Especially urgent in an uncertain economic climate, brands must minimize production costs while creating a high enough volume of social media videos to identify the creative elements that resonate most with target audiences.

“Budgets are being heavily scrutinized, and people are looking very closely at what they’re spending their dollars on,” said Catharine Meketa, managing vice president at QuickFrame by MNTN. “Social media generates the greatest ROI, but how do we figure out what’s going to resonate the most with the target audience? From a production standpoint, by capturing as much content as possible, you’re later able to look at different variables to determine the overall campaign effectiveness.”

To maximize their budgets and hit those volume goals, brands are enlisting partners to support their video production. They are working with creator marketplaces to take pressure off in-house teams and freelance video production partners to create low-cost UGC-style videos.

As brands and their partners create their libraries of social media videos, they’re then implementing advanced testing strategies to determine which creative variables perform best at meeting the brand’s goals. One example of this approach comes from a video campaign with CookUnity.

How CookUnity fueled 86 videos from a single video shoot

Meal subscription service CookUnity partnered with QuickFrame by MNTN to develop and execute its new video strategy on Facebook and Instagram.

Since CookUnity had not used video ads previously and needed more production experience, QuickFrame by MNTN created a comprehensive video production plan. The goal was to ensure a single video shoot could be used to capture a wide variety of footage for different platforms and creative concepts.

“From a production standpoint, you need multiple concepts, you need multiple lengths, you need multiple opening hooks. That means you need to create a larger volume of content than you’re likely creating today,” Meketa explained. “There’s a big myth that you can’t do this without blowing your budget, but, in fact, it can be more efficient.”

A thorough storyboard helps teams be realistic about production timelines and budgets, but it is crucial for brands to recognize that the more complex a concept is, the more costly it is likely to be. Further, a comprehensive shot list helps reduce the likelihood of expensive reshoots.

“You want a wide variety of footage. Think things like shooting vertical versus horizontal, different talent depending on your audience reading different scripts and possibly different locations,” Meketa said. “The goal is to have multiple intelligent ways to remix or repurpose the footage for all of your different priority platforms, placements and creative approaches.”

After one production shoot for CookUnity, QuickFrame was able to create 86 different videos throughout the campaign. The videos featured different on-screen talent, video styles, value propositions, shot orders and even meals.

How CookUnity leveraged multivariate testing to optimize UGC videos

Following the initial campaign launch, CookUnity and QuickFrame implemented …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron