Target vnRs Carefully

Video workshop features in the industry's leading trade publications stress that because VNRs are expensive to make and distribute, they cannot just be run off and scattered like print press releases.

Television is a highly specialized medium, and messages for showing on television must meet the highest technical and content standards. Many of the largest corporations maintain their own production de­partments because they have enough work to justify the expense.

Johnson & Johnson, for example, uses outside producers to pre­pare commercials for its products. But messages aimed at employees, stockholders, and managers of subsidiary companies are prepared in-house, as are training films and cassettes that sales personnel take to hospitals and doctors to "demonstrate" the use of sutures and other products during operations.

Organizations that do not have the resources of a large corporation use the services of specialized television production and distribution firms. They're listed in the Yellow Pages in most large cities, and they advertise their services in trade magazines. Some specialize in VNRs; others can produce anything from a 30-second PSA to a half-hour docu­mentary for closed-circuit use in video conferences aimed at invest­ment counsellors.