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 the fintech company Self.

Thorough pre-production planning minimizes costly reshoots

Facing a quick turnaround time to produce OTT assets and strict guidelines on location, Self partnered with QuickFrame by MNTN to help streamline the process around their messaging to fintech buyers.

With only three weeks to produce multiple commercials, QuickFrame enlisted a production company local to Austin, Texas, so Self could be on set for the production. Since this was Self’s first time utilizing OTT advertising, the company wanted to use this shoot to fuel a testing strategy. Keeping this in mind, the production company was tasked with creating eight commercials based on two creative concepts developed by QuickFrame.

“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 brands must 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.”

In addition to the different concepts, the videos for Self featured diverse talent, value propositions, shot order and even video styles. Following the production for Self, four hero videos were edited …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron