STORY: 

UBA or United Bank for Africa is Africa’s global bank and they have a new product called U-mobile which is essentially your bank on your mobile. Using their apps users can do most of their banking on their phones 24/7.

CHALLENGE:

Our biggest challenge on this project was time difference and having to get feedback from multiple management levels. Like any other big company there was a group of people who needed to like what we did before we could move onto the next stage. Making everyone happy is no easy task. However, after going through a few iterations we were finally able to achieve a result which everyone was happy with.

RESULT:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for United Bank for Africa | Nigeria

ROLES:

Sales – Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

Working with you was exciting, interesting and very professional, in time, we hope this particular video will go viral and we will have more Grumos done in the very near future.

STORY: 

Canton Car Wash is a high end facility with affordable services. They want to make sure their customers cars stay clean and away from those naughty birds. That is why they have an unlimited wash plan which only costs $40 a month and you can have your car washed as many times as you wish. Also instead of waiting around you can enjoy free WIFI, espresso or smoothie in their cozy café.

CHALLENGE:

Our clients wanted to produce two different 30 second ads to run on their local TV in Baltimore, USA. One needed to be about their Unlimited Wash Plan for $40/mo and the other one about their full detailing services. We needed to create an original look and feel for them so they could produce more of them in the future, promoting their other services. We chose a very simple and cartoony style so they can stand out from other ads.

RESULTS:

Unlimited Wash Plan:

Full Detailing Services:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for Canton Car Wash | Baltimore, USA

ROLES:

Sales – Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

Pedram, the ads turned out great! Thanks so much for your hard work. I was super impressed with your responsiveness, organization and professionalism. We’ll be sending some business your way for sure.

STORY: 

Saints and Slimmers is on a mission to help people lose their extra pounds and maintain their weight. They provide custom made healthy diet plans for their users that actually taste good and they even deliver food products to their homes. They also have a community of users where people meet, talk and share useful tips to achieve their weight loss goals.

CHALLENGE:

I was actually in Barcelona when I started working on this project. The good thing was that our client was also in Europe and the time difference was not an issue while communicating with them. But my team members were back in Canada and thanks to Skype we were able to communicate and since I was still dealing with my jet lag I could easily adjust myself to the time difference. The main challenge was writing a script for a British audience. There are many English words that we only use in North America but they do not use them in the UK such as cookies vs biscuits. However, our client was very cooperative and together we were able to create a script that could work for the British audience.

RESULT:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for Saints and Slimmers | Manchester, UK

ROLES:

Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

1. Founded my own company, 92d Solutions with a mission to help startups grow.
2. Built my online portfolio and my own blog.
3. Started researching on business development, personal growth and leadership.
4. Started writing and producing animated demo videos for startups with Grumo Media.
5. Got approved on a new mortgage for a second property.
6. Drove from Vancouver to San Francisco and back with our own little car.
7. Visited many cities: Sacramento, Palo Alto, Most of the Bay Area and San Francisco, Portland, Sunshine Coast, Amsterdam, Sitges and Barcelona.
8. Attended many live events: Roger Waters, Gotye, STS9, Fared Shafinury, Maz Jobrani, Deadmau5, Will Blunderfield, DJ A Slam.
9. Met inspiring people: Richard Dolan, Devon Brooks, Kevin O’Leary, Jay Abraham.
10. Read amazing books: The leader who had no title(Robin Sharma), Driven(Robert Herjavec), Drive(Daniel Pink), Persuasion(Arlene Dickinson).
11. Spent my birthday for second time in San Francisco and it was awesome.
12. Started using my inspiring Salvador Dalí coffee mug with a cool mustache on it.
13. Picked and ate fresh Strawberries and Blueberries from a local farm.
14. Painted our back yard floor.
15. Relaxed on a few lakes and beaches.
16. Started using Instagram.
17. Bought an iPad 3 and a new MacBook Air on the same day, yayy.
18. Drank great wine and ate real Churros, Jamon, Paella, and Pintxos in Barcelona.
19. Saw a first time ever video projection on Sagrada Familia by Moment Factory.
20. Had an extraordinary cocktail at Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona.
21. Experienced a true Spanish/Catalan hospitality by hanging out with Ona’s family.
22. Visited the beautiful city of Amsterdam by riding a bicycle and a canal cruise.
23. Went to San Francisco’s Burning Man Decompression.
24. Walked on Golden Gate Bridge.
25. Finally put a brand new roof on our house.
26. Managed to get a free stove using points balance from the roof job. Thanks Sears.
27. Built a Tile and a Pallet Table for our living room with leftover woods from the roof.
28. Produced a video for Kevin O’Leary and met him in person.
29. Ona and I created our own inspiring vision board that covers both past and future.
30. Met the old actor from the movie “A Separation” on a sidewalk in Vancouver.
31. My parents and Ona’s parents met for very first time and it was magical.
32. Got married to the love of my life on 12/12/12 and I can’t wait for the photos.
33. Took my parents to the winter solstice event at Roundhouse Community Center.
34. Started eating healthier and made exercising a daily habit.
35. Began keeping a daily journal.
36. Received many job offers and partnership opportunities.
37. Started learning Spanish.
38. Gained over 700 Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections.
39. Finally started the implant process on my missing tooth.
40. Made some mistakes, gained a handful of new skills and made real progress.

One minute is enough time to impress anyone you meet. This could be by telling them about yourself or your business. But how about telling them about themselves or their business. That’s what we did, we produced a one minute long animation about Kevin’s new business, O’Leary Mortgages and handed in to him. He loved it and used it.

Of course all of that did not happen in a minute. Kevin released a video on his YouTube channel on October 30th. It was himself talking to the camera and explaining what O’Leary Mortgages is all about. The length of this video was just about a minute. I first watched the video that day for first time but then next day on Halloween night I watched it for second time. This time as soon as the video finished I saw a light bulb in front of me. The script was well written and somewhat playful which could have been great if it was animated. No Halloween party for me and I right away started working on a storyboard.

Ona Praderas and I work together on many different projects but mostly we produce animated demo videos for startups by working with the awesome team of Grumo Media. Ona and I are both fans of all business related TV shows such as The Lang and O’Leary Exchange, Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank and we always thought it would be really cool to have an animated version of Kevin O’Leary, so we always looked for an opportunity until Kevin released the original video on YouTube. This was the time to do it. I also knew Kevin was coming to Vancouver for an event called “Straight from the Dragon’s Mouth” in a week so I bought two tickets to the event and started producing the video same day. We started by designing an illustrated version of him and then worked our way through it to the end in less than a week while working on other projects on the side.

We had a lot of passion and worked really hard to get it to the level we wanted given the short timeframe. Once done we attended the event on November 8th and were able to meet him quickly and hand him our work. We were then later requested to make some changes to fit their branding better which actually helped the video to improve drastically.

This morning we found out our little animated video is on O’Leary Mortgages website and Kevin O’Leary sent a tweet promoting the video while mentioning Ona and I for working on it.

Doing the right thing within the right timing can really make some magic happen.

RESULT:

Animated Version:

Original Version:

TEAM:

Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

Creative Director: Ona Praderas

Animation Assistant: Affy Habibian

Sound Designer: Humberto Corte

Produced with passion for O’Leary Mortgages, O’Leary Ventures and Kevin O’Leary | Toronto, Canada

KEVIN’S TWEET:

Here is a direct link to Kevin’s tweet on Twitter.

OUR PHOTO WITH KEVIN:

Meeting Kevin O’Leary at Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver on Nov 24th, 2012

STORY: 

Quandora is a super simple to use question and answer based software that helps organizations in all sizes share and manage their knowledge. Quandora’s platform can help companies in many different ways. For example if an experienced employee leaves the company, their knowledge can stay while new hires can gain the necessary skills a lot quicker.

CHALLENGE:

Quandora can really be used by any size organization with distributed teams, from a new startup to a large enterprise. This meant we had a big demographic to serve but actually in a 60-75 seconds long video there is only enough time to target one group. After some brainstorming we made our main character an entrepreneur whose company is growing and opening offices all across the country. We felt the other groups within already established companies can also relate to the type of problem Quandora can fix. We had a clear understanding of their core value proposition and they fully trusted our abilities which made the production of this video happen in about 2 weeks.

RESULT:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for Quandora | New York, USA

ROLES:

Sales – Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

STORY: 

NiceMeeting is a great platform which helps conference attendees engage and interact with presentations or speakers on their own personal devices. It runs on all browsers and can work with any device while connected to the local WIFI network. NiceMeeting helps conference organizers run more successful events while helping attendees engage more with speakers and conferences.

CHALLENGE:

The biggest challenge we had on this project was the time difference. Our client representatives were in Russia and with almost 12 hours of time difference, communication became a challenge and had to be faced via email and Skype. It took us a little longer to complete this project which happens often when you work with people in different time zones.

RESULT:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for NiceMeeting | Russia and Canada

ROLES:

Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

Thank you very much for your great job on our video.

STORY: 

Glocal is the easiest way to find, watch and share news videos online. It makes is super easy to find the news you actually care about. With Glocal you are able to watch both national and local news videos from any region or city across the US. There are news videos in different categories such as Sports, Entertainment, Politics, Lifestyle, Tech and Business.

CHALLENGE:

Deadline, Deadline and Deadline. Our clients at Glocal were attending TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco and wanted to have a demo video but only if it could be delivered by September 10th. That meant we had about 2 weeks to produce this video. However, with the help of our outstanding team and contribution of co-founders, Aaron and Lincoln we were able to deliver even three days before our deadline. This left us with some extra time for any last adjustment or improvement.

RESULT:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for Glocal | Detroit, USA

ROLES:

Sales – Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

Classrooms by Walmart is an awesome new tool that helps parents and teachers connect and communicate to ensure kids have everything they need for school. Teachers simply create their list online and email it to parents. On the other hand parents can either buy online or print a shopping list and go to a local Walmart store. This product is a great example of how technology can make our lives easier. As simple as that, we can all make sure students and teachers will have all the necessary supplies for their classrooms.

CHALLENGE:

Since this awesome product was made for both Parents and Teachers, we decided to produce individual videos for each demographic. The first one was for Parents, a 30 seconds spot for TV and social media use. Producing a 30 seconds spot is never easier than producing a 60 seconds spot. Because the less time you have, the more everything matters. This means every single word needs to be chosen more carefully. Getting the entire message across in 30 seconds was the biggest challenge during this project which took about a month to complete. About three to four weeks later we started producing a longer version for Teachers. This time it was not limited to 30 seconds, but it needed to be produced in 11 days. Since the second video was for Teachers, we chose a different style of animation.

Working on two creative projects directly with a Fortune 500 company was a great experience. Currently Walmart is the second one on that list. I am very grateful for having the opportunity of working with an organization in that size.

RESULT:

For Parents:

For Teachers:

CLIENTS:

Produced at Grumo Media for Walmart | San Francisco, USA

ROLES:

Sales – Script Writer and Creative Producer: Pedram Daraeizadeh

TESTIMONIAL:

It was a pleasure working with you.

Latest data coming from LinkedIn shows that the social network for professionals has grown and it is actually a viable business within social media and internet technology companies. LinkedIn stock also started to soar right after they released reports of their second quarter. LinkedIn showed a revenue of $228 million, which is an 89 percent increase from last year’s $121 million. LinkedIn now also has almost 175 million members, a 50 percent increase from last year. The company had Wall Street Investors behind its IPO and continues to prove that there is still hope for investing on a social media and internet technology company.

LinkedIn has three diverse, scalable and growing revenue streams:

Hiring Solutions: Providing social employment solutions to active job seekers.

Marketing Solutions: Giving businesses access to a professional and educated audience.

Premium Subscriptions: Increasing opportunities with well designed premium tools.

With global high rates of unemployment and difficulty of finding talents, LinkedIn has been a one-stop-shop for both job seekers and employers. Everyday more people look for jobs on LinkedIn and more recruiters look for their talents also on LinkedIn.

Why using LinkedIn matters:

• There are 175 million professionals from around the world on this social network.
• 82% of Fortune 100 Companies use LinkedIn to hire best talents.
• You can follow over 2 Million company pages to get their latest updates.
• There was about 4.2 Billion professional searches performed in 2011.
• LinkedIn is a great social tool that allows you to research and network on the go.

Either you need to find a job, grow your business or connect with experts of your industry the opportunities are endless and this amazing social tool gives you all you need to grow your professional career. Now let’s connect on LinkedIn and start a professional relationship today. Click on “About” button in navigation menu or find me here.

For more help with LinkedIn, check out their Learning Centre.