Back in June, I learned of a contest that Office Depot was holding for small business. This contest recognized small businesses nationwide for their smart survival strategies. To enter, a small business uploaded an original two-minute video explaining the smart things their business is doing to survive these challenging times.
I talked it up in the office and found a willing associate in getting together an entry. Our client and media relations director Andria Simons is an avid "contester". Maybe not quite as extreme as the character played by actress Julianne Moore in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," but I do know Andria has entered lots of different contests and has won quite a few prizes. She once won a stove.
Additionally, Andria is a talented video editor so she was excited about the project. And we had another willing participant to star in the video. Ambassadors Coach Lade Majic never met a camera that she didn't like.
Andria and I put together a story line where we showed Majic doing the different things that we as an organization do to save money when shopping at Office Depot. We are in that store all the time, as it is located about two blocks from our office.
We shot it in a couple of hours and Andria did a great job editing it to be under the contest maximum two minute length. My on-camera scene ended up on the cutting room floor, but the video came out great. As an experienced "contester", Andria even had suggestions for when to enter, not too early she advised so that we don't get forgotten following the expected last minute flurry of entries.
We won! Here's the finished result:
