Let’s say your company has plans to launch a new product or service. You’ll want to know how to build excitement for the brand launch, get people thinking about it, talking about it. It’s obvious that putting the CEO of your company, or even a spokesperson, on a video saying “We’re excited to tell you about our new XYZ product, coming in June blah blah blah” will probably be forgotten as soon as the viewer scrolls away, which would be very quickly.

How do you make an announcement about future events and keep it interesting? Tell a story in a series of short videos. We did just that to help a local restaurateur announce the launch for a new concept in a new location. We told a story of two brands coming together, and we did it without using any words.

A partnership is formed

Kau, a steakhouse and butcher shop, is located at Revolution Mill, a vibrant live/work/create campus just north of downtown Greensboro that features restaurants and bars. The Bearded Goat, an eclectic watering hole in south Greensboro, recently opened a second location at Revolution Mill. Seth Mapes, owner of The Bearded Goat, and Kayne Fisher, owner of Kau, decided to get together and create a new kind of drinking establishment, one that featured a fresh look at how good bar food could really be.

Excited about the potential of their new venture, and eager to get out in front of the information flow, Kayne and Seth, working with Oh Shoot Productions and Ink Photography Productions, decided to do a teaser campaign on social media, a campaign that gave viewers the concept without actually telling the whole story.

The beauty of their partnership, from a concept standpoint, is that both businesses are named after animals. Ideas were kicked around that involved goats and cows and owners coming together somehow. The most attractive aspect of the plan was to hide the identity of the owners, in a tongue-in-cheek way, until the end. That’s where the idea of the cow and goat masks came into focus.

A cow and a goat walk into a town

Two guys in masks, a goat mask and a cow mask, unite in a series of videos that loosely chart their progress from Revolution Mill to their ultimate downtown location in Greensboro. It’s a walkable distance, albeit a long walk, from the north to the south of town. So we filmed a goat and a cow on a journey together, just two friends with a plan and a destination, stopping in parks, surveying the town, passing by landmarks, stopping for coffee.

Feels like Clint Eastwood in a poncho

We envisioned a Western feel to the look of the video. It starts with the music, a twangy, guitar driven, spaghetti western sounding track with lots of reverb and the perfect use of the whammy bar. The video was shot at 60fps to give it a dreamy, cinematic quality. Shot using a 3-axis gimbal, the camera is able to float around the subjects freely. Edited in Adobe Premiere, the color grading was to push the warm, dusty tones, actually adding a layer of yellow over the source video and multiplying it. Then another layer was added to the top third to simulate a grad filter. This was especially helpful as the sky that morning was completely overcast and white.

#dontsaytoomuch

Each video was released, in order, over a few days. The only clues were in the hashtags, such as #comingtogether #thejourneybegins #plotting, etc. They were initially released on the Instagram account hoof.and.horn, which of course is the name of the new business. Then they were shared on Kayne’s various pages. The final video showed that the cow was really Seth from the Bearded Goat, and that the goat was actually Kayne from Kau, showing how each had embraced the concept of the other in this partnership. Cows and goats living together.

Show it, don’t tell it

The partnership was launched, without anybody saying anything about it. The video series communicated, even with the sound off, that a strange partnership was taking place and you might want to take notice. Now word is out about the upcoming addition to the food scene in Greensboro, and excitement is building. The cow and goat heads will be displayed in the bar once it opens.

If you are planning an announcement for your company, we’d be happy to lend a brain or two to help come up with a unique and exciting way to put the message out there.