The Long and The Short of It

At this time of celebration, expectation, reflection and plenty of mince pies, it’s worth pausing to assess where we are in the social content production world and how we can shape the next chapter.

Facebook and Twitter’s measure of engagement this year knocked us producers and creatives off our 2-minute medley with the “3 second rule”, its emergence engineering a more strategic, but also agile approach to content making, and opening up the call for a more enticing short-form offering.

Traditional formats like TV are still hugely important, as are features, drama and film. BUT all of this content also requires a home in some kind of form online. 

There are those in the production world who will turn the air blue about this shake up and its impact on the way content is produced and viewed.  But there is a more optimistic view: the increasing number of platforms and reams of audience viewing insights, equals even more opportunity for all of us.

Brands of course are in a far healthier and stable position. With programmatic advertising at the heart of every client’s digital engagement strategy, content is a given, and production personnel are still needed to make it happen. But to execute and deliver the best creative for the media plan, we need to have every cog of the content machine in the room together right from the start.

Group hug

For me, it’s about mixing things up. The creatives, strategists, production (and tech!) and social teams should brainstorm the creative together, and not once the strategy, deducted from insights, is in place and the media plan established. Alternatively, if the media plan is dependent on the creative, bring the media agency into the mix too! No more silos. 

A cake only rises when you mix all the right ingredients and keep the oven closed until it’s near-ready at least - right? Multifaceted teams working together, in sync and learning from one another, must shape the future in agency world, with content-production at the core. The pay-off? Content that shakes up the industry and content creatives that exceed clients’ expectations, bust their KPIs and break boundaries.

As snackable content for Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat becomes the crème de le crème for any brand campaign; we must consider what that short form version of the creative is first to keep on top of our commercial and creative games.  

And short-form usually means a faster turn-around, all the more possible with tools like Viddyad the video creation platform!

So, all Heads of Production need to ask the question, who do we really need to create and deliver this form of content? Production teams must become multi-skilled and be willing to utilise hidden skills, such as editing, photography and copywriting, sometimes. 

Thinking 360

Audiences are evolving too and need to be engaged and wowed. Cue the re-emergence of VR and AR and the introduction of 360-video. It’s our duty to clients to stay on top of tech trends, ready to field suppliers and innovators who are leading this and ensuring they are in the kick-off meeting right from the start. 

This is what excites me about the future. New tech and brand partners working across social, producing great work like the recent Facebook 360 Think road safety post from AMV BBDO for the Department of Transport. Tech made simple and engaging. We’re in the era of cross tech & cross platform births; we’re on the cusp of something epic.

That’s if we’re willing to embrace the change and set about a more productive, collegiate approach to next gen creativity.

Cream with that mince pie anyone?