media companies were the commissioners of the future and that video content would come from traditional content creators

Cycling fetishist Matt had started ThePeloton with a camera and a mac. Bus man Jon quickly partnered with Matt to bring in some much needed clients and our first ever job was created for publisher IDG and IBM. It was the sign of things to come.

Taxi fan Adrian turned his back on the TV industry having seen that ThePeloton.tv were making waves in the world of online video. He looked to add a little intellectual panache and editorial rigour to what was now hours and days' worth of video content leaving ThePeloton Studio every month. His first project with HSBC is still lauded today.

Since then, IT interviews, awards, makeovers, fashion gurus, Prof. Brian Cox, nervous breakdowns, a studio full of 4 year olds, interactive video, cycling, bussing and taxi-ing has seen us through this exciting three years.

Despite rumours of takeovers and million pound investments, ThePeloton.tv resolutely remains focused on creating top quality content. Quality rather than budget is now the key and we have continued to invest in kit, people and techniques. And that means that we stay on top of our game... for you... forever.

Now if you don't mind 'Oops Upside Your Head' has just come on and Adrian is at the head of the train...

jon@thepeloton.tv

www.thepeloton.tv

The Peloton: We Get Around

September is upon us, summer holiday memories are receding, it’s time to get back to some serious graft. And it’s looking like being a busy, varied and adventurous start to autumn for The Peloton’s team.

Glam Media has commissioned us to shoot and edit a series of makeover videos for Rimmel. Meanwhile, our editorial chief, Adrian is working in the Middle East helping with the launch of a new news channel.

He’s spending some time in the city of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan which is based in Northern Iraq. It’s safer than Manchester. Well that was according to the taxi driver who picked Adrian up at the airport. The driver should know, he once lived in Wigan.

The Kurds are an incredibly welcoming bunch and are rightfully proud of their culture. They could also teach some UK video producers a thing or two when it comes to filming, editing and telling a great story. Adrian reports that one documentary currently being edited is as good as anything he’s seen on BBC World or Al Jazeera. However, there’s a lot of bad TV in the Middle East and Adrian has been brought in to help ensure editorial and creative excellence for his new Kurdish friends.

But, as you can imagine, The Peloton is not just about glamorous shoots with models or film-making in exotic places. We’ve got videos lined up for AstraZeneca, Kodak and Dell plus more editions of our much admired ‘Tech News’ series.

As for Adrian, he says the only downside of working abroad so far has been  dining alone in a virtually empty hotel restaurant whilst being serenaded by a cabaret singer. It’s like being in a Kurdish version of Phoenix Nights.. supposedly.

www.thepeloton.tv

Fashion Video Victims

While you were lying on the beach supping cocktails and rubbing in the Piz Buin, ThePeloton boys have been mixing with the fashion crowd. We have been in far flung glamorous hotspots shooting the good looking for our fashion retail chums.

Yes, fashion companies are alive to video and all that it offers to the image conscious online user. The IMRG Capgemini E-retail Sales Index revealed that fashion accessories and health and beauty were two of the main reasons why internet sales rose over 17% year-on-year in July.

The fashion industry was one of the laggards into getting their brands online, this is all changing now and video is behind this rise. Video allows the clothes to be viewed as they are supposed to be - worn by someone moving, rather than as stills on a page.

The emergence of click-to-buy 'interactive video' will be another poke for internet fashion sales and we fully expect to be spending the next 18 months hanging out on the beach with Kate Moss and mates filming that season's latest looks all to be bought via video.

Gucci were one of the first to bring this style of video to computer screens, take a look and see what you think....

http://www.gucci.com/us/worldofgucci/shoppable_video/shop-this-video-cruise-spring-summer-2012

With internet sales growing 4 fold on mobile, its lucky for you that ThePeloton has developed this technology in HTML5 too. Shopping from a film on an iPad round the pool...it's surely what the internet was made for.

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

Clicks Win Prizes

Us creative types never turn our noses up at the chance to create a visually stimulating campaign for  a sexy brand. In fact ThePeloton's team is busy producing one as we speak. However, our usually cold hearts were warmed by the news that Xerox and its agency Young & Rubicam had won a gong for its 'A World Made Simpler' campaign. They won the Grand Prix Content Award at the Braves - the Oscars of the branded video world - at a red carpet event in central London.

http://thebraveawards.com/winners/

Business video is often where the greatest challenge lies; how to create a compelling narrative around a seemingly dry subject. And subjects don't come much drier than photocopying. Amidst the more glamorous winners such as Hyundai and Sony, the Xerox film stands out as a great example of a good visual idea combined with strong storytelling with emotional resonance.

The film uses Xerox's iconic copier paper to build a narrative about how technology is making life simpler. Its marketing message is how Xerox has transformed itself from a copier company into a leading business service provider. To date, it's had over 650, 000 views on YouTube. Not bad for a business video on a dry subject that - unlike some of the other winners - clearly didn't have an astronomical budget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEnRQAz2Fqg

So congrats to Xerox, a worthy winner. We'll never think of you as just a photocopying company again. See, it worked on me!

www.thepeloton.tv
adrian@thepeloton.tv

The Science of Social Video.

The viral video isn’t dead it’s just grown up a bit and been renamed ‘social video’. Social videos are proper content that engages audiences. They’re shared around because they’re so compelling. And the good news for brands is that they’re being consumed, enjoyed and shared despite being for used for marketing purposes.

 http://www.unrulymedia.com/blog/2012/6/28/social-video-lab-launch-brand-prevalence-has-no-negative-eff.html

Our good friends at Unruly Media are taking it so seriously that they’ve set-up the World’s first social video laboratory. Its ambition, no less, is to turn social video into a science. They intend to find out about what kinds of content is most likely to be shared and allow brands to predict the effectiveness of videos before they’ve invested in a campaign.

http://www.unrulymedia.com/news/2012/6/27/unruly-opens-worlds-first-social-video-lab.html

Well us shiny, happy Peloton people don’t get to wear white lab coats very often (which is a shame). But if we did, we’d tell brands to make stuff that’s visually stimulating, emotionally resonant and offers interactivity (and possibly a damn good tune).

An excellent example is the new BA ad campaign; Take a Plane Down Your Street. Firstly it asks you to enter your postcode. Then, using Google Street View, you can witness a BA jumbo jet going past your front window.

http://taxi.ba.com/

 It doesn’t take rocket science to see why it’s already become one of the UK’s most shared interactive video. It’s just a shame that you can’t watch it on your iPad. Watch this space for a major announcement on HTML5 and interactive video. 

Adrian@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

ThePeloton.tv; A Rallying Cry.

ThePeloton.tv were fortunate enough to film the B2B Marketing Summit this week. We have worked with the team at B2B Marketing for some time and jolly decent they are too.

While capturing wonderful content from various delegates extolling the virtues of their various marketing concepts, our business cards were being ripped out of our hands (at one point a fight broke out between up to 10 middle aged marketing managers, keen to get their hands on our contact details). B2B marketing is getting mighty keen on video.

We have been working in the B2B marketing sector for a couple of years and there lies the rub. We are always happy send over our recent work to new contacts which of course we will... really happy if it wasn't so...erm.....dull.

Now, please don't look upon this as a reflection on us. We try and push people to be more creative and spend a little more than we are usually offered as they will get better production values and a more engaging film by doing so. The B2B sector however is (fair enough) enormously budget conscious and often accepts the norm of getting some middle aged experts - some with tie, some without - to talk about their chosen topic.

It looks OK and is technically sound... it's just really boring. That's the problem, boring film = bored audience = little gain is made. Just because this has become the norm in the market, it doesn't mean this is what you should be doing.

Our rallying cry therefore is this: B2B marketing sector you can make great gains in thought leadership if you start getting more creative with your video (and that doesn't just mean infographics). Take a look at news and business TV channels. Similar features can be written and be highly thought provoking. Every business has an interesting story to tell and potentially beautiful pictures to go with it. Let's start telling the tales and using these pictures.

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

Feeding the Family.. And their Subjects.

You are about to have 4 days off work, the country has turned extremely patriotic, the nation's high streets are a dazzling red, white and blue. So, when you have your friends around this weekend, what do you cook them? ThePeloton.tv's friend will be getting spaghetti bolognese as that's all we can cook.
But William Sitwell at John Brown has come up with a very classy alternative. He's been working with top chefs to develop the Jubilee dish for 2012, Jubilee salmon, click on the link below to see how to impress all and sundry. Naturally, the filming was carried out by ThePeloton.tv. The crew can vouch for the recipe, they got the chance to try it out for lunch.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJLfUkpCSU4

Content Connection

It is very apparent that brands, like Waitrose, are now content creators and they're distributing their stuff through YouTube channels, customer publishing, Facebook apps etc. What are publishers doing about this? Brands are now stepping into their space and, in more than a few cases, beating them to it. ThePeloton.tv wants to know more.... Can they live side by side? Will the user buy into branded content as independent? We think a gathering is needed to get to the bottom of this and we're going to host it. Clear your early September diaries, we'll be sending out invites soon

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv