Businesses and organizations are embracing online video like never before, but untill now there hasn’t been a place for people to come together and share ideas and learn from each other. So in 23 we’ve decided its time to gather all the people in Denmark, who are working with or have an interest in online video to a day filled with inspiring cases and conversations.

Videoday is the first event of its kind in Denmark, and we’re really looking forward to have people come and share their experinces within such different user cases as Campaigns, Events, Product Service, E-commerce, Communites, Media, Video Section, Brand Channels and Intranet. On top of that the day will include workshops for video production, production concepts, UI design, site design, how to develop program format and guidelines to what kind of videoa that actually works online.

Videoday will take place on june the 3rd 2010 and is made in collaboration with FDIM, Kommunikationsforum and FDIH.

But 23 Video is only one of many platforms where you’ll be able to meet Normann-Copenhagen. I had a short chat with online sales & brand manager Michael Rying about why they have embraced social media.

“A lot of companies are talking about getting on facebook, using twitter or getting a videosite. What sets us apart is the fact the we’re doing something about it instead of talking. We’re not waiting for a great master plan or social media strategy. Our approach is to try things out and learn from the experience. We had no idea what it would lead to when we started to blog, got a twitter account and a facebook page. So if we have a strategy it’s the fact that we allow ourselves to fail and learn from our failures. That wont give you a perfect result to begin with, but you’ll end up with a practice and most importantly you’ll actually get something done,” he says.

Behind the “just do it” attitude there’s also a great belief in the fact that social media will bring the company closer to both customers and retailers. That motive has recently led to a videosite where people can get a glimpse of the work in the workshop and meet the designers behind their great products.

“Video is really close to my heart. No matter how good you are with words or how great your photographer is, you simply can’t communicate how a great craftsman is going about is daily business in his workshop in the southern part of Sealand. But with video you can capture the experience and pass it on to your customers. We also use it to communicate to our retailers in Tokyo, Sydney, Italien, Finland. US and the rest of the 80 countries we’re exporting to. And we have videos running in a loop from a couple of mac’s when we’re exhibiting. So to us video has become essential.”

In less than two weeks more than 200 bands have entered the Royal Beer rock competition by uploading videos and music on RoyalBeer.tv. The campaign is crafted and designed by online agency Stupid Studio and features are beautifully integrated 23 Video solution. The agency were given free hands as to which platform to use as long as the final site could support a competition centered around Kashmir and work as a future brand channel for brewery.

“So we started looking for a video solution that we could integrate on our own terms to avoid being forced into a youtube environment. We needed complete freedom and control in order to integrate videos with related content, so when we encountered 23 Video, we were like, this is it” says project manager Matthias Flugge Hansen.

WordPress Integration

The greatest challenge for Stupid Studio was to make a seamless sign-up flow for the participating bands. Allowing them to upload both music, video and images and being able to control it all in a wordpress setup afterwards. Thus this project is also one of the first to take advantage of the fact that you can use 23 Video to handle audio.

“We have created a wordpress plugin, to make the wordpress integration as smooth as possible, and I must say that we’re pretty happy with the way it turned out. The users of the site can now login to wordpress and control their videos and sound files from there. Apart from that we’ve also worked on customizing the design, we’ve added color coding to the channels and worked on how to trigger related videos, when they get embedded,” says Matthias Flugge Hansen.

During the proces the development team at Stupid Studio have been in close contact with their 100 % human contact from 23. 100% Human is our service program which gives you your personal contact person. We don’t usually talk about it since it’s a regular part of our daily work, but I can’t help to finish this post with the following quote from Matthias Flugge Hansen.

“Its been great working with 23 on this project. The support level is awesome, so the 100 % human concept makes 100 % sense to us.”

We’re very happy to let you all know that our two partners, Plant and Eyeworks, has teamed up to create 3 inspirational seminars on how to get an online video project to take off.

The two agencies has several years of experience with online video projects and will share their experiences from a joint project they did for Novozymes. Novozymes will also be present to let you in on their thoughts on adding online video to their communcation.

Co-founder of 23, Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, will also be present at the event to a bit of 23 spice.

The seminars will take place on, April 8th, April 22nd and May 12th. The Location is Eyeworks Denmark, Sølvgade 32, 1307 Copenhagen and event will unfold from 2 pm to 4 pm.

It’s free to sign up. Just send an email to Anne Stein – anne.h.stein [a] eyeworks.tv or call her at +45 3344 7400.

The campaign is a great example of the flexibility you get with 23 Video. First thing you’ll notice is the custom background and header, followed by the link colors. But it’s the details that really made us excited. Notice how the player has been redesigned to include elements from the background graphics as well as the hummel-inspired player button. This is exactly what 23 Video is all about. To help out with the technical parts of the site hummel turned to 23 Video partner Re:, so we called Asbjørn Poulsen to get some more insights on how they customized 23 Video to fit hummels needs and give them a visual online presence.

Control related videos

“The Open Upload function was essential since they wanted to make a video competition for their customers and followers. Next was the rating and comment possibilities as they are very interested in feedback and interactions from the viewers. Distribution through Facebook and Twitter was also very important as they’ve build a great presence there,” says Asbjørn Poulsen and adds that the embedding provided an easy way for hummel partners to be part of the project.

However, those features are all out of the box and easy to implement, so the real challenges for Re: was to include more pages and figure out a way to control the related videos in the player.

“It was important for us to control the related videos in the player, so we worked on the categorization a lot and made a tagging system that hummel can use to control how the videos relate to each other,” says Asbjørn Poulsen.

The possibility to get your fingers deep into the code and control even the smallest details is exactly the reasons why Re: keeps recommending 23 Video to their customers.

“23 Video is great to work with. Most clients require features that 23 Video have out of the box, and the possibility to customize everything makes it easy for us meet specific needs. This means we can get a project up and running in no time. On top of that the extensive analytics adds important value and feedback, which is really important when you are experimenting with video online. I simply can’t point to another platform that includes all those features and possibilities at such a low price level,” says Asbjørn Poulsen

The spring winner has just been announced on Playstadil.com and are now playing in theaters, but the competition continues online with the possibility to win sneakers and a fall cinema spot for the next winner.

The main content is a featured Unisport show with a charismatic host who explores new soccer equipment like boots and balls with enthusiasm, historical facts and a critical eye to details. A combination which often spark great debates and discussions in the comments from an enthusiastic community of soccer fans. The Unisport team also plans to create product videos of all their products to improve the buying experience in their webstore.

(Video in danish)

“Our goal online has always been to entertain and inform our customers with news, stories, rumors and reviews of our latest or upcoming products. So video is a natural next step for us, because it grows an audience among our customers and increases traffic and activity on our website,” says Filip Domagala from Unisport.

Mobile videos reaches a young audience

Unisport made their first video experiments with Vimeo but quickly realised their needs for an alternative platform.

“Our viewers are between 7 and 17, so we love the iTunes integration and the fact that videos are available on mobiles. And on a more pragmatic level I’ll have to highlite the flatrate price policy,” says Filip Domagala, who’s looking forward to explore the video feedback included in 23 Video.

“Right now we have no idea whether our video has the right length or format. But with the playthrough percentage and the other 23 Video analytics tools we’ll now get feedback, so we know what works and what doesn’t. This gives us an opportunity to improve our productions,” says Filip Domagala.

As far as the soccer fans in 23 are concerned the analytics will reveal that the Unisport production team nailed it pretty damn well allready. But since our analytics tool can’t predict the number of plays just yet, I guess we have to wait a couple of month to see if we’re right.

Can’t wait to follow the Father, the Earl and the Duke on their North American adventures in their next episode….

The athletes were already engaged in their preparations in different places around the world, when Team Danmark got the idea of having them videoblog, but that didn’t stop the project. The athletes simply received a letter with a small video camera and a few lines on how to record and upload. The result was a number of videos providing detailed insights into the preparations leading up to the big opening ceremony in Vancouver last Friday.

After the games have started the video site continues to bring the audience close to the athletes in Vancouver, but the site now also serves as a way of distributing the content to the media. Team Denmark has allowed several jounalists access to the videos, and news sites like the Danish Broadcasting Corporation have started to embed the videos directly on their site.

Several of the athletes also publish the videos on their personal webpages. Like Sophie Fjellvang-Sølling who has published this adrenalin kicking helmet recorded video of a training run including a crash:

And Jonas Thor Olsen who’s testing 32 pairs of skis before his olympic debut later today:

We spoke to Team Danmarks head of communications about why they chose 23 Video for their video site?

“The cool thing about 23 Video is how easy you can adjust it to fit your needs. Every time we get a new idea for the project, it turns out to be possible. And it doesn’t matter whether it relates to integration with our own website, to our Facebook fanpage, or to the possibility for people to share videos or comments,” says Søren Willeberg from Team Danmark.

23 wishes the 18 Danish athletes the best of luck and encourage you all to check out their videos and become a fan of their Facebook page. Their attitude and dedication surely deserves a medal.