Take video inspiration from Gary Vee, says Shootsta Asia boss
Businesses should follow the example of marketing motormouth Gary Vaynerchuk and focus on producing more videos that aren’t perfectly “polished”, Shootsta’s Asia boss has claimed.
Gary Vee’s videos are ‘all a bit crap and shot on a phone, but get hundreds of thousands of views.’
Antoine Bouchacourt said the social media maverick’s videos reach hundreds of thousands of views despite the quality often being “a bit crap”.
Bouchacourt, whose company teaches Asia-based marketers to shoot and produce their own videos, argued brands should spend “less time thinking and planning” content production and more time creating it themselves.
“Anyone today can shoot video; you can just take your phone and do it very well,” he said.
“Brands are still in the mentality that videos need to have high-production values. But if you look on your social feeds, like Facebook and LinkedIn, you can see that quality of production doesn’t mean anything anymore.
“People are used to watching content on their phones. If you look at a guy like Gary Vaynerchuk, he posts videos five or six times a day. They’re all a bit crap and shot on a phone, but get hundreds of thousands of views because he’s charismatic.
“A lot of brands are stuck in the world that a video needs to be polished. That’s true if you’re L’Oreal and Nike – but even for them that’s only going to be 10 per cent of the content. But you can work with influencers and your employees, who can be advocates of your brand. That still resonates even if it’s much lower content.
“People spend too much time thinking and planning instead of doing. We want brands to take ownership of their content.”
Bouchacourt: ‘A lot of brands are looking to control a lot more of the content production.’
Bouchacourt previously spent four years at Brightcove before joining Shootsta in Singapore last May.
The business, which provides equipment and training for marketers to produce a minimum of four videos per month, now works with brands such as Cebu Pacific, Cathay Pacific, SAP, Oracle and Expedia. Currently employing six people, Shootsta now is set to expand into Hong Kong later this year.
And while many marketers were hesitant to try out the offering when Shootsta first arrived in Singapore, now they are warming to the concept.
Bouchacourt explained: “In Australia, they see the toys and they want to play with them. Here, there is more of a fear of making mistakes. Now we are in a better position than eight months ago. We have references who will say: ‘It’s not that hard to shoot your own video.’
Surely though, brands should be hesitant about putting out too much content in an era when consumers are being bombarded with videos and articles?
“If you want to build an audience, you need to put content out there regularly,” Bouchacourt counters.
“Not once a week or once a month, probably not even once a day. People who have 20 views on a video aren’t producing enough content. Brands have to look at influencers; they post hourly and that’s how they build their audience over time. That’s a long-term goal that takes maybe one or even two years. Even if you are a niche, you still need content regularly; otherwise why would someone follow you?”
“I think a lot of brands are looking to control a lot more of the content production. They’re now hiring content marketers. Down the line, I believe brands will expect their marketers to be able to shoot their own videos.”
There is a good reason brands – and people – should take time ‘polishing’ the content they publish. Reaching ‘hundreds of thousands’ with crappy content Gary-Vee-style is myopic and utterly senseless.
ReplyIt’s always tricky with articles like this to get a clear point across, I believe my colleague is trying to make a point that many brands take too much time polishing every piece of content rather than taking Google’s recommendation of Hero Hub and Help, therefore realising that not every single piece of content needs to have a television commercial budget behind it. There is a need for a sliding scale of content creation that involves creating authentic content. Most leading brands around the world are adopting this model, the reason Antoine has gone to the extreme is that here in Asia, we have found brands are more reluctant to get involved than we have found in the US, UK and Aus.
ReplyAt Shootsta we are definitely about quality content and the Gary-Vee example may have been to extreme for brands.
There’s a great old British phrase, the ‘Birmingham screwdriver’, which implies that if you have a limited toolset, you think a hammer can do everything…
ReplyI don’t think this article is saying brands should be making crappy content, rather that they should be making more video and understand that the message and regular connection with audiences is far more important than making sure its TVC-quality. I’d agree with that.
ReplySo quality isn’t important?
Says a representative from a company that features, in big bold lettering, on the first page of it’s website:
“Shootsta.. provides the tools and resources to empower brands.. to create high-quality video content…”
What’s that again?:
“..to create high-quality video content ..”
hmm.
ReplyThanks for the comments and for fueling the debate. I’d like to clarify and add to my message here, as without context of the conversation, this article makes it look as though Shootsta don’t care about quality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
ReplyYou are right, quality matters and there is a need for brands to produce high-quality content, at Shootsta, we help brands achieve that. We work with a lot of the worlds largest brands to create great content for them globally. I think there needs to be some context around the word ‘quality’ here. Traditionally brands have only been focused on very high-end content that costs $100k plus to produce. At this budget level, there is no opportunity for a brand to have a conversation with their audience. There are various levels of production quality that brands can experiment with, it doesn’t have to be TVC budget all the time. Some brands, some influencers create compelling videos that create a two-way communication with their audiences, they perform very well and they were indeed shot on a phone. Between this and the TVC there is a wide array of types of content that can be produced and brands should consider them and equip themselves with the tools to create content more regularly and more quickly. Training is crucial, great post production is also key. I accept that Gary-Vee’s approach is not appropriate for most brands, however, we can certainly learn from his approach when it comes to social and even internal communications at large corporations. At Shootsta we train our clients to shoot professional level content on High-end DSLR’s and indeed how to use their iPhones with stabilisation tools that we provide. My statement that people “can just take their phone and do it very well” is perhaps out of context here as we encourage this, only after the appropriate training has taken place.
Honestly don’t know where to begin with all that
Good luck to him, but not doing himself any favours with this opinon
ReplyInteresting topic but a response that is entirely lacking in any kind of evidence, data or strategic insight.
Antoine: You should be producing multiple videos every day and don’t worry about the quality.
ReplyBrand: why?
Antoine: Because Gary V does it
Brand: Oh. Okay. Bye.
I think the world needs more LinkedIn video selfies from personal brand experts.
ReplyLets just put the product and logo on screen for any media window and size. Ultimately a brands new product and logo will increase sales with enough media spend behind it.
So why don’t we do that? Because you need to convince people to buy something. With pictures and words. Ever since man has moved from village to village selling his / her wares, on a cart, they’ve had song and dance and hoopla.
Authenticity is why performance marketing works, and the door to door monthly payment catalogue worked. If you want lower budget content do it, in the right way, that makes sense, but understand the context it will have now and later, in its consumption, for brand in a category.
Production houses and agencies need an argument for different standard production, for client procurement, saying its more authentic is not a holistic argument. And vlogs and blogs recommendations are authentically lower in production value. So what else do you have to argue certain types of production and content standards, for certain types of projects? Sort your argument out then publish it, not before hand, that looks like unedited, graded content.
When people personally publish content on behalf of a brand, a lower standard is accepted, but now in what other circumstances is it acceptable?
ReplyHave your say