Are you intrigued by the world of video production and creation within advertising and digital media?
The content development industry has rapidly evolved over the past two decades, fundamentally reshaped by human behavior and social content.
Let’s explore the powerful forces driving its continuous transformation.
The evolution of video production and creation for advertisers
To create such impactful, fast-moving change, a collection of advancements is needed:
- Technology needs to move quickly.
- A low bar of regulation for test-and-fail projects and companies.
- A proven market base to optimize, improve, or take over.
- In advertising, the engine does not move without advertisers willing to spend dollars to reach consumers. Advertisers won’t spend unless there is an audience to convince or attract.
All these variables create a torpedo of evolution in digital advertising.
Video production
Initially, video production required what we would consider today very clunky, big tools to deliver an average experience.
Twenty years later, we have a production studio in our pocket and can create content seen by millions within hours or even minutes, thanks to technology, social connection and engaged audiences.
From my viewpoint, deeply rooted in the analysis of creative and client performance results to drive revenue for our agency, I concede that my perspective is very analytical and data-focused, which I think is crucial in today’s video and advertising medium.
With 17 years in the field of advertising, I remember a time when large creative teams would discuss the one spot they would create to hit different TV stations at key times for massive reach.
Fast forward to today. Small teams of three (two founders and a media buying freelancer) review five variations of a founder FTC (Face To Camera) with two core variables: location (car vs. outside) and beginning hooks.
The ease of creation has turned into the ability to test at low costs, with no creative background necessary to deliver a video version that can drive sales at scale. This shift emphasizes the importance of data analysis in the process, particularly for improvement.
Digital advertising has grown, adding more data availability as metrics have evolved from TRPs and reach to impressions and clicks, and now to shares, earned views, and saves.
Some might say we have too much data to analyze today, but if you can ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) all necessary details, the brand gains a true advantage. Thus, analytics play a vital role in video creation, optimization, and production.
3 great examples of 2024 creative
Here are some of my favorite examples (from Binky, Oreo and Gathre) of 2024 creative that performed better than expected or had an inspirational impact on brands building new ad content:
At both large and small companies, and recently running our own shop for the past seven years, I find brands heavily lean towards the tried and true, primarily relying on in-house teams. This is a reliance I believe will change in the coming years.
Brands will need to expand their creative across multiple agencies as the continual testing of content will help garner interest and conversion.
One piece of advice I give to brands that have been around for 8-15 years, succeeding through the COVID ecommerce boom, is that trying new creative can help reach different generations in different ways.
Gen Z and Alpha consume content differently from Millennials and older generations.
Gen Z, growing into adulthood, holds significant consumer spending power despite tough times. Speaking their language is key to making an impact and driving conversion. This generation has more experience with social platforms than legacy television, resulting in a completely different approach to reaching, convincing, and converting these users.
Consistent production is your best friend, but it doesn’t come without analyzing the impact of production costs and the creative output.
Who should produce video for these platforms?
From founders to interns and influencers, production success can come from anyone.
Founders have an extreme advantage in selling a product or service, but creative influencers, creators, interns, and new employees can match or even exceed their success in some cases.
Thus, varying your production and focusing on “Vertical Video” is crucial.
Why focus on vertical video?
For both organic social and paid advertising, it allows you to capture:
- Large inventory source: TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Meta (Instagram/Facebook) Reels & Shorts
- Cost (CPM): Vertical video is the most cost-effective way to reach users across TikTok, YouTube, and Meta.
- Multi-platform analysis: Analyzing one or similar creative across multiple platforms (TikTok, YouTube, Meta)
- Multi-variable analysis: Analyzing platform, creative, and version combinations to find the best user experience and the most impactful insights, helping to optimize budgets.
Test, analyze, optimize
From a production standpoint, don’t assume you know what works without data to back it up. Produce variations – the bigger and wider the variation, the better the learning and performance.
For example, you can see below where we compare a variety of YouTube video lengths:
During a variation test, we can see the impact of long-form content and the completion rate, but also how Google Ads, in this instance, won’t spend against what we believe is best for the brand.
This highlights the importance of analysis and optimization in the testing process. While all variations were derived from the 2:24 ad, creating the 1-minute, 30-second, and 15-second ads, the long form is best for the brand due to watch time and completion rate.
Video creation and dissemination
While production gets us halfway, creation and dissemination are equally important, but all fall flat without analysis.
The way a brand relays its key values or reasons to believe is specific to the founder or investors. Some companies only want certain individuals to relay specific messages and usually have brand standards or values as guardrails.
My best advice on creation is to loosen or remove these guardrails. They should be more like parking spaces — sometimes parking on the line, not fully pulling in, or leaving a car door open.
This flexibility is crucial for testing variation. Brands need different perspectives (from creators, influencers and creative agencies) to see how their brand can work for various audiences. Trust and humility are necessary for the best creation and optimization of video creative for long-term success.
The dissemination of creative across platforms is also crucial. Creative with no variation that only lives on Instagram is like a tree falling in a forest with no one around — no one will know how that creative performs with only one platform’s performance.
A multi-platform approach allows for a comparison of platform variables. From my experience with hundreds of brands, platforms differ in user experience regardless of identical creative, highlighting the importance of creative and platform variation.
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