Spotlight 2023 Campaign
Home Sounds
-montage video of sounds found around your home…sofa squeak, door knob clicks, spinning fan noise, wood floor creak, garbage truck going by, pulling up in car and turning it off, babies running down hallway, fire pit burning…all in a very pretty and uniquely thought provoking sort of way.
-Voice Over narrating a poem or some fun to listen to words about how the things that make up our life are the small things around us all the time….things that become part of us….things that remind us of our past….reminders we are human…..
-take away for viewer: delivering a message like this shows that this team is special and actually cares about me as a human and not just a sale.
Love for Home
-this was our first idea.
-this video shows how we follow one person or swap to someone else while keeping the momentum moving forward and keeping it fun.
Lost Keys
-various angles of keys and where people leave them…from the perspective of the keys
-funny VO (voice over) walking us through things like: great homes have so many fantastic places to lose your keys….wouldn’t it be great if your realtor could locate lost keys in your house any time of day?….on camera of person doing VO: well, at spotlight realty, we have created a magical app that allows our agents to instantly locate your keys any time of day
-”just click the big blue button and we’ll respond right away!”
-homeowner clicks button in the kitchen and hologram displays where the keys are
-right after clicking button, shot of nerdy tech “realtor” team in their headquarters acting like they are helping clients find keys…
-cuts to homeowner running to the spot where their keys are…as we see them from the key’s perspective
-close up of homeowner saying “gosh, this is just the greatest feature in the world from a realtor”
-cut to homeowner pulling out of their driveway revealing bill as the car leaves the driveway
-bill “well that would be pretty awesome….but we just help you find your home…not your keys”
-end.
-take away for viewer: funny, infusing trust in the team since they are humans, shareable, interesting, memorable
Command Z
-opening with a guy at computer who uses command Z on some over sized controller clearly labeled with a big red button for command Z
-the opening video segment, while short, shows that he constantly screws up and undoes it with command Z…it’s part of his routine
-now he’s away from computer….cutting roses or something….snips off a rose by accident and reaches to click command Z habitually just to find that it’s not with him….so he looks stumped/confused/inquisitive…then runs into house to get his command Z button thing and brings it back outside and stands in front of the cut rose and clicks the magic button…then poof…rose is fixed
-show a few examples of this sort of fast and fun…like carving pumpkins and accidentally ruining the eyes, burning toast, kid on a bike ramp that dad helped him with and the kid has a huge funny wreck, thinking it was a fart but it wasn’t…etc….while all of these are fixed by the magical command Z big red button.
-ends with bill saying “we can’t fix your screw ups but we sure can help you find a wonderful home”
-take away for viewer: clever thing that’s common (command Z) and applying it to life is fun, unique, connecting with the viewers emotions, funny, memorable
Fast Growing
-all of the following shots will be quick and tie in with a transition, special effect, matching cut scene etc to help it all flow together nicely and all filmed in the same kitchen
-coming home with new baby, putting bandaid on 3yo knee, pinning up school award on refrigerator 6yo, baseball practice post snack, walking out for prom, bringing laundry home from college, bringing home a girlfriend, bringing home a baby….the person will be a boy and always have blue pants and a white and orange striped shirt on as he ages…
-take away for viewer: touching, emotional, builds more love for spotlight, gives them the “this is a big decision but such a happy decision about what house they make their home” feel, lots of potential.
What We Do
-explaiiner type video with real footage, animation, special effects (no fire…no explosions…just like..3d text or motion tracking for various shots.., ultimately displays the advantages of using a realtor in general
-two different couples or something….two families….one has a realtor and one doesn't….and we highlight various parts of the process that are frustrating for family without realtor as well as highlight the pros of using a realtor
-figure out how to make this fun and quick moving so we don’t have a negative mood about folks not having a realtor
-this video has a problem solution sort of feel….similiar to how I’d like to show off the team and what they do.
-take away for viewer: we need a realtor and we trust this company because that was funny and reminded me of past experiences.
Home Photos
-start zoomed in on mom hanging up new picture on wall as part of collection of a 6 or so revealing them all as camera zooms out
-as it zooms out, photo on table comes into focus and we magically zoom into it to the family decorating the Christmas tree or whatever that photo on the table was
-once in the Christmas scene, zooms into a picture on the tree of the kids playing in the yard…magically the picture comes alive and we are now in that scene and we now zoom into another picture in that scene of the kids playing…maybe a photo on the wall of their married picture..magically comes alive and we are then in the church as the photo came alive….and we zoom into another photo ….rinse and repeat..
-finally we land on a photo of a house that comes alive as the couple moves in
-over entire video, we have a VO talking about family, love, time passing, community, etc…while keeping it fun…almost like the grinch that stole Christmas monologues
-not the vibe i’m looking for…but this has some nice examples of how we can make photos come to life…it shows a few times videos that someone is looking at on a wall…reminded me of the transitioning from still photo to moving scene.
-take away for viewer: wow that was cool, I want to remember this company, I want to share this with my friends…especially those looking to move, reminds folks about the inside of our home and the little things that make it so special
Cube Life
-I, David, had an astronomy teacher in 9th grade. Bob Carrol was his name. We used to do a weekly exercise where we started with a 3’x3’ cube and explained, studied, and discussed what was inside. Different people saw different things…like…the nerds would say there’s “x” number of dust particles in there and 3.2 square feet of desk space and 45 oz of oxygen while the jocks may be like…this cube could hold a basketball but not a soccer goal…could hold my catchers gear but not an entire baseball field…etc…showing different perspectives form different people…
-then next week we x10 the size…so now it’s a 30’x30’ cube….size of the room….then we observe and discuss the contents…and again, different opinions from different people even though it’s the same cube
-eventually get to the size of the school, plot of land, city block, square mile, city, state, country, hemisphere, planet, galaxy, etc….we wouldn’t go that far but that’s where Bob Carrol took it.
-we would use this illustration to get to the cube that’s the size of say, hope valley farms, or downtown durham, or some country life area….showing the contents of each cube are so different and spotlight realty knows these cubes very well…they know who wants to live there, why they want to live there, qualities folks are looking for that would be suited well by that cube, etc…
-fun way to get peoples attention by looking at something a new way..thinking about what’s around them, who lives there, etc.
-somewhere along the script we’d have a scene where bill is standing near a busy highway or intersection with cars passing behind him….we visual effectedly motion track some cars and put moving icons on them showing things like: 42% of these cars are headed to or from work, 2% are headed to a friends house, 15% are running errands, 3% have to get to a bathroom asap, 100% of them like to use spotlight realty…then bill jumps in and says…well no, that last ones not true…but I’m fairly certain that guy is in trouble…check out this example to show what i’m talking about with the motion tracked icons on things…look at 12 seconds a the logos above their heads.
-cuts to car pulling into gas station and running inside to bathroom
-cutting back to main cube video now….explaining more on the types of things that makeup the various cubes of durham / chapel hill etc
-in this example, I like how it starts all and unrecognizable and zooms out to reveal what it is…we could do something similar where we start on a cup of coffee (normal sized and not microscopic) and zoom up through the roof, and up to see the whole house, then the whole neighborhood then we see the outline of the cube around us….like we’re entering into the matrix
-take away for viewer: this team knows this area, this team understands people, this team understands various opinions from people, that was a really cool thing to go fro a 3’x3’ cube and imagine these fake cubes in real life
Our Kick Ass Team
-this may be a year long sort of project…ultimately covering every employee of spotlight in these fun, David-like interviews where we don’t ask normal questions..we ask fun things…get people to be fun on camera…this is how we can introduce the entire team and have a good mix up of these videos throughout the year interspersed with the other parts of the campaign.
-the bulk of this content would be in interview format with sort of quick fire answers….very..get to know who these people are…but not in a traditional way…like…no my name is John and i’ve been here 20 years and have two dogs and I like eating at Taco Bell. It’d be more: my name is bill and when i’m at Pop’s pizza I order this and it takes me this long to eat it…or these are the nice comfortable slippers I wear when i’m at home, these are some things I do that annoy the crap out of my wife, etc…bad examples but sort of fun like that.
-we’d create things like social media posts (across all platforms), multiple social media posts per person without making it feel boring or repetitive
-potentially figure out which people are related to the various things that happen during the year….for example….if it’s Christmas time…and we know Johny loves Christmas….we’ll use his interview thing around December since that fits….or if someone is all about taking care of their little kids, we could post their segments during fall launch at schools…..figure out how to use the things they are mentioning to sync up with yearly things that spike social media attraction throughout the year.
-quick tentative topical things: jan-gym rats, feb self improvement people, April home decorating, may summer vacation emphasis, July pool lover, august handyman, sept yard caring person, nov a cooking guru, dec a shopper.
-these could absolutely be filmed in their natural habitat…like at the grill or following them around town in the car to shop, or in a gym somewhere, etc.
-take away for viewer: I feel like I’m getting a steady flow of who these folks are and therefore I trust the organization since it’s not just a single person running the company. The viewer would also be attracted to whatever topic we pushed at that specific time of year.
Our Home
-film family / couple / single person / whoever….enjoying their home through various segments showing the things they love about their home….but with a twist
-each example, we’ll use camera magic / visual effects / to exaggerate the thing they are talking about.
-for example….if they say they love grilling on their back porch to make dinner and eat outside at the picnic table, we make the person grill like 200x hot dogs and try to balance them on a single plate and then drop it all over the people on picnic table
-another example: we love making forts in the living room…show a decently nice looking pillow and blanket fort in the living room…then we follow them into the entrance of the fort and magically we’re inside this crazy treehouse or castle type thing made from cardboard, pillows, sheets, etc…like we snuck into narnia
-another example where a little boy says I just really like my kitchen…it always has food and I need have to think about being hungry..such a great kitchen…..all while mom and dad are seen behind him cooking and baking and loading the pantry etc…could be fun
-take away for viewer: they will say, ha ha ha, I totally connect with when they made the forts…that was really neat. I now trust spotlight more because they just get it….they get how people live and they get the little nuances and quirks that makes all of us…us.
The Office
-video basically showing what being part of this team really looks like…but fun and not lame
-thngs we’d include: clips from meetings, car rides, showing homes, inspections, clips of all of this
-absolutely we would have the talking parts in front of a window with shades on it just like the office did.
-I can make this very funny.
-take away for viewer: when I see how this team works together, all the different people, all the good relationships, I know i’m in good hands.
Home Hunt
-vidoe to walk through step A to Z of working with spotlight
-show how spotlight helps new folks to the area as well as local folks looking for a new home
-potentially bring in the “Cube” idea from previous video to once again display spotlights knowledge of the area and the various parts
-get a behind the scenes look at how the realtors select homes, contact other agents, schedule things…do whatever they do to help the client
-take away for viewer: oh, realtors do more than just unlock doors for folks….just like people think pastors only preach once a week for an hour. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about all these things. I trust this team with my home buying situation. I connect with how other people have gone through this process and relate with those experiences.
The Spotlight Story
-Fun story of how bill came to be the boss of this wonderful company…but not drawn out long and boring…quick, fun, to the point
-gives us the ability to show off the skills of bill, the strength of the team, bill’s long time living here…
-capture the positive and supportive mood of this team
-take away for viewer: that was nice to see how someone went from point A to point B and long the ride started a great realty company. People are attracted to hearing how others got to where they are starting from where they came from.