Multimedia in Online Advertising

I was a member of a Deaf choir for several years. Deaf choirs sing with their hands – silently but in unison. We have a conductor to keep us synchronized within the performance. Typically, Deaf choirs perform ASL translations of lyrics and perform the translation while the original music plays.  This allows hearing audience members to see the ASL version while hearing the music. Deaf audiences might be able to access some portion of the music, the rely on the ASL performance to understand the lyrics. In this way, a single and shared performance – the ASL translation through the Deaf choir – affects two different audiences in slightly different ways simultaneously.

 

Our performances were video recorded and streamed to friends of our church who were able to virtually attend church services from their locations around the world.  The Deaf pastor’s message would be simultaneously interpreted into spoken English and that meant that both Deaf and hearing audiences could access the same church service at the same time anywhere in the world.  Such is the power of the internet, that a small church service with 100 people in attendance could be seen by thousands of people. A shared experience even if only the 100 people in the room can physically see and interact with each other.

 

The live streaming church services were a part of the promotion of our church to the outside world, but we were not selling a product, other than promoting the message of Jesus Christ. The live stream was not a fund-raising device but rather it was the result of many people’s ministries from the Pastor to the Choir conductor, the choir members, the videographers and computer / I.T. geeks who made the stream work. No one was paid for those services, but everyone was dedicated to the overall success of the message reaching the world.

 

Can this idea be applied to marketing and promoting an organization’s image? Certainly, the church streaming broadcasts were a positive promotion to the people who were already aware of it.  Finding a church stream video requires you to already know how to find it.  It is not as simple as turning to the channel guide or just flipping through channels on the television on a Sunday morning.  We could have used the Deaf choir performances to advertise the streaming broadcasts, but in the Deaf community, we rely largely on word of mouth (word of hand) advertising.  You learn about things through the trusted resources – Deaf Friends – and the links or likes that they have on your shared social media.

 

If you never see an advertisement, can you be affected by it?  I believe the answer is “yes,” but only if enough of the people around you have already been affected by it.  Television advertising typically attracts advertisers who wish to market to the generic audience of the television program. Some sports broadcasts, for example, might typically have mostly middle-aged, middle-class men watching.  If I have a product designed for that demographic, then it makes sense for me to purchase advertising during the sporting event.  Otherwise, I should probably find a television show with viewers who will likely buy my product.  It’s a good thing there are only two or three channels on television.  Oh, wait, that was fifty years ago.  With so many television channels (and nothing worth watching) where should I spend my advertising budget?

 

Online advertising might find people of a similar mindset, regardless of their demographic, because videos tied to the advertising are shared among friends and family through social media.  It appears to be more effective sharing a video rather than sharing a URL for a streaming broadcast or even a website.  Get a person hooked by some form of entertainment and they might be more responsive to a related advertisement.

 

I have already begun making use of this approach to promote my restaurant business.  Although I do not yet have a brick-and-mortar location, I know what foods and recipes I will be using and I have decided to share them publicly both as a promotion for people to cook delicious food for themselves, but also to promote the restaurant which will do the cooking for them.  For now, I am working to build up the number of videos available so that when I do have a destination secured, I can promote the video channel as a full-fledged exploration of our menu.

My goal is to complete video instructions for every item on the menu.  Not the complete and detailed instructions with the measurements of each ingredient, but at least identifying every ingredient so that customers with food allergies and food sensitivities can know what the ingredients are and their general proportions.

When I am ready to promote the restaurant, I will begin by sharing separate videos from the Def Burger YouTube channel among my Facebook friends.  Google Ads and billboards will promote both the restaurant and the website, which will feature the videos and new customers will connect with other potential customers in their own way.  Here is the link to the channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbS4jRN2UG7zCrhP0iirmNQ

Once I have a brick-and-mortar location that is ready for grand opening, the next step will be to promote the full dining experience.  Make it familiar to new customers so that when they come for the first time, they already know where they would rather sit, which menu items they are wanting to order and how much the cost is going to be.  That might mean setting up a pre-opening party for the employees, their families and friends who know that their faces will be in the online advertising campaign for the restaurant.  Once those ads are in place then it is off to Google Ads to show these ads to locals looking for food options, such as food-related YouTube videos or local searches for nearby restaurants.  Online advertising allows the targeting of your advertisement to people already online to find information that is at least similar to what is on their mind at the moment.  I invite you to check back on the Def Burger YouTube channel as I build up more content in the next year.  Once the restaurant opens, come on down!