The Phundamental Phacts of Phorsphorus

Challenge
Produce a CD-ROM including original video to support the sales of Phosphorus. Make it so easy to use that sales representatives could use the tool with little or no training.

Background
Cargill launched an integrated national information campaign designed to raise awareness of low cropland phosphorus levels across wide regions of the nation. The goal of this campaign was to educate producers about the declining phosphorus reserves in croplands and urge them to do regular soil testing. To inform farmers of this national concern, Cargill worked with DKY Advertising to develop a CD-ROM sales tool for their representatives. It was to be called “The Phundamental Phacts of Phosphorus.” While DKY had a talented staff of creative directors and developers ready to go to work on the project, they needed the assistance of a video producer and CD-ROM developer. Our assignment was to:

• Develop original, entertaining streaming video that would inform producers about the benefits of Phosphorus application.
• Include six video interviews with recognized industry experts to support the material.
• Assemble these into an easy-to-use CD-ROM for use at the point of sale using PC computers with a variety of operating systems.

Solution Play Video
Working with DKY Advertising, Lee Snyder, founder of On-Demand Productions, organized, produced, and directed the original video. This included casting sessions, content review, and supplier coordination. An outdoor location was required for our on-camera interviews with industry experts – ideally one that complimented and reinforced content.

The solution was to shoot at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Agricultural campus. A number of crops were ready for harvest, including corn, sunflowers, and soybeans. Other fields had been recently cultivated, giving the appearance of an early spring scene. This one location provided all of the required location backgrounds, and saved production dollars in the process. Additional studio production provided the additional scenes required for the production of a “Bill Nye the Science Guy” knock-off video.

Once the videos were finished and ready for inclusion in a CD-ROM, Snyder recommended an alternate approach that would make the product easy to use with the ability to update and append it with new information. The solution was to reorganize content into four primary sections. Each section would lead off with streaming video using a very large 16 X 9 image at 30 frames per second with stereo sound. It easily played from a 4X CD-ROM drive, requiring no user software installation or file transfer. Representatives needed only to double an icon on the CD-ROM and the project launched itself.

Results
The CD-ROM was a big success, viewed thousands of times in personal presentations by hundreds of empowered Cargill representatives ready to share the benefits of Phosphorus balancing.