I recently spoke with Sandra Fathi, President of Affect Strategies, about their recent partnership with Landline TV, a comedy production company. They have worked together on projects for the PRSA, Regus, Kony Solutions, and Absolute Software.

How did the partnership with Landline TV begin?

We met with someone in PR who was looking for work. He wasn’t a fit for a variety of reasons, but he was working in this comedy production company. Their videos were on Bablegum, Comedy Central and College Humor. Their work blew us away.

At the time I was head of PRSA’s Technology Section. We asked them to create a video poking fun at the PR industry. It was a huge hit - very fun and irreverent.

As soon as we had a client who was eager to do a video, we jumped in.

Everyone likes funny videos. How do you make sure you reach your target audience?

There’s always one important rule to remember: if you build it, no one will show up. We use a lot of different ways to make sure the videos don’t just stay on a ghost town of a page.

One set of videos that we worked on was for was for Regus, a multinational flexible workspace provider with more than 1000  locations. Our job was to drive business to 18 office centers in New York City.

The videos were about entrepreneurs in funny situations. They created YouTube account and promoted the videos. We made sure they were tagged well and very findable. They were also promoted through Twitter, Facebook, traditional PR, and a small ad campaign.

Some of the best reactions came from Regus employees themselves. They all loved the videos and spread them through their personal networks as well. Eventually, other Regus locations asked to use the videos for TV advertising.

What drives the content of these videos? Is it usually the client or does Landline TV just do their thing?

They’re such a creative team. We give them a brief on the client and product. This includes direction on what the client wants to accomplish with the campaign and what message they want to promote.

Then the Landline crew scripts and executes the video with our guidance. They’re a little edgy, so we need to make sure it stays within the bounds of the brand’s comfort level. But we give them the freedom to brainstorm and come up with ideas for the client.