Humans are evolutionarily hardwired to react to stories. I wouldn’t start with what makes a good brand video. I would start with what makes a good story.

Welcome to the Shootsta podcast. I’m Steve, general manager of Shootsta Premier, and I have my host, cohost, Maddy Clark.

Hi. Head of sales and partnerships.

Why don’t we start with an intro, Maddy? Just a little bit about yourself, where you come from, and what you do at your store.

Where I come from?

Yeah. Huge.

Oh, good. My name’s Maddy. I come from a, what would you say, CRM marketing automation background. I began my career in recruitment. I’m from the country, and now I head up our sales and partnerships function here at Shootsta.

Where in the country are you from?

I originally Goondiwindi.

You’ve probably never heard of it. Goondiwindi?

Where is it located in New South Wales? New South Wales?

New South Wales. Good guess. In the Bight, New South Wales and Queensland, there’s a little gap that goes up the top.

Just in the bottom.

Just in that little gap.

Sounds amazing. You should go.

I’ll, put her on the list.

We also have our guest, Andras, who is our creative director of Shootsta Premier.

Hello.

Nice to be here, guys. Thank you so much.

Why don’t you, give us a little bit of a brief overview of your careers and talents?

So careers and talents, the whole life story, end to end. Whole life story. Try try to squeeze it in a in a brief minute. So I always like, I I started shooting videos and films and was always interested in visuals and the creative aspect.

From around age fifteen, sixteen, got my first camera. So I started reading biographies of different, entrepreneurs.

And, and they just fascinated me how businesses can make an impact on, on society and just basically people’s lives. But then my main question was how can I participate with whatever interests me, in and and be part of this exciting world?

So for me, visuals and and video was the medium that I decided I want to per pursue. So the I started my video agents, video production agents even when I moved to Sydney. And, of course, it was an absolutely boost boost rep process. I bought a secondhand camera.

I learned everything from YouTube. It was almost ten years ago. And, and I started getting clients. And my main principle was just how like, I only want to do things that I genuinely love, enjoy, and passionate about.

Because I just feel like we we just spend so much time at work, why don’t we just enjoy it? And on the other hand, I really believe that if you love something and genuinely enjoy something, then you can just go as deep in the learning process and be as thorough and experiment as much as possible because that just unlocks that, that creative potential, what you have in you, while you actually don’t necessarily like something or you just do it because you have to do it. It feels like a burden and you’re just going to do the the bare minimum or something to get you by. So, anyways, short story long, I picked up a camera, started my agency, and, and then, it just progressed for a couple of years and I started working at a bigger, more creative, production company, very with bigger brands, did bigger projects.

And six months ago, I got approached by a good friend, Steve here, who also worked at the the company where I worked previously, but now he works, at Schutztown.

At that time he worked at Shootsta. So I joined the company, and our mission was to build out Shootsta’s creative division and unlock this fascinating world that we can provide to our clients with very high quality production and creatives to help them build their brands and companies.

Yeah. Well, it’s a perfect segue into the topic of today’s conversation, which is brand videos, specifically our brand video.

And Maddy’s experience will will come in helpful here in asking a few questions too. But we’re looking at what makes a good brand video. How do you get creative with brand videos in such a way that there’s proven ROI? Is there a formula to brand videos?

And so let’s start with a very broad question. It’s very broad, and there’s a lot to talk about here. But what what makes a good brand video from the start? Like, how can you define what is good brand video as objectively as possible and what is a bad brand video?

Yeah. That’s a very good question. So I would start, from the point I love to start from first principles and reason up from there. So I wouldn’t start with what makes a good brand video. I would start with what makes a good story or what makes a good video because the principles are the exact same, even though we speak about, feature film Hollywood production, speak about an overview video, an educational piece, or we speak about a company’s brand video that we’ll use on the market to increase their footprint and brand awareness.

So the first the first concept or the first lens that you should approach this with is that a brand video is a story.

Is a story. So, basically, and there will be a big distinction between different types of videos. But what I would say is that, yes. So humans are evolutionary hardwired to react to stories.

It’s in our brain. That’s how we function neurologically, and then there there is a very important evolutionary purpose for that. The reason is at, thirty thousand years ago, we started drawing on the wall of caves. So we had these visuals to tell different stories.

We people at that time mainly draw animals and other people and hunting and different locations, all these different things. But basically, that was a very the most basic, and the most, like the first initial form of sharing information with each other.

And that’s why I know we started that from the perspective of a brand video, but let’s rewind a bit and let’s see where this whole thing begin began from, from an evolutionary perspective because that those same principles still apply.

So, yes, thirty thousand years ago, paintings.

That was the most basic form. And then, they started sharing stories, with each other, memorizing and telling at the at the at the fire.

And, and stories were important for survival because that’s how we pass our knowledge to each other. And, basically, if you rewind if you if you rewind? If if you wind it back to where we are right now, in the evolutionary timeline, we’re still sharing stories. So when it comes to a brand video or any video, basically, what we want is we want a company like, everyone is fighting for attention. Every company, it’s absolutely saturated, especially in nowadays with social media and, and all the like, insane amount of content popping up. And there is a lot of lot of context shift we have to go through even if you just scroll on social media for a couple of seconds.

So the main question like, the main challenge, how can a company create a piece that stands out, grabs attention, and drives action? Because that’s essentially what we want. We want to stand out, catch people’s attention, and want them to be engaged enough that they want to learn more. And that drives action either can be clicking on our website, reading more, watching an overview video, or just even just be like, having a slight amount of bare and awareness on top of mind.

And then the same principles apply that, that applied thirty thousand years ago. We have to tell stories because that’s how we are wired. And then here, a good brand video, I believe, kinda have a lot of different variables it, has to hit. But most importantly, it tells the story that resonates with the brand and drives the desired action.

That’s interesting. So how we know that ninety one percent I think it’s ninety one percent of all video marketers are using video as part of their marketing efforts. It’s in this day and age, if you don’t use video, you’re probably missing out on a key part of your marketing activity. Right?

Video, yes. And, again, we can again distill this down to basic principles. And then the main principle of that would be is why video?

Video engages most of our senses, if you think Joabout it. Like, apart from being in an in person conversation, what can get as close as possible to an in person experience?

With video, you have you have audio, you have your visual, component of it, and and it it’s moving. Obviously, there’s a saying that a picture worth a thousand words because it’s visual and it tells the story. So in a video, every single second depends on the frame rate, but in general, every single second is twenty four images. And it’s moving, and you have audio. So it’s as close as as it can get through a screen, to engaging most of your senses and and telling you the story.

See, I look at it from a, I guess, a sales perspective and putting that hat on. When you’re creating these videos and, like you said before, what’s good versus bad, how are you looking at it from the perspective of driving those conversions? Like, what does move the needle in those brand pieces versus what’s gonna completely miss the mark?

Yep. Yeah. Good point.

I think what people and and now I’m speaking from general experience.

But I think people in general don’t like to be pitched to in in in a more serious way because nobody cares about you only you are the one who care about your own business.

People care about are you going to like, how you’re going to provide value, which could be educating them, which could be selling them a great service or product, or which could be, understanding them.

And but nobody wants to just pitch to, and being sold to. So I think you can leverage all these. And that’s and that’s why I’m saying there is yes. There is there are different content types, but the main principles are the same. You want to like, if a new blockbuster movie movie comes out, your favorite actor and some exciting story and and they built it up, with marketing and, like, you had the campaign and and you’re waiting and anticipating maybe Barbie or Woah.

I I love Barbie too. Like So you were team Barbie, not team Oppenheimer?

I’m team Oppenheimer. But, so maybe it’s Barbie or Oppenheimer or Oppenheimer or Barbie. Who knows?

I haven’t seen either, believe it or not. Haven’t seen either? No. I I really need to get on it. Canceled. Yep.

Damn. Damn. A lot to catch up on. But, but, no. That’s okay. But it’s it’s just an example.

So the point is that you are excited to watch it. You want to watch it, and you voluntarily pay money to go to the movies, and spend significant amount of time in a dark room staring at the screen.

Can you put it like that?

It sounds so grim.

But but that that why if you make a a video, either if it’s if if it’s for and and don’t forget, all movies, even though they are significant part of popular culture and I our zeitgeist nowadays, they are they serve a commercial purpose. So they don’t make movies unless it’s some very, like, I don’t know, in the artistic, side. Hollywood, what is the mainstream is, is has a very strong commercial purpose behind it. So there is a proper, commercial machine, that produces these movies.

And then sometimes there’s a problem because we lose those that independent artistic flare because we just have to please the crowd. But what I want to say with it without going too much sideways is, is, we can use the same principles of why we why we shouldn’t produce commercials that serve a commercial purpose, but people actually want to see them. And I think that’s a good brand video. But I can tell you why.

Because, because it’s hard.

And this this jumps into the topic of conversation on creative as well. So Maddy’s talking about what kind of videos move the needle, and it ties into the creative direction. So when we pitch for brand videos with clients and our creative choices, why are we making certain creative choices? Are we being creative for the sake of being creative, or do we have a decision making process behind every choice?

That’s so I think that’s a very good question.

If you think about the movie industry, I’m just using that because that is in filmmaking circles. That’s kind of the gold standard, because they have the budget, they have the the best talent they you can get, the best, infrastructure and technology, the latest technologies. Some of the technologies being developed by the movie industry.

So if you if you think about that, most of Hollywood movies are driven by a commercial purpose.

And that’s why they they use different, like, specific talent. That’s why they hire the newest hip, studios or or directors because the movie have to sell.

The the, so there is commercial purpose behind that, and this it applies just as much to brand videos as well. So, yes, hundred percent, we’re not just making a brand video to be artistic and create something beautiful and nobody is is not really going to get the desired outcomes and and get the return on the investment because it is It can be a a significant investment.

But I think the the main question is that if we have the spectrum and one side is being absolutely artistic and expressing ourselves and all these different things and the other is purely factual, quantifiable, and commercial, where do we where do we sit on this slider? And and also, I truly believe that art can serve commercial purposes easily. And it also shows in in history. So a lot of times, in, hundreds of years ago as well, art served some kinda it sounds bad, but it it was supporting some kind of propaganda or service, and same with moving pictures as well. Like, if you just think about the it’s it’s called the Netflix effect. I don’t know if you heard heard about that.

What is the Netflix effect?

So an example.

When, when, Queen’s Gambit came out, great miniseries I haven’t seen that one either.

So good. Amazing. But, when Queen’s Gambit came out, chess boards sold out on, on Amazon.

Wanted to get into it.

And You wanna start playing chess because of that.

Yeah. Everybody started playing chess. And if you think about it, in that series, you didn’t learn anything about chess. It was a drama series. And, it was the whole drama and personalities and and, the strategy and the mind games and all this stuff, but you didn’t learn chess moves. You it was a drama. So what I’m trying to say is that a well produced piece of content, either it’s a movie, a miniseries, or brand video, can have a massive impact on perception and human behavior.

So you release this miniseries about chess, and chess wars sell out. And the search term how to play chess, I think it was the highest on on the Google Trends in the last, like, forty or fifty years or something. So and everybody was trying to play chess. And but the movie the the series was about chess, but it wasn’t about chess. So it wasn’t about the actual how to play chess. It was just a traumatized series about a chess player.

But still, change the perception, made it more approachable and human, for people, more relatable, and people started playing chess. So that’s that’s an ethics effect. And that just proves me it’s a very relevant example. It it there are millions of examples throughout history, how they use, let’s say, video, to change the public perception, like political from political campaigns to whatever you want to mention. There are many of them. But this is a very relevant commercial example what a lot of people can relate to.

This is, Top Gun. Top Gun was exactly the same. The first Top Gun movie drove air force recruitment through the roof in the eighties.

Yeah.

And the second one was produced kind of with that intention to the same degree. Yeah. Everyone wanted to be a fighter pilot because it was the coolest thing.

Employer branding sorted.

Basically. Yeah. So then question for you. What do you see when you’re because you’re speaking to probably more marketing directors than anybody else in the company. But what do you see as common statements or common points of discussion that leads you to think that a client probably needs a brand video or a fresher brand or something like that?

It’s I think it’s probably two things. One being they’re getting a lot of pressure from their sales team.

Yeah.

They’re saying, I’m out there. I’m knocking down all of these doors, and no one knows who we are. So how can we get our name out there? How can we get what we’re trying to do out there in a really clear and concise way? And often, it’s, I think, the sales team probably demanding that from the marketing teams, and having a bit of a friction or a point of friction, yeah, within that.

The other thing I think I’d say is they’re always asking us just do more with less. How can we do this big exciting piece that really, really sings to what we do as a company, for this tiny budget over here that doesn’t quite justify it. So I guess a a question back to you. What do you do in that scenario? Because what we’re hearing in market at the moment is, you know, the needs for these brands, this fighting for attention is just going through the roof, and the demand and the friction from the sales team is is pushing, down that door as well. How do you create that narrative? How do you build that momentum, while not blowing the bank at the same time?

Yeah. Good question. And then I and I also hundred percent agree with what you said. Marketing, should be there to provide ammunition for sales, hundred percent.

She once said it running. Yeah.

And and imagine I don’t know. Like, it’s just an analogy that comes to my mind. You try to light a fire. You can try to light little sticks. You have a little match. Like, try that’s basically trying to sell.

But what if you have some oil and start start spilling it and then lighting a fire and it starts spreading?

That that’s marketing. And that actually actually gives you the ammunition and changes people’s perception and and positions what you are selling as something something cool. It’s something something people want and approachable. And and and it’s surprising for me.

It’s absolutely fascinating how much, well produced content can shift people’s perception, regard it could be a subject, could be a a product, or could be a person. Doesn’t matter. Like, it it it makes a massive different difference. And back to the question, how can we have a bigger biggest the biggest possible impact on a smaller budget?

Doable. Absolutely doable.

And but that’s where you have to be creative and, and find an angle, find find an approach that sticks out and and speaks to the right audience and resonates. And, I think that kinda brings us to the topic of relatability.

Like, whatever we produce has to be relatable and has to resonate with the right audience. And also, I think, of course, the smaller your budget, the narrower your your aim has to be. So, basically, the more you have to target and decide actually who is who is my ideal customer, persona?

Who I who is the person I’m speaking to? And, have to dial down a little bit and create content specifically for that with a very, very crystal clear aim because you don’t have the resources to to just shoot in the dark.

So, but yeah. And then and then how to make it work with a smaller budget?

Have to be creative. Have to be crystal clear on who we’re targeting and and approach it in from a very creative way and how and decide how we can distinguish ourselves. And I think producing something lower quality I’m not saying on a low budget it has to be lower quality. But what I’m saying is that whatever you put out, every single touch point of your company with the customer, either if it’s your website, your pitch deck, your brand video, your overview video, your sales reps, whoever it is, that’s the representation of your organization.

And that every single touch point shapes the buying decision. And there there is this saying, I don’t know how accurate it is, but they say that there is, like, an average of seven customer touchpoints before they make the buying decision. And, and that’s what I’m saying. Like and there is an insane cutthroat competition out there for attention and for resources and for and for, and and for purchases.

So with every single touch point, we have to be very, very, very intentional.

And, and, yes. So we can put out lower quality content, but we also have to consider that that will be a representation of what we are doing, what we are standing for. And, also, the the organizations are are made by people. So I like like to think of it, think about it in a way that whatever I’m putting out is not doesn’t just represent my organization, it represents who I am. So I rather just put something out I can be proud of.

So, yeah, I have to be resourceful, target well.

And if it’s and if it’s not the highest quality, it has to be on purpose. It can’t come across as, hey. I tried to do something very great. I didn’t have the budget, so it looks quite crap, but, here you go.

Because that’s gonna be that’s gonna be obvious. People are not stupid nowadays. They they they see a lot of content. So so their sensitivity is is is pretty fine fine tuned.

So if you put us something lower budget, it it has to be it has to look like, oh, they put it out in this quality because that was the intention. That was the the effect or the the style they were going for.

I like what you’re saying around the seven touchpoint thing, and I think as a selfish salesperson wanting the most ROI out of everything possible, it’s, from what I’ve seen, even you guys do, it’s looking at that brand video as those seven touch points. How can we extrapolate multiple assets from that one piece and make sure that, you know, marketing director x knows that, yes, I’m spending hopefully a bit more budget on this one piece, but what I’m gonna get off the back of that is actually those additional six touch points that I needed from that one video. So now you’ve potentially spread it across, you know, six at the price of one.

Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about that too. So doing more with less, on that point and having the narrow focus that you talk about, the touch points that you talk about. We should probably talk about the client briefing process, how we make sure we can get the most out of the brand video, and I suppose that leans into the conversation of our own brand video that we produced as well. So client briefing, first and foremost.

What are the most important things that we need to get from a client to deliver on all of the things that we’re talking about? Doing more from less, creative choices that deliver ROI, maximum touch points where we can derive maybe short form content from.

What do we need to know?

So it’s I would say it’s pretty much going to the doctor.

It it it is, like, to some level. They come to you and say, hey. We have some problem. We we need a bigger impact.

Great.

To set up a diagnosis.

And and also, be what I would say is even before we start briefing, let’s identify what kind of content you need and what part of your marketing funnel is leaking and where where you need support.

So maybe and that’s again, let’s go to the root cause. Let’s see see the problem and let’s see what would make the biggest impact for you. And then we identify okay. Let’s say we land on a brand video just for the sake of simplicity.

So we landed on a brand video, and then we need as much information as possible. So we need to know, we need to know your marketing strategy in and out because a video is a very powerful asset, but it doesn’t operate, by itself. It operates in an, ecosystem of your marketing strategy. Whatever platforms you’re using, whatever other collaterals you’re using, whatever is your long term marketing strategy, whatever is your your brand story, it has to fit perfectly in it. And what I often see, which is again, it’s a little bit, straying away direct narrowly just from the content itself or video content. But sometimes if the other pieces are not at place properly, then it’s a little bit throwing money out the window.

So we have to have to observe this entire ecosystem, what we’re working with when it comes to a company, the entire process, all the touch points. And then we very, very clearly have to understand what is the goal with this video, what is the long term goal of the the entire marketing strategy, and how we can support it with the biggest possible impact. So they actually get the biggest possible return from the budget they provide us. And that is when, we have this slider of the the pure numbers and economics, and we have the other end, which is the the creative piece.

And that is what we have to dial in, like, how the creative piece will have the biggest economic impact if you fit it into this, ecosystem. And to find it out with the briefing process, that’s how this whole process starts, this whole discovery process, setting up this this diagnostics is, is getting as much input on all of these different variables as possible and then using all the data and information to to derive and create a creative from it. And and that is the challenge.

And, that’s well, let’s use that to talk about our brand video now.

So because it’s a perfect segue. Our brand video, what was the brief? The brief was we had to convey all of our capabilities in ninety seconds.

Yes. Yes.

Ninety seconds? We wanted it to be able to be watched without audio and still have the message understood. What are the what were the other metrics that we had in there?

So I think, with our brand video Yeah.

The biggest challenge was, as yeah. As you said, we had a lot of different variables. Like, we we start we start in this new amazing creative division. Shootsa Premier, we are we are offering very high quality bespoke content, for big, com and big and small and all different size of of, corporate clients.

Great.

But we have to show them and tell them what we are doing and what’s the value we’re offering. So that was number one. Our brand video have, has to clearly communicate what value we can provide and what Shuster Premier is. That’s that’s I think that’s that’s pretty straightforward. But then what else we need? We need, collateral.

So okay. We just starting with a lot of collateral. So how can we show with one video all the different types of production we can provide for our clients? But within one ninety second video.

And, of course, as we said it previously, we don’t we don’t want to tell. We want to show. So instead of pitching people, oh, we do this. We do that.

We have a great service. Buy it from us today.

Instead instead of that, we want to tell a story. So people actually listen. Oh, it’s interesting. It’s a cool story.

It’s relatable. Exactly.

So tell it in ninety sec ninety seconds and show showcase all our different production capabilities. That’s a very practical aspect. Like, if you’re speaking about production capabilities, what I mean by that is we have a beautiful studio. Let’s just show what we can show about we can shoot and produce in a nice cyclorama environment. We can do a lot of high end VFX. Let’s use some VFX in the video. We also can shoot on location.

Well, let’s let’s go to some amazing looking locations and shoot there as well. We can shoot overview videos. Let’s shoot in a more corporate environment. Like, it’s a very diverse, mix of different, locations and production techniques.

How we can squeeze it into ninety, ninety seconds and make it a well flowing concise story. So that was that was the main creative challenge.

And first, to do all of this, we also had to build our studio. So we build a studio. The paint literally just dried on the pristine white cyclorama, and the next day, we started shooting.

Yeah. There was no gap, was there? It was the paint was drying overnight, and then we started production.

Steve was was rolling rolling the white paint, and as soon as as it wasn’t sticky, we started shooting.

Yeah. That was fun.

Okay. So brand video. Our brand video, what was, one shot or one section that was the most technically demanding?

Okay.

Yeah. Hundred percent. There were a couple so another principle when it comes to good brand videos and what I wanted to keep, in mind before we started production is that and that’s also an a basic principle in filmmaking as well. You don’t want to tell, in-depth what you’re doing. You want to show it, and you want to show it in a simple way.

So instead of trying to a lot of companies mistake they make when they when they make brand videos is they’re trying to tell all their offerings and ins and outs and and and just squeeze a lot of lot of information into a brand video. But the brand video is not about that. The brand video is about getting attention.

And that that’s all. Just get some attention and make people interested. That’s all. You don’t have to tell them the whole story.

So same same way same in this case as well, our goal wasn’t to tell ins and outs of what’s the offering. This would be more like a product overview or or or something along those lines. Explainer, with our brand video, the goal is to make them interested. So I wanted to keep the scenes simple and the story relatively simple, but the quality and the and the level of creativity high.

So I really love a concept when there is a simple concept, simple, elegant, exciting concept, and then you unpack it, unpack it in a very creative and high quality way. I think that’s a powerful combination as opposed to you have so much complexity and so much things to share and trying to squeeze it all together, but it all it it just not going to flow well because the message has to be clear.

So the most challenging part for the brand video overall is to do all of that in ninety seconds.

But if I want to highlight, let’s say, a specific scene, or a production technique is that just as a recap for people, or the audience who get on screen.

Yeah?

Can we can get it on screen. So the story starts with our protagonist who’s a marketing executive, which is our ideal customer persona for Shusa Premier. And she is in a big trouble, have a tie deadline, has to deliver a company brand video.

She falls asleep and this gives us the perfect opportunity to transport her into the shoestabers, where she wakes up. And back to the this was probably one of the most tricky scene to transport her from the real world into this imaginary, universe. Shoo the shoestabers. Right?

That was one cut, wasn’t it?

That was one cut. One continuous cut.

We have some awesome behind the scenes pictures that we can show.

But then the whole story is that she’s going through this, imaginary, universe where anything production related is possible. And all her fears and all her headaches regarding production and content just goes away. And she can use under her fingertips there is this magical platform, which is the Shusa platform, where every production can be unlocked.

And, and then she can easily, smoothly, and successfully create content and celebrate with her colleagues, once it’s delivered.

And, yeah. So this this was a story. It’s a simple story. She’s a marketing executive, have a lot of stress, like, very stressed, has to deliver content, falls asleep, wakes up in this magical universe, and then we are back in reality and she discovers the shoestabers.

But it gave us the opportunity just because of the structure of the story to guide her through all these different environments and production techniques, which is, on location, VFX, in studio, and all these different things with the prop heavy, cleaner shots, all these different things squeezed into one story, in a quite engaging way.

So Tell us about the single cut where she falls asleep in in in a bit of detail, the production side of things.

So when she falls asleep, here so basically, what happened is that we, dollied in on her, took out like, she is sitting at a desk. The legs of the desks, we we took out the legs of the desk, replaced it with a tripod, and set up an entire Dolly system, that pushes slowly, towards her as she as she’s falling asleep.

When she fall asleep and her face fill the entire frame, we put a green screen behind her. And as she started waking up, we slowly started from a controller changing the lights as well to match the, the lights motivated by the universe.

So she woke up, life changing, green screen goes in, and then, of course, the rest was imposed keying out everything, which was actually quite tricky because the light as the lighting changed, the color of the green screen changed. So our amazing VFX artist, Andrei, spent a couple days just cleaning it out and then replacing it with the universe.

So Can we watch can we watch that sequence, Kaity?

Just, back from when she falls asleep.

So she’s putting her head down here. The background is real. The lighting changes, and she’s waking up. She’s waking up.

So the green screen is there now?

The green screen is there. It’s all keyed out. She’s reacting the lighting already changed to match the background, and boom. Then we reveal where she is. She is in the Shusterverse with all these production related floating objects.

Are there any Easter eggs in this shot? I see one.

There there we have we have we have we have our logo. But if we want to speak about Easter eggs, then actually, let’s go back to the opening scene, which is yes. So here, the pinboard and the the binders, the folders on on the shelf. So, basically, our proposition with Choose a Premier is that, you know, you have that triangle we often speak about. Yes. So what’s the what’s the triangle?

The the I believe it’s called the triple constraint problem.

So you have pick two?

Yes. Yes. So you have to pick two. So you have quality, time frames or speed of delivery, and cost.

And typically speaking, you can only pick two. Right? You can have something that is produced very creatively and delivered very quickly, but it’s gonna cost a lot of money to do so. And that’s a whole sales pitch, but I believe we’ve solved all three because of the existing infrastructure of Schuster.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. So so our it’s it’s a very noble pursuit. We we constantly striving to get there. And, and I think we constantly getting closer to hit high quality in time and in a reasonable budget.

And that’s how we are optimizing both the physical and the digital aspects of our infrastructure.

So they work very closely together. And in this one, we have on the pin board, we have that, in budget and time and high quality like those different aspects. And then of course on the pin board, we also have every single alternative you can think of when it comes to video production. So if if you could jump to the scene with the with the pin board, and, yes, like here. So if you obviously, this only shows for, like, a second in the video itself. But if you pause it, you can see what options you have for video production. You can hire hire someone.

You can you can use an agency. You can use a freelancer.

What else we have here? So you can you can use stock stock images, all these different alternatives, but they all have their their drawbacks.

So how how you resolve it? And then, of course, we’re trying to address all of these with the offering we have with bespoke content in a reasonable budget, high turn like, high speed turnaround, and as creative as it gets.

And that is, of course, infrastructure, but also talent we are we are hiring and constantly leveling up.

So coming back full circle, this is the perfect example of a creative choice that is not just creative for the sake of it, it’s painting a picture. Right?

It’s Exactly.

A strategic choice.

Exactly. And and and maybe just subliminal because most likely nobody is going to, notice this in in a fraction of a second or like a second as long as this shows, but they’re just subliminal.

But also, I think it’s just more like although gears are thinking as well to shape the entire story to to to have these messages as clear as possible, to communicate these messages as clear as possible.

I think like what you said before, something that really stands out in speaking to marketing teams and what we’re hearing from them, it’s just that operating lean, you know, management asking them to do more with less at the end of the day. So I think the the choice of her being alone during all of this, having all of these competing priorities, it really does seem true to what people are experiencing at the moment. And, you know, a nice little planting the seed for potential future videos just even on that, you know, board. It’s do I hire? So it’s, you know, the brand component that could sit around, you know, internal versus, you know, something like Shootsta where it’s an ecosystem. I feel like you could almost sub, categorize different brand videos off the back of this.

And I think that’s one of the value propositions of both sides of our business, though. Right? Like, we we say it all the time. We do all the heavy lifting for you, but time after time, every marketing exec that I speak to is understaffed, under resourced, under budget, and they it’s this this woman on her own, basically. Right? One man operation.

And and you see so many times. Operations.

Yes. Yes. One woman exactly.

One man, one woman operation. You see them all the time.

I can’t, say names, but we just finished shooting literally yesterday a whole series.

And the marketing manager was this one man operation for the entire startup. And I see this all the time, like, so many like, I would say I don’t I can’t say exact, percentages, but probably half of the time that is the same story.

Oh, oh my god. I’m so busy. Like, I I’m running all these things. I’m running the expos. I’m running our marketing. I have the the new product launch event coming up. I have this, I have that, I have that.

And we have to do this And, and that often, like, the clients are just absolutely swamped. And what we’re doing here is, hey.

Don’t worry. Tell us everything we need to know.

We we we are the doctors here. Tell us everything we need to know.

And we will use all our resources, use all our experience, the infrastructure we have, work closely with you as closely as you want. If you want to be involved, great. We have clients many times who come on set, and co direct with me, which is which is great. We it happened in the last two days as well.

We were shooting. The client was next to me. It’s funny because when we build the the brand new studio, we build this super cozy client area with with sofas and snacks and fridge and and a giant screen where they can just sit and chill and and drink margaritas and watch the screen. We even wanted to put in a a small, a popcorn machine for them as well.

But what happens is the client, nobody is using it. The talent using it, they sit there and chill. But the client is right next to me, looking at the screen, looking at what we’re shooting, and we’re discussing every little detail. And I really believe this synergy really helps us to get the the the outcome and deliverables that they really need because we can provide all production related aspects, and marketing executives shouldn’t be worried about production.

For them, it should be, oh, those guys doing it. They know their stuff. They should trust us with it. But what I need for them from them, what we need from them is the input because they know all the ins and outs of the company story, the brand, their strategy, the goals, what they want.

Like, I need all those inputs. And if it takes them to sit next to me and spend a day together, that’s reassuring for me, reassuring for them. If they don’t want to, totally fine. We’re happy to take, care of it.

That’s what we do. There is another option as well. We we can even share the feed, what the camera sees and share it with them online and they can just tune in sometimes, sign off on costumes, sign off on on sets.

We’ve done that before. We’ve had people co direct from the other side of the planet with you. Right?

Had it, had, like, how full? I had, like, thirty people on set directing, client tuning in, co directing together, very busy days, but they were it was, one of it’s a fortune five thousand company, can’t say names, but, at the end of the day, they were absolutely happy with the video. It sits right on the top of their website, and it drives them a lot of sales and and understanding of what they’re actually doing is complex. The it’s actually site they they operate inside that specific company operates in cybersecurity.

So, it it it helps them a lot to get engagement and and and and close deals.

That’s I yeah. Exactly.

I can imagine the the follow through, like, these brand videos, it’s all about creative. It’s all about the execution on the day, but then that post piece and actually getting it delivered, that’s what marketing directors have a lot of pain with around as well. It’s how do I actually get it back now that we’ve just done all of this work? Like, when am I gonna see it? And I think by having them there and getting that input directly, you’re just gonna speed up that process of which they could have a finalized asset back and cut down the number number of amendment rounds as well.

Yeah. I think our amendment rounds are probably some of the lowest out there just because of our briefing process and the fact that they’re involved, but we’re doing the heavy lifting as we said. So there’s no surprises at the end. Right?

That’s exactly Short term pain, long term gain.

Exact exactly. The the the the closer they can stay to the process, they don’t have that that’s the thing. They can observe the process as close as they want. They don’t have to be heavily involved in it if they don’t want to.

But the closer they can get, there are no surprises at the end. And the last thing we want is going through multiple days of shootings, having a big crew, big cast, having all using all the budget we have just to find out that by the way, we didn’t like that. We didn’t like that. We could really shoot that, could really shoot this.

That’s that’s just a headache for the client because it’s wasted time, wasted resources.

It’s also, of course, a headache for the production company.

So that’s why if you can streamline this process and get the client to to participate to the needed level and may and I what I would say, I think the more the most important thing, and that’s a feedback we get a lot, is just make it enjoyable for them. Because at the end of the day, especially for someone in marketing, it’s an this is an exciting thing.

They’re not look gonna look at spreadsheets all day. They’re not like it’s it’s they’re going to create a exciting story, and filmmaking is exciting for people. Hollywood is exciting for people and and any kind of filmmaking and behind the scenes and the equipment.

And this is something this is a totally different universe.

So people like that. So why instead of make the instead of this being a burden for them because it it’s also very complex, lot of moving parts.

Stressful.

It’s stressful. It’s it’s scary for people. But what if we take away the scary part and leave them the exciting bit? So they don’t have to worry about the scary part because we take care of it, but the exciting bit is there and they can just enjoy it. And that’s why I’ll I I’ll I want to show it to clients that, hey. Hey. Don’t worry.

This is this is awesome. This is exciting. So you should be excited about it. And then when we’re on set, I want them to see it.

I’m excited about it. I want them to be excited about it. Like, let’s share it. Let’s let’s share that excitement.

And at the end of the day, when they say, like, oh my god. This was amazing. And I I was so good to be on set.

I was like, yeah.

See? It’s good. That’s another one.

I like it. Speaking of sharing, it’d be good to look at maybe a couple of other other executions of some different bits and pieces.

What a segue. Let’s go straight in. Andras, I wanna get, your reaction, Maddy, to yours too, on a couple of audible, ad campaigns that are on TikTok at the moment. They’re fairly recent. I haven’t seen it, so let’s just react. Let’s just see what you think.

Yep. Haven’t seen it.

As well from a sales perspective. Like, is this driving the the ROI?

Here we go. Another beautiful day of solitary life in my favorite hangout. That one, please. At least I have coffee.

What have I done real smooth in one room single?

She’s gorgeous. Of course, I had to go and do that. Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Let let me keep going back here.

She’s actually coming over. I need to set the mood.

Oh my god. I am so, so sorry. I cannot hear you. I’ve done that.

Now she’s asking me questions. What’s your name? Is this a dream? Tell me about yourself. What shall I say?

What are you listening to?

There you go.

Oh, this isn’t going so well. I’ve got an idea.

Perfect.

It’s worked. She wants to give me her number.

What’s this she’s listening to? Audible. There’s more to imagine when you listen.

I had a tip that the perp was going to be here.

No. Not him.

That’s him, lover boy. I need to get closer.

I need his phone for evidence. Time to make my move. A quick bump, a spilled coffee, and an apology. I am so sorry. Let me give you an answer. Nailed it.

That’s It’s going well, but he seems nervous.

So tell me about yourself. I already know the answers, of course. What’s your name? What are you listening to?

But I need to distract him so I can get his phone.

He stumbles over his words. Suspicious.

He’s looking away. This is the moment. Bingo. I’ve gotta run, but I’ll take your number. Okay. Time to get out of here. Hopefully, this gives me everything I’m looking for.

Only time will tell.

Audible. There’s more to imagine when you listen.

What did you think about creative?

This is creative. Based on our previous conversation, I think this hit pretty much all the notes that we that we described.

This was creative on so many different levels, and it was relatable.

We’ve probably all been in this situation.

And to make it even more relatable, like, you can see the entire first, actually, you can see the from framing that it was, this it it it was made for social media.

But the way they shot it, it wasn’t overly polished. But it was polished, but it didn’t seem overly polished first.

What it, achieves that it doesn’t stick out from your feed. So when you scroll on TikTok or wherever, it seemed like another TikTok video shot on a phone.

But then as the story develops, you realize it is actually high quality production with a lot of creative elements and flair in it. And then when we saw that other angle, watching it, I think, from her point of view, which was, like, shaky, her point of view made even more relatable. It seems like you are that person, in that situation. So you you can hundred percent relate, and then it tells a story.

So it wasn’t it it wasn’t pitching you. You didn’t know where they’re going. It wasn’t like, hey. It’s audible.

You can listen to this and that and buy it now, and it’s on your phone. No. It was a story. So you immediately got hooked, engaged.

Of course, they’re doing they know what they’re doing. They have the budget. It’s a big company, and they have the right, they hire the right talent, and creatives to to execute on this. But I think I think it was very well executed.

I think it’s got a couple of cool classic filmmaking techniques like match cuts and a couple of the cool VFX that make it, interesting enough for people to almost share as well. Like, it’s just another cool video on TikTok. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Ex exactly. Exactly. It’s, that and that’s at the beginning, you look at it, it’s like you don’t immediately realize it’s a commercial necessarily because the way they shot it, it could be a phone video or or another piece of TikTok little story what they put up.

So, you you keep looking at it and and watching it. And then then you realize by the end when the story unfolds that, oh, okay. It’s audible.

The other perspective from her point of view?

Yes. Ties ties together the stories. Yeah. The once upon a time, they’re basically telling the story, what they’re listening to, and they’re imagining it, and you see the different perspectives.

So they’re telling a viewer story, but the whole thing is on Audible, which is But there’s the other point too, highlighting what the range that Audible has.

The sound design in this and the film style just having it in black and white gives you that thriller detective vibe of what she’s talking about. The other one was a bit romance y, like he’s trying to you you know, he’s a it’s a love story.

And and on that note, it, it was also voice over narrated. So voice over narrative so you technically, what they’re saying is you could listen to this story.

Just like audible.

Just like Audible. But they gave you the they they gave you what you can also imagine, and that’s why the this I think the slogan was something along the line.

Very cool.

More to what you can listen to.

So both videos with that concept as a campaign out of ten, what do you rate it?

I think pretty pretty strong concepts. Out of ten, seven and a half, eight.

Seven and a half, eight.

I think our subjective opinion is one thing, which is great. But I think with these campaigns, you can also look at the numbers. And the numb and the numbers speak for themselves. So you can look at the numbers and did it hit the mark? Did they get the return on what they wanted or what awareness they wanted, click through they wanted? If you run social campaigns, you have hundreds of different metrics you can look at to decide if this was successful or not. So I’m gonna tell.

I’m gonna get on the train. Yeah. What at all? Newest customer.

Newest sponsor as well.

Yeah. Seems like it works out for you, Manny. Yep.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, we’re out of time. So thank you for coming in. Thank you for having a chat, and, hopefully, we can get you on here again and discuss more about the movie magic of Video production.

And more videos that you create.

Exactly. Keep you sane. Thank you so much for having me, guys. It was it was exciting and refreshing.

Thank you.

See you next time. See you.