LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL
Irreverence is in the cards with online video business: VidiGreet president shares taste for the absurd in personal missives.
Booyeon Lee
Greeting cards at stores range in sensibilities, from sappy sentimentality to irreverent humor. E-cards, on the other hand, are pretty safe and tame across the board, said Jeff Gorman, founder and president of VidiGreet.
"Every time my sister sends me one, I kind of cringe," he said. "It's just not my sense of humor. I prefer something clever and sarcastic."
Gorman, a longtime TV commercial director, has launched a video greeting card site that features 15-second videos, or what the site calls "funny, outrageous, stupid, irreverent, gross little comedies," that can be sent like an e-card.
The $80 million e-card market is primarily crowded with illustrated notes and less so with videos. Venice-based Jibjab, which also produces video greetings that include political satires and animation, is the only formidable competitor to Hollywood's VidiGreet. Most other video greeting sites are not professionally produced.
To launch VidiGreet, Gorman pulled $2.5 million from his own pocket. With more than 20 years of experience in production and copywriting, dating back to a Nike TV commercial for the 1984 Olympics, Gorman knew that commercial shoots are expensive. So he is using a young production crew straight out of film school.
"We're doing this very guerilla," Gorman said. Recently, his team filmed 30 clips in four days for upcoming Valentine's Day and Groundhog Day. ("The poor, little guy never gets the same props as Santa and Easter Bunny so I'm elevating him to star status," he said.)
Revenue comes from fees of $3.99 for one-day unlimited use or an annual $15.99.