Buisness card cds for promo?

[Frisbee]

What do y'all think of those cd buisness cards. Are they the future for sure. I am thinking about producing my own. I have found a basic starter kit that looks like it wouldnt be too bad especially for trial purposes...I think it was something like 100$(U.S.) and you get everything you need to produce I want to say 100 discs with labels and sleeves.

I am thinking its a cool looking thing...but what about practicallity...are people still going to want a video or will the video on the disc be enough for them as well as an interactive disc with resume, photos, bio and whatever else.

the cool thing I think of doing them on your own is that you can change them whenever you want and just burn a new set...instead of printing 1000 and then a year down the road you want to add stuff or change stuff and you are out big money. What do you think?

[The Pretty Good]

Yeah Ive been thinking about those cd bussiness cards for a while. I think that it would take alot of cash off the cost of producing your promo package and it does hold video, text and pictures. I tried to find the bland cd's but noone knew what I was talking about when I called up to ask. Frisbee if you do get the start up kit let me know.
The Pretty Good

[Chance]

I have been wondering about these cd business cards myself. They sound like the 'ticket' in alot of ways, but I do not think the potential trouble is with the card itself, but with getting clients and agents to move up to the next level. Too many are still insisting on VHS videos and hard copy press kits etc.

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Each man's given a bag of tools,
An hourglass,
A book of rules;

And each man's built,
'ere his hour's flown,
A stumbling block -
Or a stepping stone.

[scot]

You can send anything out for promo. I was thinking of sending out a box of fortune cookies with my name and info as the fortunes inside and my phone number as the lucky number. You can send one inch sqaure promo kits to save on postage. The thing is, unless you are prospecting bookers with lots of leisure time, your stuff won't really get used. It will be an eye catcher certainly. People will say, "What's this kid thinking?"

The professionals already have systems set up. Alot of them get your stuff, open it, glance quickly over it. look at your experience and throw your video into a pile to be viewed later. They have filing systems that require physical photos and resumes.

I've heard some watch two or three videos at once until they see something they like. Finding acts is usually a small part of what these people do. Opening a cd, starting up the 486 and clicking around trying to figure out how to use this piece of technology will not be an important part of their day.

Possibly if your's is the first an agent gets, he would check it out for the novelty. Once he has looked through it, it either gets thrown into the trash or is filed away never to be looked at again.

My idea is to have a cd business card that isn't platform specific. One that works on most computers and is easy to use. It doesn't have to be physically filed by the client. It can be updated regularly without resending. It would already be used by agents and could have unlimited information included. It would be great if clients could view it with out a cd rom drive. Also you could let your fans, family and friends see it too. That would be great. If only we had the technology.

[Brian Wilson]

I've been looking at the video cd's for a while. If I can find a reasonable platform in which they run I think we will do it. The only problem as it stands is the agent/producer needs a 333mhz pc to run the damn thing. I'm planning on talking to my video guy and see if there is any way to run them on slower computers. Personally I think putting video on the web is the way to go, it's readily accessible and you don't need a superfast computer to run it.

[Frisbee]

Brian thanks for the thought...I didnt know it had to be 333mhz...hopefully the agencies will move over to the cd format...I think it will save time money and space in the long run...on their end as well as mine. I figure for the price its worth a shot...$165 for 100 50mb disks/high gloss labels/software/and sleeves...I will mail them off as well as a video this time around and see what happens...see if any agents comment on them.

Scot...it definately matters what an agent receives as promo...and the idea is to get them to not toss it into a pile to be viewed later but to at least glance over your stuff and get them to say hey...this one is worth checking out now....and then they can put it in the pile ...Fortune cookie fortunes will get lost really REALLY quick...just a comment if you were serious about that idea...besides they may think its poisoned because they got you a bad gig or something.

But thanks everyone for your input...keep it coming...

[scot]

I guess it wasn't very obvious. I was hinting that fortune cookies seem to me just about as reasonable as cd business card. My post was also alluding to the fact that you can do pretty much everything using a website. I just was waiting for someone to say, "Hey you can do all that stuff using the web". Oh well.

[StrongEntertainment]

I have been using CD-Rom for more than a year now. I get about the same reponse from that as I do the video. Many agents like the CD and ask for a copy of the video on VHS so that they can make dubs more easily. The best thing I have done in the past year is schedule some visits to my agents' offices to ask questions. It puts a face with the name and more importantly answered the question of what happens to the promo. They usually only look at it if they like the design. If they like it, They usually throw away any extra packaging (i.e. the video cover) to save space and then cover anything that has contact information on it (they get clients that visit the office too). I learned much more than that, but I am sure that it differs from agent to to agent. Go visit, learn, and good luck.

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Robert Strong
www.StrongEntertainment.com

[This message has been edited by StrongEntertainment (edited 12-24-2000).]

[Chance]

Did anyone follow thru and move up to the business card cd, and if so, how are they working out?

[Humanoid Gone Mad]

I'v been talking to my web designers about the CD promo and the benifits of the card style or the disk style and acording to them th card style doesn't hold a lot of video something like about 5 seconds. I do a lot of shows so thats not really suitable where as the disk Cd Rom holds up to about 5 minutes. Iv only ever seen one group use the CD ROM ( The Flaming Butterflys) And their Package was great quality, sound and moving pictures with web links and gallery etc..

As far as I can tell you can as scott said do all of that with a web page. But what Iv seen and tried to see of video from a web page has been really crap!

Also with the CD if you do decide to change something add new stuff you can do the changes to the web page and have I direct link to the cd Rom so your clients will stay up to date with uot re-sending!

Personally at the moment my promo is S hardcopy - booklet with photos and text.And a Web page . next year Im going to look a lot more siriously into a CD rom.

I like it also for the asthetic I think that If my promo looks Shit-hot then its going to stand out on the desk with everybody elses, it doesn't really matter if its a fortune cookie or a cd-card if the whole marketing package is shit-hot and the product that its promoting as is as well then its going to stand out.