This Day in Marketing History - Today is May 5th:

On this day 1864 Nellie Bly was born in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. Nellie was an incredibly talented woman in several fields, but is probably most known as a journalist. She famously traveled around the world in 72 days. After being inspired by Jules Verne’s famous “Around the World in 80 Days” she convinced her editor at the New York World to let her make the trip which ended up setting a world record.

Maybe more impressive was an earlier expose where she feigned mental illness in order to go undercover in the Women’s Lunatic Asylum in New York where she exposed all manner of abuse, cruelty, and neglect. She spent 10 days in the asylum and her report would go on to become a sensation leading to sweeping reforms within the mental health institution.

Nellie Bly is widely credited with pioneering the new field of investigative journalism. If you’re looking for the perfect example of someone committed to pushing boundaries and getting “outside the box” look no further than Nellie Bly.

Introduction to guest and topic - On today’s episode I’m joined by our Creative Director Justin Dambach and Senior Video Producer and Motion Graphics Editor Conrad Dean. Justin and Conrad welcome to the show.

Why You Need Creative Video
Video is Expected by Audiences now

Ideas are the core, not technology
If you don’t have video, it’s already damaging to your image
How to stand out? Just having video isn’t enough, you need high-end creative video.

What is Creative video?

You have to make a statement that gets your audience to remember you.
Unique ideas, stand out from what your competition is doing .Your competition has a bunch of clean, uptight testimonial videos highlighting their leadership? Don’t do what they’re doing. Highlight your employees. Highlight your customers.

Transform Your Image

Video can elevate your brand, but it can also damage your image in the worst case scenario. Copying your competition or putting out low-effort productions are sure ways to damage your brand
Your video content needs to be everywhere, and needs to suit each platform. There are so many services for sharing video now. It’s important to be active on as many platforms as possible with appropriate video

Name the Noise - It’s time for Name the Noise. In this segment I will play a short audio clip that is related to marketing or the history of marketing in some way. It’s your job as our listeners and viewers to figure out what the sound is.

Listener questions - In future episodes we want YOUR questions! We’ll be devoting a whole segment to answering your burning marketing dilemmas so if there’s something YOU want to ask us check out our social media for upcoming show topics and submit your questions!

Product Pitch - In this segment I give each guest a customer they will be selling to (dog owner, teacher, butcher, farmer etc.) and a handful of cards with words on them. The guests then picks two of the words to combine into a product and then they each have ~1 minute to sell me (playing the customer) the product. I will then decide who had the better pitch.

Outro - Thanks for joining us for another episode of Create Your Edge! Come back next month when I’ll be joined by a new expert to break down another marketing topic. Until that time remember to get out of the damn box and go be extraordinary.