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As part of an agreement between the HSBC Celebration of Light and Strutta, yours truly was the official videographer for the event. Every year, the best fireworks teams in the world compete for bragging rights in what is the world’s biggest offshore fireworks competition.

I have already shot the first two evenings of action, and I look forward to doing en even better job with the remaining two nights. We’ve created a game on Strutta where folks can cast their votes for their favourite, and I uploaded both the Team Canada and USA performances to Vimeo, so that y’all can watch them in higher quality. (See the embedded versions of both below)

Quick technical note: The original footage was shot in high definition, then reduced to 960 x 540, as they will ultimately be mastered to DVD (720 x 480).

What is the marketing lesson here?

How this deal came about is quite simple, and no money changed hands. I asked if they had a “social media sponsor” ( and after the pregnant pause on the other end of the line, I tried “videographer” instead) and when they said they didn’t, we set about coming up with a mutually beneficial agreement. Now, I can reap the benefits of the cross promotion, and land a lot more eyeballs on our site by hosting the highlight videos. All because I asked. These days, there are a number of events, happenings and causes that could benefit from your knowledge in the use of social media and the web. Positioning yourself as the official source of promotions and “media” sponsorship can be very good for your own promotion, and possibly even lead to consulting work in the field.

I have to confess, I borrowed this idea from my friend Rebecca Bollwitt, aka Miss 604, who has been the de facto “social media sponsor” and liveblogger of a number of popular Vancouver events, tech related and otherwise. To say that this strategy has been good for promoting her would be something of an understatement, to be sure. Now that she and her husband have launched their own consultancy, Sixty4Media, that promotion will be paying dividends.

But that concludes today’s lesson; now let’s watch some fireworks! If you want to vote on your faves, you may do so in the Strutta game: HSBC Celebration of Light 2008.

Team Canada - August 23 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

Team USA - August 26, 2008 from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

*image of Team Canada fireworks by the incomparable Rob Masefield. View his whole (breathtaking!) photo set here, and if you want a tutorial on shooting fireworks with a DSLR camera, Rob offers one here.