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Nortel Unveils DIY Videos
By Mark Evans | August 27, 2008
Nortel has been among the corporate leaders in embracing social media, showing a willingness to experiment with blogging, podcasting and videos that many other companies are reluctant or unwilling to do.
But you have to wonder about the latest social media initiative in which Nortel has asked employees to create “homemade” videos to put the spotlight on the company’s green and energy efficiency strategy. Three of these in-house videos will be posted on Nortel’s Buzzboard blog this week, while two professionally-made videos (I suspect made by non-Nortel employees!) will be posted next Tuesday.
Then, Nortel employees will get to vote for their favorites, and whichever video wins will become part of an online advertising campaign. It sure seems like a long way from when Nortel blew its brains out during the telecom boom with television commercials that used the Beatles’ “Come Together”.
I’ll give Nortel marks for creativity and social media enthusiasm but I’m not sure that making in-house videos part of an online ad campaign is a smart move. That’s not to say there aren’t really creative people working for Nortel but it’s not I’m not sure their efforts should be going into making corporate videos.
Canadian Business writer Andrew Wahl also has his reservations:
A couple of things spring to mind. First off: Way to go Nortel for not exactly blowing the advertising budget! Considering the financial pressures they have (this morning, Lehman Brothers joined a conga-line of other analyst downgrades and slashed its price target to US$6 from US$15.50, citing “several possible headwinds,” and in particular, the carrier networks division’s grim outlook for revenue growth), the idea of a crudely drawn cartoon with eerie background music posted to YouTube does seem more prudent than, say, a lavish network television ad blitz.
For anyone interested, you can watch the video here.
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