PROJECT PURPOSES:
Creating a promotional video for a commercial printing company can be highly beneficial for several reasons:
1. Showcase Capabilities: A video can effectively demonstrate the range of services and products the company offers, from business cards to large-scale banners, giving potential customers a clear understanding of what they can expect.
2. Highlight Quality: Through visual and audio elements, the company can highlight the quality of their prints, materials, and the technology they use, which can build trust and credibility with potential clients.
3. Engage Audience: Videos are more engaging than text or images alone. They can capture the viewer’s attention quickly and keep them interested, making it more likely they will remember the company.
4. Explain Processes: A video can demystify complex printing processes, showing how a customer’s order goes from concept to final product, which can help clients appreciate the value and expertise involved.
5. Differentiate from Competitors: A well-produced video can set the company apart from competitors by showcasing unique features, superior service, or special offers.
6. Build Brand Identity: Videos help in building a strong brand identity by conveying the company’s mission, values, and personality, creating a stronger connection with the audience.
7. Boost Online Presence: Videos can be shared across various platforms—social media, the company’s website, email campaigns—enhancing online presence and reaching a broader audience.
CHALLENGES:
While creating a promotional video we want to showcase all the capabilities and services available. Doing this in commercial printing had some challenges. There is machinery that is running and final pieces are being produced, filming had to be done with extreme care and respecting the workers’ space. Speaking with the operators had to be done in between runs as not to disrupt production. The distance that we needed to have while filming the machinery had to be approved by the operators.
PROJECT PROCESSES:
Learning about the commercial printing process is the first step when creating a promotional video. Understanding the business and what they want to accomplish and offer their customers needs to be shown in the video. A step-by-step process of what happens when printing is fundamental to having a successful video.
By leveraging these advantages, a promotional video can significantly enhance the marketing efforts of a commercial printing company, driving engagement, and ultimately, increasing sales.
OVERVIEW
Starting with an idea, converting it into a digital form, outputting a metal plate, spreading ink into the press, finishing up the product….what an experience! We all receive several pieces of promotional advertisements in our mailboxes every day, but do we ever think of how that piece of paper looks so colorful? How cool photos are printed on the postcards we get? That poster we see at the store of our favorite band? Spending these couple of months learning about the commercial printing process was an awesome experience. Talking to the operators and seeing how a project starts from the computer and ends up being a colorful book was very rewarding. The video shows the process that the printing industry goes through to bring our ideas into a physical form that others get to enjoy.
INSIGHTS
Appreciation of an art is very important always. Commercial printing puts people’s ideas into a physical form in a way of paper and ink that communicates someone’s imagination and expression and shares them with others. Getting that “junk mail” in your mailbox next time will not seem so annoying once you look at it and appreciate how that advertisement got into paper. I know, next time I open my mailbox, go to a bookstore or library or even a store, I will appreciate all the printing that I can see all over, and know that it took a detailed process to get there.