Together with our partners, Captains created an integrated campaign that included “The Institute for Back-Up Trauma” web video featuring Dr. Harold Twain Weck (John Cleese), as well as a virtual institute that viewers could explore. The film tells the story of hapless IT managers that suffer from Back-Up Trauma – a psychosis that takes hold when out-of-date tape-based backup systems fail.

The campaign quickly went viral, as literally hundreds of websites and blogs created links to the LiveVault site.   LiveVault saw a 20% click-through rate on its e-mail blasts. Over 1,000,000 people watched “The Institute for Back-Up Trauma.” LiveVault saw a ten-fold increase in their site traffic, experienced a 500% increase in sales leads, and watched their sales double.  Talk about marketing ROI.

Before the launch of the campaign, Googling the words ‘Back-Up Trauma’ brought up only a few random hospital links. Today the term brings up literally hundreds of thousands of links from around the globe. This demonstrates why good web content is the centerpiece of organic search engine optimization.

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A reporter for the Wall Street Journal found “That’s Revolting!” through Google when hunting for antimicrobial products, and subsequently featured Agion in their weekend edition, delivering over 2 million impressions at no cost, and without any assistance from a PR firm. This is another example of how Captains of Industry’s web content improves search engine visibility organically. Good content is the core of a successful inbound marketing strategy.

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Captains of Industry has years of experience in renewable energy, but thanks to the economic slowdown in early 2009 landing a solar account was proving to be a daunting challenge.  One day Captains’ creative director, Ted Page, blurted in frustration, “If we don’t land a solar account this year I will eat my shorts!” Thus was born the Solar Shorts blog, with a video in which Page pledged to actually eat his shorts and put the video on YouTube unless the company landed some solar business. To launch the site, Captains reached out to friends and colleagues through social networking channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. The result? Emails and blog posts from around the world starting coming in immediately after the site went live, and within 2 weeks Captains had started its first project for the largest solar installer in the Northeast. The blog was featured in the Boston Business Journal. Renewable Energy World online magazine provided free web banners to promote the blog. And the videos have been seen throughout the solar industry. It’s another example of how good web content (in this case a funny video), combined with social networking can deliver terrific results on a budget.

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As part of the D Stop microsite for Dunkin’ Donuts, Captains created (or discovered, depending on how you look at it) a language for Dunkin’ lovers called Dunkinese. The first video on the site, shown here, set up the premise with construction workers using the Dunkinese sign language to communicate wordlessly. The site featured a whole video tutorial on the language, complete with a quiz. People who passed the quiz received a diploma via email that they could hang in their office. Thousands of customers took the test – and passed. While Dunkin’ captured emails for their database, allowing for ongoing engagement with their customers.

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Millipore is a global life sciences company. They came to the Captains because they knew that in the age of YouTube they needed a fresh way to engage their customers. The task: create a viral video to help launch their Snap i.d. protein detection system – a nifty device that let’s lab scientists do Western Blots in about half an hour versus 4 hours for the traditional method. Captains created The Blot Race, with anthropomorphic characters in a real track race to the finish. The video is a good example of web content that is both entertaining and informative at the same time. Key benefits of the Snap i.d. are conveyed in the video, but in a way that’s fun and engaging, so it’s more likely to be passed around in the lab scientist community.

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It all began when they decided to make a short film together. Fred and Ted wanted their work to be seen on the film festival circuit to demonstrate both their comedic charm and filmmaking abilities. Thus, There Once Was a Man From Pawtucket was born.

The movie is about a happily married elderly couple, the Wingtight’s, who “live” in Cranston, Rhode Island. Loosely based on Ted’s in-laws, the plot features a woman so preoccupied with clipping coupons she doesn’t realize her husband has been dead for five years. He has a rare condition known as Ambulatory Mortosis (he’s basically a walking stiff).

The actor who played Mr. Wingtight played such a convincing dead person, that the film crew truly believed he suffered from ”AM”. Fred and Ted quickly added a public service announcement to the end of the film, and set up a website for the American Ambulatory Mortosis Foundation http://www.fredandted.com/Mortosis/ where visitors could do a self-assessment for the disease and join a support group. A new disease was born, along with Fred and Ted’s filmmaking careers. The film appeared in festivals across the United States and was selected to open the Providence Film Festival, where Fred and Ted solicited donations from the audience for the treatment and prevention of AM. Fred and Ted decline to state where the money was spent, but rumor has it that beer was involved. Soon after, Fred and Ted were hired to make serious films in healthcare and other industries.