News

Lights. Camera. Action...Education. Safety. Emergency

Anyone who spends time on the water around New Zealand will know about the incredible work that the NZ Coastguard does. However not enough of those people realise that it's only donations and supporters' membership fees which keep the organisation running.

And saving lives.

So we recently worked with the national organisation to produce a series of video messages improving awareness of the various aspects of public service provided by Coastguard. The aim being to create a call to action to support the organisation that they can't ignore.

The primary audience for these videos are boating public, and the videos will be presented from the Coastguard promotional caravan at public events attended by the boating fraternity- such as boat shows and beach events.The material acquired also needed to be of a quality suitable for Electronic Press Kit use, and, ideally, could be used as TVC's if required. Due to the viewing environment for these messages (as well as an audience with other messages and distractions appealing for their limited attention)we decided on a series of short, punchy messages which could stand alone, rather than one longer promotional video.

Ideally this series would cover the entire range of Coastguard services, however by producing short stand-alone messages there is the option of building up a library at their own pace. The benefit to Coastguard is that they can start with the most important messages, with the most visual and emotional impact, and then add to the series as resources allow- without having to re-edit one long profile as new material is added to their library.

By their nature, short messages also provide more flexibility of delivery (they can be used as TVC's or as EPK's) and more variety of presentation options (incorporated into PowerPoint presentations or streamed as web clips).Testimonials from existing group members- both volunteers and those who've benefited from their service- are the Coastguard's best advertisement, as they provide an emotional engagement and narrative which has more impact than voice-over.

For all these reasons we decided that a combination of memorable imagery with strong, dramatic narrative to engage the audience, followed by a simple direction for what to do to support this service- packaged into 30-60sec messages, would be of most value to Coastguard.

Screentime has a policy of using our resources to help one charity each month so covered 20% of the production costs to help fund this project for a much undervalued organisation.