Calgary Journal Online

Local production company helps market businesses on the Internet

YouTube may have started the web video trend for individuals to get their messages out, but now companies are also turning heads to this popular medium.

Lisa Ostrikoff and her fiancé Todd Gallant are the co-creators of BizBOXTV.com, a video production company that creates web video profiles to tell stories about businesses in Calgary and Edmonton.

Ostrikoff, 29, left her job a year ago as a Global Calgary reporter to start a health and wellness television show with Gallant, Global Calgary’s morning weather anchor.

However, they said that after some research and expense restraints, they realized that conventional television was not the route they wanted to go.

“Everything was starting to shift online,” Ostrikoff said. “It’s only going to go up; online video has been projected to sky-rocket right up until 2012.”

Tish Bell (left) is a producer and on-screen personality for BizBOXTV.com. BizBOX uses the growing medium of web video to creates profile pieces about other businesses in Calgary and Edmonton.

Photo:courtesy of Lisa Ostrikoff

They opted for the web, where they serve all types of industries by using their skills in journalism and broadcast for marketing.

Working with a pool of 10 freelancers, BizBOXTV.com has been in business for about a year. It has created almost 200 web profile pieces that get distributed through an online channel and social media.

Ostrikoff and Gallant have also started to produce online TV shows, and have been getting more and more requests to help businesses create social media profiles on websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s getting out there that if people want to be found, they need to be out there in these new ways and taking advantage of the opportunities that exist online,” Ostrikoff said.

Concorde Entertainment Group, a company in Calgary that owns venues such as Flames Central and Sky 360 Restaurant and Lounge, saw the advantage of establishing themselves on the web with video.

They were one of the first businesses to hire BizBOXTV.com without being shown any previous work, mainly because the company was so new it had nothing to show at that point.

“Lisa’s team seemed to be able to identify with the small business owner,” said Darcy Chalifoux, vice president of sales and marketing for Concorde Entertainment Group.

He added that Concorde Entertainment Group continues to work with BizBOXTV.com for new venues they have opening up.

“The strongest way to market any brand of course is the power of word of mouth, and online marketing basically runs along those same lines,” Chalifoux said. “If you put out a great piece, someone is going to share it.”

He continued, “I wouldn’t dream of opening up another venue without having video presence online.”

According to a recent study by Ipsos Reid, BizBOXTV.com is not far off the mark when the company’s website says, “Welcome to the web video revolution”.

The research company’s tracking data suggests that for the first time, Canadians are spending more time online (more than 18 hours a week) than they are watching television (around 16.9 hours a week).

“If your customers are spending more time online than they are watching television, reading magazines or other forms of traditional marketing media, than you’d better have a presence online to reach them,” said Donna Lazdowski, associate professor of marketing at Mount Royal University.

She continued that a lot of the traditional marketing dollars are already moving online and to social media; the amount has increased from 3.5 per cent in August 2009 to 5.6 per cent in February 2010 according to emarketer.com.