This article appears in the December 2007 issue of Corporate Logo magazine. Written by Debrah Rosen, reprinted with permission.

Care to see your supplier reps folding your peers' socks, brushing someone else's teeth or break dancing? For Leasables, it's all in a day's work - from the entertaining to the downright wacky - as part of an ingenious video marketing campaign designed to prove the lengths they'll go to for your trust.

It's rare to come across people who are immune from embarrassment, but Leashables co-founder, brothers Brady and Jeff Anderton, are just that type. Combine that with their laid-back snowboarder-type personalities and their unique brand of humor, and you'd never expect that they've spent most of their careers in business. Though Brady Anderton says running a business was not their strong point, he admits they learned a lot from Oralabs' Founder Gary Schlatter after the two companies merged. "He is a genius," Brady insists. "He's never been in debt, started out of his condo, and has built a huge reputation for quality and turn-around from customers like Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart, Target and now the promotional market."

At the same time, the partnership made Leashable part of one of the largest private lip balm manufacturers in the country, with more than 150 employees producing more than 1 million sticks a week. With Leashables in good hands, the brothers focused on other passions, including movie-making. (They've been big into video for quite some time; search "Leashables" on YouTube and check out the professional-looking music video they made about a year ago that's had almost 3,000 hits.) Before long, Brady says the brothers "felt ready to take the entrepreneurial plunge again." That opportunity came when Ben Hurst, founder of Fueld Films, offered them an equity stake in his growing production company. "Besides lip balm, the only thing we had a passion for was making movies, so we joined forces with Ben," Brady reveals.

Today, the men travel the country shooting and editing TV spots for ad agencies and private companies. They've learned a lot about the importance of marketing, and are using video to put it all to good use. "The long and the short of marketing is this: Having a good marketing campaign is only as important as having a good product," Brady acknowledges. "If your product stinks, good marketing is going to exacerbate your shortcomings. If you have a great product but your marketing stinks, good for you - now you can sit in your cubicle and have a little one-man party."

There are two key principles for developing an effective marketing campaign: being creative and being strategic, Brady contends. "These concepts have to work in conjunction with each other to do one thing: engage in a memorable way," he says. "The medium with which you accompish this depends on your creativity and abilities."

For the Andertons, video was a natural fit. Outside of a face-to-face conversation, they maintain video is the most effective communication. "We like people to have a lot of fun while learning more about us. Video is a great tool for that," Brady shares.

Using video was not new for Leashables, as the men had been pioneering video in the promotional market. "We've been testing it, learning about it, pulling crazy stunts, pushing the envelope since early 2000," Brady says. "I can't tell you how many people come up to us who feel like they've known us for years - just because they've intereacted with Leashable through our videos. It's a wonderful connection."

With their new venture into professional video, the Andertons set about doing something to benefit their old stomping grounds. "Our first order of business was to re-brand Leasables using technologies that no one in this industry has even dreamed of - much less deployed," Brady recalls.

Before filming or ad designs began, the team spent time with Leashable employees in the customer service, sales and production departments, discussing the message they wanted to present. Though customers were familiar with the company's high quality standards, they weren't necessarily aware of its "obsession with customer service," Brady laments. So the men aimed to break down what good customer service really entails, and they came up with one word: Trust. Trust that Leashables will ship orders on time, produce quality products and imprints, and fix problems as they arise.

Building on those discussions and their enhanced business skills, they developed the "Trustables" creed for Leashables that all employees now strive to live up to. "Once everyone internally was 100 percent on board, we started developing the concepts for film, print, Internet," Brady recalls.

What's more, through Fueld, they're using video to capture the great lengths to which Leashables employees will go for their customers. For each short move, they flew out to different distributors and filmed them in their own environment with a Leashables team member. "Scenarios that we have launched so far include folding all your socks in your house, walking you across a busy street, brushing and flossing your teeth, and backing you up in a break-dance battle. And there are more to come featuring top distributors across the nation," he reveals.

Not only are suppliers seeing the benefits of interactive video campaigns, but so are some of the industry's biggest distributors. Early on, Brady says Geiger embraced it as a tool to empower its sales force and communicate to customers, potential clients and other salespeople that the company is serious about creativity and video. This year, Fueld produced a series of "Geiger Gets It" spots and interactive video explaining important aspects of the company. (Search "Geiger Gets It" on YouTube.)

"To people who get it, interactive video is potentially an industry-changing communication tool," Brady says. And, he adds, Fueld is still working with both Leashables and Geiger to develop video tools that promise to do just that. "The days of boring PowerPoint presentations and static catalogs are going to go the way of the Pony Express," he says. "Stay tuned, folks."