We were so proud to work with the World Veterinary Association and our clients, Ceva Animal Health, to successfully stage the 4th Global Animal Welfare Awards, celebrating veterinarians, veterinary technicians, students and the Vet College of the Year.

Despite the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns were were able to film all of the winners on five different continents and thanks to our colleague, Colin Dames of the South Africa-based company, Digineering , we were able to bring you the winner from that country too.

The original awards were planned to take place at the WVA’s Congress, in Auckland, New Zealand, which had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. We therefore edited all the films and opened to launch the virtual ceremony as part of the WVA’s global webinar on the effects of Covid-19 on the veterinary profession.

It was a big success and you can see the ‘ceremony here – watch out for our videos highlighting the individual winners which are being released on various social media outlets in coming weeks.

We created a socially distanced studio in the offices of UK company XP Power to help them announce their 2020 interim financial results.

Socially distanced studio for XP Power results

XP Power’s Vietnam production facility

CEO Duncan Penny told us that “Conditions have been unprecedented and challenging and we’re really pleased with what we have done…

XP have manufacturing sites in China and Vietnam but despite the Chinese factory being shut down at the end of January, February and the beginning of March the company managed to keep their products going out.   

“The guys in the supply chain have done a remarkable job actually getting product to customers and keeping things moving in this difficult period”.

As a supplier of products for 60 different ventilator products Covid has brought XP benefits and  demand on the healthcare side of the business has been strong. Click here to see the results interview.

XP Power units are used in hospital ventilators

We’ve noticed an increased demand for our dynamic videos to support online pitching for new business during the Covid-19 period.

Online pitching is a very different medium

Video assets are a useful tool for presenters

We are limited in the amount of detail we can give about these assignments because presenting for new business is obviously a sensitive and confidential area but we have had an extremely positive response to the work we have carried out so far. We can say that the latest assignment involved a series of bespoke videos for presentations by a client to some of the UK’s leading supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose.

In addition we have also seen requests for videos to explain plans for new business growth and building developments for presentations to planning authorities and interested groups locally.

“The increased amount of working from home and the limits on face to face meetings means some presenters feel restricted by the limitations of Zoom or Google Hangouts,” said Good Call Media co-owner, Fiona Molloy. Having a carefully targeted video that covers all the points of a presentation can be a useful addition to a pitcher’s toolbox and it can show the audience areas that they cannot normally see from a traditional presentation.”

Once a video has been shot, it is often a simple process to make small edits to bespoke the film for different outcomes. While video can never replace the role of the human presenter it can clearly complement their presentation and help to win valuable new business.

When British workers, who were furloughed during the Covid-19 crisis, were urged to help out Britain’s farmers by picking fruit, we were there with our cameras to record the first volunteers to arrive for work with one of the UK’s most successful soft fruit growers.

Our interviewees included a worker from the oil and gas industry, a former employee in the hospitality sector and an A-level student who had seen her exams postponed.

They were happy to talk to us when we were called in by the Hall Hunter Partnership, who wanted to show that the UK workers could operate successfully on their farms alongside the many Eastern European workers who had joined their business in recent years. Many of the company’s senior management, started life as pickers and the company has a proud history of developing people who work hard and often return to their farms year after year – often with members of their families.

“I think some people have got an outdated view of what we are doing here,” said Clare Pullen who normally works in the oil and gas industry. “It’s really not hard work and I wanted to help the British farmers.”
See our interview with Clare and other local pickers who have joined the Hall Hunter team.

We just want to say thanks to our amazing clients who have not only stood by us during the Covid-19 crisis but given us extra work that has resulted in a doubling of our business’s turnover.

We have been able to resume filming

We are, however, very much aware that many of our freelance colleagues have not been so lucky and so we are delighted that the UK Government has at last realised that smaller limited companies and self-employed people need assistance too at this difficult time.

We choose to run our own business because it’s what we love – but when we take holidays, no-one pays us, if we are sick, no-one pays us and if our clients choose to close down communications during a pandemic…no-one pays us and every piece of work we do is generated by ourselves! As our headline suggests, we have fantastic
forward-thinking clients who have become partners and friends over the years and they have not only continued to communicate during the crisis but, in many cases, chosen to increase their internal and external communications to ensure that their business will be in good shape once we come through this mess.

We were able to show that our online studio and ability to record interviews remotely were powerful tools to allow communications to continue in the current climate. Also, thanks to some careful re-engineering of our camera kit and microphones, we were able to resume filming relatively quickly while maintaining strict social distancing.

Watch out for examples of our clients carrying out some innovative work in partnership with us, coming up on this news blog but, for the time being, once again – THANKS