Superpages announced that it has selected TurnHere to produce videos for the publisher’s 18 million small business customer base, according to the press release. This article says, however, that the company is also using Denver MultiMedia to produce videos for the site.
TurnHere offers more than outsourced video production, which is becoming more common and widely available. The company has developed a whole Internet-based infrastructure that allows it to produce video cheaply and efficiently on a distributed basis. TurnHere CEO Brad Inman was certainly prescient when he created the company several years ago and built his network of more than 2,000 local filmmakers.
The TurnHere “style” has also proven attractive, mixing professional production values with local “authenticity.” Here are some examples.
Inman said to me on Friday that he felt the deal was “tremendous validation” for TurnHere, which began life trying to sell directly to SMB merchants. Like so many in the segment it decided to work with larger entities and partners, such as Citysearch, as a much more efficient approach. But TurnHere produces video for a range of partners beyond the SMB market, including book publisher Simon & Shuster.
All the major US yellow pages providers are actively producing or gearing up to produce video advertising. And everything that I’ve seen and heard directly and anecdotally indicates the demand among SMBs is great. For example, the following is from an Opus-AllBusiness online survey of 653 US SMBs in August:
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Here’s previous discussion of the Superpages video ads program:
Screenwerk 
December 3, 2007 at 3:16 pm
One great thing about video ads, from the user perspective, is how they complement reviews, which are based on someone else’s experience of something that you may have never seen. Eg, a 30 second pan-and-scan of a restaurant, its kitchen, and its food, is a great way to form your own assessment of how well that restaurant might fit your requirements for a special night out.
Extend that concept to service professionals like doctors, dentists, realtors, etc., where your chemistry with the service provider is often very important, and it’s easy to see how video ads will be an outstanding complement to third-party reviews.
December 3, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Agree. And they can also “compensate” for negative reviews by making a case directly to consumers.