March 10, 2025 • 50 mins
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The landscape of video production has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade. What was once a straightforward process of creating a single, polished piece of content has evolved into a complex ecosystem where every production must function across multiple platforms while maintaining its emotional impact.
In our conversation with Christian Schu and David Siciliano, two veteran video producers working with major brands across continents, we explore how the fundamentals of video marketing have transformed. Christian, who creates content for high-end audio brands like Focal, Naim, and Bang & Olufsen, and David, who manages production for everything from performance marketing to major brand campaigns, share their perspectives on what makes modern video content effective.
The most surprising revelation? Today's successful video producers think of themselves primarily as marketers rather than filmmakers. Both guests describe at length how understanding marketing strategy, target audiences, and desired outcomes has become essential to their work. As David puts it, "Your marketing budget is your video budget" – highlighting how completely these disciplines have merged. Christian adds that while technical aspects matter, ultimately "the product doesn't matter – it must be good, but anything besides that is only emotion."
Whether you're a marketing professional collaborating with video teams or simply curious about how modern video content comes together, this episode offers valuable insights into the evolving relationship between storytelling, marketing strategy, and technical production. Listen now to discover why emotion trumps features and how your marketing content can benefit from a filmmaker's perspective.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom and powered by
other mod pros out there.
I am your host, joined by mydog.
Thank you, just perfect timing.
I'm joined by my co-host, mikeRizzo.
Naomi's not here today, mike,how's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Good, it's, early for you, early for you, it is early
for me.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking,
it's all good for me.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking,
it's all good.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, and by workers I mean we're adding a room
addition to my home.
It's been chaos.
I have two small children forthose of you that follow along
and we needed more spacedesperately.
So it has been.
It has been a fun couple ofweeks, but I'm glad to be back
on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
All right, awesome, we're glad to have you and, as
you can see, we have gueststoday.
So joining us today we're goingto be talking about the
evolution of video productionwith two guests.
So joining us today areChristian Schuh, who's in I
think you're in Germany.
Every time I talk to you you'rein a different location and
David Siciliano and David, youhave to do this.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
All right, I was pretty good.
No, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
All right, I did.
All right, all right.
Christian has known he wasinterested in cameras, film and
television since he was a child.
After treating filmmaking as ahobby, he eventually made it his
vocation.
Today he develops ideas,produces and films as a team for
many companies in the high-endhi-fi audio industry, among many
other projects.
So look forward to talkingabout that.
And then, with more than adecade of experience in video
(01:24):
production, david has a widerange of projects in his
portfolio.
He has assembled and managedteams of 20 plus crew,
established systems andprocesses, managed budgets up to
eight figures and ideatedcontent for some of the biggest
brands in the United States.
So we've got people from twodifferent continents.
Christian David, thanks forjoining us today.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Thank you very much for having us, for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, same, same.
It's nice to hang out with youguys.
Yeah, for those that that are,the other thing that david is
for us is, uh, he's.
He's all the secret saucebehind the mopsapalooza, like
hype reels, the video post allthe things video that we are
doing.
David and his team are doing sothat's right.
Yeah, let's, let's uh, let'shave you come on the show and
(02:10):
talk shop with us?
Uh, alongside Christian here,who I'm super excited to learn
from both of you, and, um, Iknow Michael has the hard task
of trying to figure out how tostitch all this together.
Like, why do marketingoperations professionals care
about the video side of things?
But look, marketing ops isn'tjust marketing.
It's so much more than that andwe need to learn about the
(02:31):
whole some of the parts right.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's why we wanted to have you two on, so we're
excited and I know I'm curiousbecause it's always been a
mystery to me.
When I hear about it, andespecially when I hear about how
much it costs but we probablywon't get too much into that
they're like what are youtalking about?
Yeah, right, no.
But yeah, david should lookfamiliar to some folks.
He was at Mopspalooza back inNovember.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I've been at both Mopspaloozas.
I hope to be at all of them.
They're really fun.
I like them, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, why don't we start with this?
Liked having both of you on is,I think.
Maybe you both sort of dodifferent types of videos that
you produce on a regular basis,so maybe just describe the kinds
of stuff you do.
Um, christian, I'll throw it toyou first, and then David, uh,
if you want to jump in as wellsure?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
um well, what I'm doing, uh, basically these days
is producing content, for mostof my clients are in the hi-fi
and high-end industry, so we aretalking about Focal from France
, name Audio from the UK, bangOlufsen from Denmark, macintosh
Labs from the US and a few othercompetitors that I work for and
(03:39):
that I help to, yeah, producecontent in whatever way they
need it.
Like, for example, they have anew product launch and I'm the
one to weave that product into astory, into a compelling story
for the audience to buy more ofit.
I mean, at the end, it's allabout sales and I'm helping them
(04:01):
, I do my best to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, I mean, we're not doing that much different.
To be honest, a lot of what itis now is performance content.
So meta ads, facebook ads,linkedin videos, youtube, ctv is
huge now I think linear TV iskind of less popular these days,
but streaming ads, all thatkind of stuff, so, um, yeah,
that's what we do.
We're trying to bring some ofthat and a big brand agency
(04:29):
style stuff towards the middleand lower.
Lower, uh, middle and smaller,um brands, uh, so they can, they
can play too okay, ctv lineartv I'm sorry, I was gonna say
Speaker 2 (04:43):
you're gonna have to.
No, it's okay, it's just melearning as I go here.
Yeah, yeah.
For those of us that haven'tever spent time in ad tech,
please explain what's TV andlinear TV is.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yes, linear TV is.
I don't know why it's calledlinear, but it's broadcast
television.
It's you know, you're Fox, cbs,it's you know when you used to
watch TV in the 90s?
That's linear TV.
It's all programmed and youmake ads and they place them
there.
Connected TV is CTV, so that'syour like.
Hulu, amazon Prime, netflix,well, netflix, are they doing
(05:15):
ads?
Yet I don't think so.
It's all the streaming networksthat are doing ads.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They are doing ads, I think.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Are they doing ads now?
Yeah, they just introduced it,all right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, they doubled down.
They're increasing thesubscription and they're doing
advertising.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean it was a little surprising they hadn't
done that yet.
To be honest, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They're going to eat the world, though they are.
I'm sort of bullish on that,their distribution.
It's kind of like when thedistribution network for the
rails that were built for Skype,even though it's getting like
sunsetted officially now, likewhen those rails were built,
like they sort of just like oh,so much you know the underlying
infrastructure is what you'retalking about.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, they had the most nominated films at the
Oscars this year.
Netflix did See that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wild, I know it was a big deal when they had one a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
How many?
Okay, so I'm not followingmovies.
I was at somebody's house theother night when that was on.
How?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
many movies were nominated for Best Picture?
Oh, I don't know.
Do you know Christian?
Someone asked if it was likeeight or nine, no idea, I was
like how did?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
they get eight or nine.
I love the film industry butI'm not following up on this
because I'm mostly in marketing,I mean in marketing-related
stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, marketing-related, like film
production, right, and contentproduction.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I'm with you.
I also have two kids.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I don't have time to watch a three-hour movie, right,
right, well, I know, like forme, I'm going back and watching
movies that I grew up with and alot of it was with my kids
right and seeing, like, whichones still resonate so well.
It's interesting, kristen, thatyou brought up, right that
you're in marketing.
So this is one of the things Ithink in talking to both of you
individually.
That struck me is that youtalked about that you're really
(06:56):
a marketer as opposed to afilmmaker, a video producer,
whatever, which kind ofsurprised me and kind kind of
did it.
But, um, you know, why don'tyou walk through?
Like, what do you?
What does that mean to you?
And David, why don't you gofirst and then, christian, you
can jump in as well?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, sure, I mean when I, when I started, it was,
you know, hey, there's a videoline in your marketing budget
and I mean now it's your.
Your marketing budget is yourvideo budget, your marketing
budget is your video budget.
I mean, it's just changed somuch and I think some of what
we've seen is like, you know,the traditional video production
model where you charge ahundred grand for a 30 second
video and you know that's allyou get is just not going to cut
(07:36):
it anymore.
You need continuous content.
You know on a, on a, on acadence and across all your
channels, and you know you beable to afford it.
And you know ROAS and all thesethings.
And so all these terms, thatmarketing terms and sales terms
that get thrown around, that Ididn't know a while ago.
We now have to know so that wecan size our projects to their
goals, their metrics, theirtracking, their budgets, their
(07:57):
sales objectives.
And if we're making somethingthat's got a really cool crane
shot or something they might notneed that crane shot because
that adds money to the project.
So, unfortunately, we have toknow it now.
So, yeah, I agree withChristian, I think we're more
sales people, we're like anextension of their sales team,
kind of yes.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
I mean, my experience is 10 years ago the market was
still different.
Now you have a 15 seconds videothat will work on youtube.
The audience clicks on it, thenit they will find they will go
to the instagram account or to afacebook account, whatever
social media and there will bethe one minute length and then
(08:38):
they still click on and thenthey will reach, uh, the website
where you have a three minutes,the whole clip of it.
So what you need to make sureas a filmmaker nowadays is that
it all works on each platform.
Those small little seconds 15seconds clip needs to work.
The one minute clip needs towork, but also the three minutes
(09:00):
clip needs to work at the end.
So the audience will feel like,oh nice, ok, I want to buy that
product or I want to learn moreor whatever it is, but they
interact with the company andwith that account.
And to make that possible, youknow, 10 years ago you shot with
like a shotgun onto the people.
(09:22):
20% were hit and they wereinterested, and 80% yeah,
whatever, I don't care.
Now, with the tailored nichethat you can target directly,
it's so different from the olddays.
I mean, I don't know about you,david, but for me it's
definitely changed a lot and theold days meaning like 10 years
(09:45):
ago.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's crazy.
It's not 10 years ago, just 10years ago.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I mean, it's true, I actually was just on set
yesterday and someone was like,oh, you're not shooting with a
RED.
I was like everyone's sellingtheir REDs.
I mean, the RED camera was abranded camera.
That was really popular, youknow, five, six, seven years ago
, because it was the first youknow really nice cinema camera.
That wasn't already and thewhole thing.
And now my two thousand dollarcamera is just as good, and so
is my twenty thousand dollarcamera.
(10:11):
So why do I need the?
Eighty thousand dollar camera.
Everything's changed.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It's pretty wild yes, there's so many like follow-on
questions I want to unpack thatI'm sure are laid out in our
document that I probably didn'tactually read because, no, it's
all good, I'm the worst personon the planet when it comes to
that.
But what I do want to say isthat's the connection, like I
don't know for our listeners andmaybe for you, michael, but
(10:38):
like I am hearing so manysimilarities in the way that a
marketing operations personthinks about go-to-market across
the tech stack, like being ableto think about derivative sort
of use cases of data and assetright, like being able to
segment, get down to a veryspecific audience because they
(10:58):
have to understand at the sortof like top layer, let's call it
, what is the go-to-market goalthat you're trying to achieve
and what markets do you want toenter, what messaging, what type
of testing and frameworks doyou need in place and how do we
support the underlying ecosystemto be able to storyboard a
piece of content that can besliced down to a sort of 15
(11:29):
second segment that's stillgoing to resonate for probably
not just like this little sliceof the audience that you want to
talk about, but like, morespecifically, this slice of the
audience at the top of thebuying curve, right like, or the
funnel rather right, and so,like you're fully marketers,
like you're thinking about afunnel, and so are we, and I
(11:51):
think that, like, in order foryou to do your job well, you
have to know.
I would imagine this is more ofa question than kind of a
statement, but a question Iwould imagine you get into
conversations pretty quicklyabout, like, more or less the
personas and the data for thecustomers.
Is that an accurate or a fairassessment of whoever wants to
(12:11):
say yes, well, go for it someonegonna speak up.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I was gonna say you can go first, christian, it's
all right, all right right?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
um, well, for me, definitely.
Uh, I agree on that a hundredpercent.
The the most talk I have withwith companies, especially if
they are larger companies, iswith the marketing department
and with the cmo.
That I need to figure out, uh,what, what is the persona we are
talking about?
Who are we targeting this clip,this?
(12:44):
Uh, yeah, video production,whatever they need, who is
watching it and what are theysupposed to do after that?
That's the most important thing, and then only I can come up
with a storyline that hopefullywill drive the audience that
that way.
Um, but most of the most of thetalking I'm doing with the
(13:05):
marketing department there.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
Do you have awareness content?
Where are they in the customerjourney?
Is this a consideration phasething?
I have to have all thoseconversations which I didn't
have to five years ago.
Now it's what other types ofcontent are you doing?
Where is this in the salesfunnel?
Okay, great.
Who are your target customers?
What else are they consuming?
(13:28):
Well then, we should probablylook a little bit like that, or
similar to it, or contrast to it.
I have to be aware of you, knowwhat else is in their feed.
I mean, it's full blownmarketing strategy and it's
tough for us because we have todo, I have to draw a line of I
can't tell you your marketingstrategy.
I'm not.
You're not hiring me as amarketer, you're hiring me as
your video production producer.
So, but I need to be able tohave those conversations too.
(13:50):
And yeah, it's um yeah, oh alsolike sorry go for it, go ahead.
No, this happened just a coupleof weeks ago.
You know we're doing a coolercommercial and, hey, my
marketing team is going to wantto have that same cooler.
But in all the other six colorsthat the cooler comes in, can
(14:11):
we swap it out real quick?
We totally can, because theyneed to ask for that.
Because I've been in the othersituation where it's like, hey,
can we swap in and do the sameshot with six other products and
we're like, no, we don't havetime.
Now it's yeah, we've made timebecause I know that's coming.
Your whole team needs so manyassets beyond this one little
project.
Let's plan for that at a time.
I mean, it's just completelychanged.
It's a whole different type ofproject now.
(14:31):
Yeah, am I hearing this?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
right.
So, like in those old days,right, you would basically be
contracted to do sort of onesort of big piece of content
right in a video that would beused typically, and maybe one or
maybe you sliced up and use itsmaller bits for for things.
But now you have to be doinglike.
You need to understand thestrategy of how this one set of
(14:54):
content you're developing thatmay or may not all be one piece
at one point right, could bemultiple pieces, and then what
elements are going to be reusedin other places and how it's
going to be used along withother content, which is, I think
, what you said, david.
Is that, like, is that reallythe big shift?
Like, then, why you need to nowbe thinking about what's the
marketing strategy and who is it, who the audience is and all
that kind of stuff.
(15:15):
Christian's nodding his head ina way that like, no, maybe not
quite right, what is?
What's your thought, christian?
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I, I would say yes, it's really different, because
before you produced, like youmentioned, michael, one piece of
film and that was finished andthe client was happy.
But nowadays you need toprepare for so many options.
Let's say like for, for example, what, what I'm doing, there is
(15:44):
a product coming out and thisproduct is available in five
different colors or in fivedifferent finishings, with oak
and with walnut and whatever.
You need to show all of this.
If we don't do it, uh, fullydigital, if we really shoot it
in, in, in, like, in on location, in reality.
We need to show all of thisbecause one thing is the most of
(16:08):
the people have a lot lessimagination, a loss, a lot less
attention spent than a few yearsago.
So we need to show that, thatthe people can imagine how it
looks like in their home, intheir house.
They cannot imagine the walnut.
If you give them that lookslike walnut or oak tree, they
are like uh-huh, okay, but howdoes it look like in my home?
(16:30):
So they want to really see that.
So we need to show it to themand for this we need to prepare
the same speaker, the samedevice, whatever it is, in the
same location.
Basically, best would be with arobot to film that, because you
can just repeat the shot 100times.
(16:50):
It doesn't matter, just do itagain, and, again, and again.
So we have the material andfrom there we go, we take it.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Yeah, I mean, I agree .
I think the symptom was hey, weneed, you know, instead of this
one deliverable or this onedeliverable in five languages or
whatever very small deliverablelist, we need 200 deliverables.
You're already there, right,you know.
You can just add it on to theday and so, and and you know.
Oh, and, by the way, like wenow are needing to spend across
all these other channels, can we, can we make the budget smaller
(17:22):
?
Can we cut some of the crew?
So then I think I think thenatural response was okay, how
do we, how do we adjust then, ifthat's the new ask now, all the
time, and so that's where itcame into like, okay, well, we
got to understand.
What are they doing?
What are they doing with thismaterial?
Why is this coming up?
Oh, so they don't need x, y orz.
They need, they need more, butthey still need the quality to
be good.
Okay, how do we solve that?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
it became a whole different kind of conversation
and then they have the budgetlike constraints as well,
typically.
Yeah, mike, were you to saysome?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
yeah, I was just.
It's interesting, um, this.
Well, I guess I guess the bestway I can talk about it is
because we're doing it every daywith with david and his team
and so, like I shocked, davidprobably loves and hates me all
at the same time, because I justlike fire off emails to him
like hey, like we should try todo this next, and he's like, oh
(18:12):
god you are an idea generator,mike are an idea, man and a
connector yeah, yeah, yeah, forsure, uh, but so you know the,
the thing that's interesting tome, um, about your you,
christian and David, your sortof roles in this like what I've
perceived from this conversationand my experience so far in
(18:33):
working with with folks like youis, um, how freeing it is to
sort of have some of these ideasbut be able to rely on someone
that um can be effectively likea product marketer, um, and a
creative in that way.
Um, I heard you, chris, a uhthat you, you sort of you know,
(18:56):
and you, you too, david, but youboth were talking about how you
have to sort of figure out howto tell the story right and how
to stitch it together in a newway.
I shot an email off to Davidthe other day and, for our
listeners, we're making lots ofimprovements to the way that
membership is going to happen inthe community and we need a way
to make sure you all see justhow important that is and how
(19:20):
valuable that's going to be toyou.
And I don't know how to stitchthat together perfectly, like, I
feel like I've tried a bunch ofdifferent times, but at this
point, like I've, I was like youknow what we need to work with
storytellers right that that canhelp us pull the emotion into
the transaction that we're goingto ask you all to to be a part
(19:42):
of right.
We would love for you to becomepaid members, and so do you
feel.
This is me like getting to thisquestion.
I tend to talk long, Iapologize.
Do you feel like your role isthat you're taking on this
product?
Are you literally looking atthe features and functionalities
(20:04):
of the products you're tryingto sell to then figure out how
to tell a story?
Have you ever adding on to this?
Have you ever had to try tofigure out how to repackage
something and suggest to a teamthat, wait, maybe this isn't
quite right, because you knowthe way you structured this set
of features together justdoesn't fit with what you're who
(20:26):
you're trying to sell toChristian.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
I'll start with you Repackage.
Well, what I experienced?
That some people in themarketing department are too
close to the product.
They are talking about thefeatures and what the product
can do.
Um, but I believe and thatmight be a little bit tough when
I say that but I believe theproduct doesn't matter, it must
(20:51):
be good, but it must work forthe target audience, that it
should do what it's supposed todo.
You can't sell a car thatdoesn't drive, but anything
besides, that is only emotionand you need to make sure that
you trigger this emotion in youraudience.
And that only works withstorytelling.
(21:13):
No matter how good or bad isthat product, hopefully it's
good so the company will sellsome value.
But it's about uh, it's aboutthe story.
It's not about the product.
It's about what the productdoes with the client, with the
audience yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I use an example to instead of saying the same thing
, because I think christian andI are in lockstep on that.
An example for us would be thiscooler company it's now
injection molded.
I don't know what that means.
No one knows what that means.
It doesn't matter.
I can say we can have thevoiceover, say that because it
sounds cool and fancy, but yougot to show that it is, can go,
you know, roll over rocks andget thrown off a cliff and
(21:54):
thrown in the water and it'sfine because it's injection
molded okay, so it's tough thestory I'm telling is that it's
durable, it's tough, it gets meoutdoors, I don't have to worry
about it, it's got a vibe,you'll do it.
Those are fun, evocative,emotional things.
But and so I learned that thisword makes me feel a certain way
.
But it's not really aboutinjection molding.
What is that right?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
well, I Well, I mean that reminds me of the story
about the marketing of the iPodright when it first came out.
There's all the technical specsand when they changed it to, I
can't remember.
5,000 songs in your pocket,right?
That's kind of the differenceyou're talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, exactly However many gigabytes or what kind of
chip or name.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, what formats it will play?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yada or yeah.
What formats it will play?
You gotta get it.
Yeah, no one knows what the m2chip is.
Oh yeah, you know what it makesit feel m m4 pro max man
Speaker 2 (22:47):
yeah, I'm, I'm old, I'm sorry, we're at m4 now see
exactly what is that.
What is that?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
yeah, yeah, I vaguely remember the ipod like thing
coming out of his pocket, right,yeah, state is such a cool
scene yeah, all in your talk sothat makes sense so, christian,
you mentioned you spent a lot oftime up front talking to the
marketing team, cmo, about thestrategy and what the objective
is Like, what comes like, what'syour process after that, like
once you kind of go through thatinitial step of understanding
(23:11):
that.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
That initial step can , by the way, take quite long.
I mean, we are talking abouthours that I need to understand
the target group and what is?
What is the target of thecompany?
What do they want to achieve?
Sure, um?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
so to me it seems like the most important step
this is the.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
For me, that's the most important step, because
everything after that, if, ifyou don't want it to be lucky
like, oh yeah, we hit the rightspot by accident If you want to
reach really the target, youneed to understand this first
step.
That's the number one thing.
(23:50):
I will pull myself out of thatand really think about how would
I sell that to somebody in aconversation or what examples
would I bring up.
And that's not only me.
I also have a team behindthinking about what story can we
(24:15):
use to sell this product or toshow that product.
Sometimes the marketingdepartment will come up with
some ideas already.
We take them in considerationand either we weave them into a
better story or a good story orwe invent, let's say, some other
things that works for thatclient, for the target group,
(24:40):
yeah, for the niche they areserving.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
David, how about you?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, what are our first steps?
I agree with a lot of that.
I think I.
Well, mike, hopefully I do dothis, but it's always what's the
goal, right, we know what arewe trying to do here.
I want to know where it's goingto.
I think that's because mybackground at the big agency was
like those were for, you knowagain, linear TV projects.
That was a very specific typeof process.
But if I'm doing a video andit's going to be a post on a
(25:10):
feed that you know people won'tsee in 48 hours, that's a whole
different project.
So for me that's reallyimportant.
It's like where is this going?
Where does it need to go afterthat?
Uh, so I can like think aboutokay, so how am I, how do I do
this to get them, those manythings, or the right type of
things, to those places?
Right, like, if it's going to bein social media feed, does it
really need to be a supercrafted, well-lit thing, or
(25:33):
should it just be like an iphoneclip of someone like talking
about the product?
Um, so that helps me orientmyself.
First, those two questions andthen yeah, and then I think it's
totally okay.
Great, how do we do this?
Like, what's the story here.
What's the?
What are the?
What's the hook?
You know what's the threeseconds at the beginning of the
video that people are only goingto watch, that we have to to
convince them to keep watchingand maybe click on something.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Are you typically doing with?
Oh, go ahead.
Christian.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Sorry.
What also is important for meto know is I need to understand
what is the marketing departmentgoing to do with my video?
Is that a seasonal thing?
We are preparing for Christmas,now is August, for example, and
now we are preparing forChristmas.
And now is August, for example,and now we are preparing for
Christmas, and that film will beout, or that clip will be out
(26:20):
for like one month, beginning ofDecember, until Christmas, or
in one year or in two years.
That clip still must look goodand must be fancy and the people
still need to be interested inthis.
This is also a huge differenceyou need to consider when doing
your story.
I mean for sure for David,that's the same.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, absolutely I love it.
That's hitting a little bit atwhere I was going to go.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
It's too far question Do you typically get these
requests as sort of they're aone-off thing, or are you
getting involved in sort of ifthere's like multiple type, like
there's, um, an overarchingstory, right, and you're doing a
chapter at a time, right, Idon't know what, if that's the
(27:05):
best analogy, does that makesense?
Is that like, is it?
Are you, is it?
How important is it for thestrategy and the goal for that
one particular thing, how is?
How important is it tounderstand how it fits into the
overarching overall strategy,whether it's video or other
components?
feel like the business side ofdavid, you look like you were
ready to go on that one.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I I uh, um, it's a little like.
It's a little like, you know,like, so, I have two kids, so I
feel like I can say this youknow, when you don't have kids,
you watch people have kids andyou're like well, this is how I
would do it, right?
Oh yeah, it feels a little bitlike that, like I don't have the
business but I'm on the outside, so like I get these briefs and
(27:51):
it'll be like okay, here's ourholiday campaign we're going to
I understand the process, blah,blah.
Hey, we want a testimonialbecause we want to sell our
product.
Oh, what else are you doing?
No, no, that's it, we just wantto.
You know it's like oh, okay,well, what else are you going to
do with it?
Like we have to kind of coachthem out of it.
So I feel like we get a reallyinteresting perspective on brand
to brand, how they'reapproaching whatever marketing
(28:12):
sales campaign there is, and Idon't think there's a right way
or wrong way.
I think it's completely fine tocome to a project after just
saying that.
Come to a project saying, hey,I think I want to make this, and
being like well, cool, what isit you're trying to do?
We can make that, but let'slike flesh out more of it just
in case and maybe that will youknow, help us come up with other
things we need to make.
Or we can make that one thingand then make sure Should we
capture other stuff at the sametime.
(28:33):
So it's a really funny question.
It comes in all forms.
I want to make a thing, orhere's what I want to do, and
anywhere in between.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
For our listeners.
I would like a new field in theCRM.
It's like that's great For what?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Right, yes.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Oh, I want to capture this data.
Okay, okay, but why do you wantto capture the data?
Oh, because we're trying to dothis.
Okay, but what is that thing?
Okay, now we're getting to thelike underlying you know what?
Maybe let's not create that newfield.
We already have these other wayswe can solve this problem right
right I was just like, as youwere all talking, I'm like, yep,
that happens all the time.
(29:16):
I think at a bare minimum, ourmarketing ops team needs to be
able to like sit in on yourdiscovery calls just to learn
how to do our back like ourversion of discovery on the tech
side, because you're pullingout information to try to get to
the underlying sort of why,sort of why, in the same way
(29:39):
that we're trying to coach oursort of constituents across the
organization you know to say,hey, maybe we don't need to do
it that way.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Just tell me more Christian.
I'm curious your point of viewon this.
I feel a little bit like we'rea therapist, sometimes for the
marketing person who's on thecall.
They're like stressed andthey're like they have all these
demands from their CEO orwhatever and like their CMO
wants this thing and the opspeople need something.
And they're like, okay, I justneed, like, I just need that
shot in four different colorsand and and like cool, like you
(30:07):
know what's the, you know tryingto get out, like what is it
you're feeling?
You just need this to go faster.
Great, we can go faster, 100%100% agree.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
And it's always their fault.
No matter what they do, theyare wrong.
It's their fault that it's notselling.
It's their fault that the videoteam is not doing what they're
supposed to do.
It's always their fault.
So, actually, sometimes, maybenot, sometimes, maybe often I
feel like a psychologist here.
Yeah, I will be like okay,actually, what are we going to
(30:39):
do?
And exactly like how youmentioned that before, david, we
can do the whole project, thewhole year of video production
for you.
But what do you want us to do?
What do you want to achievewith it?
We can do that seasonal thingand we can do the whole thing.
(30:59):
What?
What is your, your target?
And for me, for example, um,what?
What applies to me is when Iwork with big companies and I
work with most of my clients formany, many years.
It's not just one project, it'sa long time working together,
um, but of course I I'm German,I'm mostly working in Germany,
(31:20):
even though I'm living in Asia.
But the market, for example,name Audio, is based in the UK,
so they have their teams for theUK market, but when it comes to
, for example, france or therest of Europe, they will ask me
to do that, and then I need tofind a way to find the right
(31:44):
appeal to that target group.
In Germany, it's different whatthe people like than in France,
than in Spain, than in Polandor wherever they are in Austria
and Switzerland.
All of this is different andyou can't just produce one spot
for all of this or one story forall of this and then put that
(32:05):
all over them.
It won't work.
You need to be very carefulabout the national interest and
what they are like the values.
For example, italy, andain is alot more religious than the
rest, so you need to make surethat you don't hurt any feelings
when it comes to this.
Yeah, so it's.
(32:26):
It's such a wide, wide thing,and that's why I sit so long
with the marketing team at thebeginning and ask them okay,
what is it we are talking about?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
yeah, I I cannot agree more.
The amount of times I recentlyhave gotten hey, can we um do
this shop without any seltzersin it, because it won't sell on
the east coast.
It's like, okay, sure likewe'll switch it out for beers,
because new yorkers drink beer,not, you know, spike seltzer.
That's california.
I mean it's yeah, there's.
There's so many um permutationsand variations on it.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's really interesting.
The cultural component of whatyou have to be thinking about on
top of just is the message andthe story good too.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I hadn't thought about that.
Um, and I hope for ourlisteners.
I think this is where, like,there's this really clear um you
know moment where a market youknow I I posted a year ago
marketing ops isn't marketingand people just sort of like
they're lost their minds, likewhat are you talking about?
(33:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
like literally.
Is that a year ago now?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
that's crazy.
It's like coming up on a year.
It's pretty close yeah um andand and this is kind of what I
was trying to say is that, like,you should be fundamentally
aware of these things, thesefundamentals that a brand
marketer or a just someone who'strying to sell products across
(33:56):
various personas, the thingsthat they need to consider, and
the reason you need to be awareof that is so that you can do
your best to support theunderlying ecosystem, to enable
them to go achieve the thingthat they're looking to achieve.
Right, if David and Christianare sitting there saying that
we're going to have to producethis asset that sells across
coast to coast, and themarketers think they need to do
(34:18):
that, and then you turn around,you go, hey, but guess what?
We only have two percent of ourdatabase that is actually on
the east coast, which would bebananas.
But, like, let's just pretendfor the sake of the argument,
two percent are there.
You're like, well, maybe wedon't need to spend money on
that.
Or you're entering the marketand you're like we really go
hard on this.
And like let's not waste timebecause we're already saturated
in the West Coast.
(34:39):
So like, let's just focus onwhat that side of the market is
going to need.
It's not your job, though, toknow those specific cultural
differences, and that's what Iwas trying to say.
Is that, like it is reallyimportant for you to know
broadly marketing for peas,product price, placement,
positioning, all that stuff.
But you don't just, like Davidsaid, like hey, we're not your
(35:02):
strategist, we're not going tohelp you become a marketing like
, a better marketing team orwhatever.
We're going to help you do thething that we are really good at
marketing operationsprofessionals.
We're also not your marketingstrategist.
Please stop throwing everythingat us right.
Marketing ops isn't justmarketing, it's about so much
more.
And I was just like those arethe things that are super
important.
I remember being in college,like I graduated the business
(35:27):
marketing degree and I was told,oh yeah, there was a shot of a
Mercedes that they, incidentallyput the like basic.
They basically put the wrongcolor palette in the market and
it was like a very specificthing, like it was something
like if the handle was white, itwould never sell.
(35:47):
Like it was like something veryspecific like that, like they
would they just like literallynever sell that version of the
car there, and it was the wrongimage put into the wrong market
and it was the wrong image putinto the wrong market and it
tanked because they're like ourcars don't look like that what
does that?
you know like that's the name.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I'm curious if you, if you think this is similar for
marketing ops, but, um, I thinkthere's.
Uh, christian, I know you'llagree with this.
I think there's a kind of likemagic in what it looks like we
do.
Um, you know, like we like askyou for this thing and like make
this thing, and you just likemagically produce these images
like whoa, and that's amazing.
But it is a trade and there arevery specific steps and a
(36:26):
process and in order to makethat magic, like I, we have to
ask a lot of questions to foryou to articulate what it is
you're going for and why and how, because that's how the magic
happens.
And so there is a really weirdmoment between the marketer and
the video producer of you know,okay, but tell me about that
feature.
Well, what does that mean?
(36:46):
Okay, does your market careabout that?
Do they care about that morethan this other feature?
There's just so many questionsand I've had to really be really
careful because I'm a doer, soI'll be like, yeah, let's do it,
but I have to slow down andmake sure I'm asking so many
questions to get you toarticulate to me what it is you
actually want to do and whatyour marketing strategy is.
I can't tell you what it is.
(37:06):
I have to help you articulateit.
But it does need to bearticulated, otherwise magic
does not happen.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
But at least most of the times, you hopefully have
the marketing team knowing thesethings that you ask them.
Sometimes I happen to have thesituation that I ask questions
and they are looking at me likeI don't know how to describe
that.
They never heard about it andI'm like no, no, that's
important.
What color are we showing?
(37:34):
What accessory are we showing?
Is that something that yourtarget group wants to see or not
?
Right, like no, no, that'simportant.
What color are we showing?
What accessory are we showing?
Is that something that yourtarget group wants to see or not
?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
right, and they are like we don't know which, to be
fair, is also fine, but it doesmean oh well, then maybe let's
shoot both.
And now we're shooting more, bythe way.
Let's shoot both and you can ab test it in your marketing ops.
What am I doing?
Speaker 4 (37:55):
with the product.
You know what?
What am I doing?
As a film?
I cannot.
I mean, I can produce 10different videos that are
slightly different, but it's allover the same for you.
But you don't want to pay thatprice, Right?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Actually it's interesting because you just
brought up A-B testing and whenMike started his, I was like
we've talked a lot about sort ofchanges over the last several
years in terms of, like, theproduction side of it and what
the outcomes are.
But are you, are you also beingdriven by either data that your
clients have about what works,what doesn't work, that they
(38:32):
have, and are you getting anyfeedback about how yours are
performing in terms of theoverall outcome?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
yeah, I was gonna ask the same, like I.
I feel like the buck might stopwith the deliverable um, at the
end of the day, for for you all, but I would.
I would love for it to not stopthere, but, um, yeah, how's
that?
Are you guys getting anyfeedback from?
Okay, yeah, like this one assetactually was the winner, or
(39:01):
whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
I don't know what you think, christian.
I mean.
This is a great question.
I feel like this is wherethings are changing.
I don't know what it's like inEurope.
I'd love to hear your thoughtsabout it.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Okay, mostly the answer that I get is, maybe half
a year or three months later Iget a call from the team, from
the CEO, from the CMO or fromwhoever from that company saying
Christian, can we do that again?
That's mostly my feedback thatI get, but I don't know the
(39:36):
specifics.
I don't get a feedback like,okay, that worked very well,
maybe then yes, but I don't know.
I really don't know, and eventhough I would like to know,
this is nothing that they willmostly disclose to me, because
then I'm still the external part, I'm still not yet part of, or
(39:59):
not no part of, that company,even though we work so close
together.
But, yeah, they have what theyneed.
They will put some money intoads, uh, and and ad spend and
you use, uh, my footage thatthey have, or the film, whatever
they have from me.
They will use it on acrosstheir website, social media and
(40:20):
ad um, and then it performs ornot, but as I guess it's
performing because they, yeah,keep calling me, let's say like
that yeah, yeah, no, I yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I mean, I agree.
I think we have one brand we'veworked with.
Who, uh, their ceo?
It's a very small brand, Ithink they're like two million
revenue or four million revenue,something, um, so smaller um
side.
And, um, he wanted me to sitdown on their weekly ad
performance calls with their,with their ad agency, and at
first I was kind of like, okay,well, I can do other work while
I do it, it's fine.
And then I was like this is themost invaluable thing I've ever
(40:53):
done.
I know exactly what's workingand not working.
Okay, great, next shoot, let'sdo this and make sure we shoot
these three hooks because that'swhat performed.
And we've now like, overitperformed all the still
graphic ads, which for thisbrand, is a big deal.
And like, because it's a smallbrand and video is typically on
(41:14):
meta, which is getting in theweeds but typically costs more
to make a conversion than astatic ad does, but you need
video to kind of warm up people.
It's like a whole thing thatI've now learned from these
calls and I wish I had that forall of our brands.
I wish I knew what actuallyworked.
Like, what are you finding?
Let's do twice as much of thaton the next one.
And now we're an invaluablepart of your team.
(41:36):
We're growing with you.
We can start creating aplaybook on what's working or
not working, how that changesover time.
I mean God, I crave that.
But we're never.
That's very rare, unless you'rea huge agency or part of a
whole team and you're alreadyselling that service alongside
your video team.
But that's not us.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
So yeah, so is that change what you're asking when
you, when you're doing this sortof uh investigation phase about
it, like, are you starting tonow ask for data to inform some
of this stuff or, and you'refinding are, are you getting
that or are you finding that alot of these companies or
agencies don't don't actuallyknow?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
uh, it's kind of both some don't know, some I think
it's like another step theydon't want to do, um, I don't
know.
I think I get the sense fromtheir perspective that it that's
just, it's just not somethingthat's top of mind or obvious to
them, that we'd want to knowthat and so they'll be this
shoot.
Can we do this?
And I'd, rather than be like,hey, last shoot, we learned this
, so we have this idea aboutthis shoot.
What do you think based on that?
(42:33):
You know, like that's adifferent kind of conversation.
I just I don't think it'sobvious.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
I think we were traditionally just vendors,
right, hand-in-hand photos, youknow, and sometimes I even hear
something like why do you wantto know that?
Why is it important to you?
And then I need to explain whyI would like to have these
numbers and the data so I canhave a better storytelling at
(42:58):
the end for them.
But sometimes I need to educateas well interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's again parallels to what
our marketing ops audience hasto go through, right, it's like
when they get asked go, go,build this email for this
audience, you know, uh, the flip, the flip side is, typically
we're the ones who have accessto the data, right, so we can.
We could provide feedback about, like, actually this other
thing works better when we do itthis way.
Um, so we're running out oftime.
I do want to.
I want to hit one more topicand get your thoughts on this
(43:32):
Cause it's hard to avoid thistopic in any conversation these
days.
But, like, how do you see AI,in whatever form you want to
think about it, either alreadyinfluencing what you're doing
and what's happening in thevideo space, and then, what do
you any ideas of?
Like, what's coming around thecorner?
Christian, do you want to gofirst?
Speaker 4 (43:53):
Christian, you go first.
Yeah, ai is okay.
How to say that I like AI ingeneral?
Because I like the idea that Ihave an assistant next to me
that works 24-7 if necessary anddo research for me, give me
(44:20):
some analysis and those kind ofthings I really appreciate and I
use AI for that.
I really appreciate and I useAI for that.
But when it comes tounderstanding a story and
triggering emotions, I would saynot yet there.
Maybe in a few years, maybenext year, I don't know, but not
(44:42):
yet there.
What happens is they?
Yeah, I also asked them towrite me a story that is
compelling and so on.
Yeah, but it's missing.
It's very generic.
It's like somebody is having anidea and the AI is writing from
this idea and then like copypasting it more or less, but
(45:03):
it's nothing unique and there isno twist to it.
But it's nothing unique andthere is no twist to it.
And so that's why I mean yeah,as an assistant for all the data
, intense things that I have,like research and those kind of
things.
Analysis yes.
When it comes to creativity, no.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, I agree no-transcript.
(45:44):
Oh my goodness, I, I, it's likeit's a tool but it still needs
architects and it.
Um, I mean, we've been using aifor for a long time.
A bunch of the tools on my myadobe suite all of a sudden were
branded as ai.
But they're the same tool thatwe just didn't know they were ai
.
No one cared that they were ai,maybe that was, but they they
on that.
Once that became a thing, theysaid, oh yeah, this is an ai
(46:05):
tool.
So now there's all these aitools in the w suite.
Um, the tools are also gettingbetter, exponentially faster,
and we can do the uh, what Icall the david fincher thing.
This is maybe again to filmnerdy, but david fincher and his
movies won't use cg on the mainthing you're looking at.
But he'll like change themountain in the background to be
like three skyline, like threeskyline buildings, whatever, so
(46:25):
that like it feels a little bitmore urban.
Right, it's something in thebackground like I've.
I can now do that with ai.
I can do a shot and be likethere's this weird pole or
something in the shot here.
Why don't we just move it andadd a window?
Because now it looks more openand and breezy and maybe that
fits the brand.
So, um, but it's still me doingit like it's not like it.
Before it would have been veryexpensive to do that and my, my
(46:46):
big agency job, that would havebeen very expensive, which we
did all the time to do that kindof thing.
And, um, now everyone can playbecause it's it takes two
seconds.
So you don't need, like acompositor, to spend three days
recreating a beer cup because ithad a pump hidden in it to,
like, make it explode, like.
You can just do it with ai.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Um, so I don't know yeah, as a tool, I think it's
great, great tool yeah well.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
So it sounds like.
I mean it's kind of what I'vebeen hearing.
I think in a lot of ways likeit's, it's it's become a really
helpful tool for, um, repetitiveand mundane kinds of things
right that are easilyreproducible.
I mean, I think your pointabout it not really providing
creativity and the humanity partof it right.
(47:32):
I mean, I'm not a music.
I'm not.
I don't have any musical talent.
I love music and one of thethings I've like drives me crazy
is auto-tune, right.
It's just like I feel like, yes, is it right on pitch and all
those things.
Probably I want that.
I don't want the perfection.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Actually, when I hit, listen to music and so like
some of that's missing, yeah,yeah and um, you know, it's not
like because ai and trying tothink like specifically the
thing we use it the most for ismotion tracking.
So if someone moves their handacross the screen, I can use ai
to track their hand and removeit, and this means I can like
put text behind someone's headand I can like make cool things
(48:12):
happen.
You could do that before, butit would take so much time and
they don't have money for it, soyou just wouldn't do it.
They don't want to pay for it,and if they do want to pay for
it, cool.
They're you know some ginormousbrand that I won't name.
So, um, you know, now it's likeI can do that for Mike's videos
and it doesn't take more time.
It takes two seconds and it'sgreat and it looks really cool
and it looks like really high,high, high production value,
(48:33):
right Like um.
So I don't know, I don't knowif it's really eliminating
anything yet for us, but we'llsee, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Um, well guys, hey, this has been a lot of fun.
I I've learned a ton.
I know it.
No, it's ctv and linear tv areat a minimum, but, um, so I I
think this will be useful forour audience if, if folks want
to connect with you or learnmore about what you're doing,
what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 4 (48:56):
christian, you go first uh, well, basically, uh,
hit my website, christian-shucom, and shu is written s-c-h-C-H-U
in the German way and the same.
You can find me on social mediaand YouTube, but it's all on my
website, so basically, that'sthe first place to be to find me
(49:17):
.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Terrific.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
David, same here as SavvyStudioscom, which, by the
time this publishes, we willhave a whole new website with
new branding and everythingwhich is exciting.
So, yeah, everything is onthere, so you can find all the
links there.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Awesome Well guys thank you again, appreciate it.
Mike, thanks for joining, asalways.
Uh, thanks always to ourlisteners for continuing to
listen to us, support us.
Uh, watch us now.
Um, we appreciate that.
If you have ideas for topics orguests or want to be a guest,
reach out to Naomi, mike or meand we'd be happy to chat with
you about it.
Until next time, bye, everybody.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Bye, Thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Thank you very much.
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of
OpsCast brought to you byMarketingOpscom and powered by
other mod pros out there.
I am your host, joined by mydog.
Thank you, just perfect timing.
I'm joined by my co-host, mikeRizzo.
Naomi's not here today, mike,how's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Good, it's, early for you, early for you, it is early
for me.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking,
it's all good for me.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking,
it's all good.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, and by workers I mean we're adding a room
addition to my home.
It's been chaos.
I have two small children forthose of you that follow along
and we needed more spacedesperately.
So it has been.
It has been a fun couple ofweeks, but I'm glad to be back
on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
All right, awesome, we're glad to have you and, as
you can see, we have gueststoday.
So joining us today we're goingto be talking about the
evolution of video productionwith two guests.
So joining us today areChristian Schuh, who's in I
think you're in Germany.
Every time I talk to you you'rein a different location and
David Siciliano and David, youhave to do this.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
All right, I was pretty good.
No, no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
All right, I did.
All right, all right.
Christian has known he wasinterested in cameras, film and
television since he was a child.
After treating filmmaking as ahobby, he eventually made it his
vocation.
Today he develops ideas,produces and films as a team for
many companies in the high-endhi-fi audio industry, among many
other projects.
So look forward to talkingabout that.
And then, with more than adecade of experience in video
(01:24):
production, david has a widerange of projects in his
portfolio.
He has assembled and managedteams of 20 plus crew,
established systems andprocesses, managed budgets up to
eight figures and ideatedcontent for some of the biggest
brands in the United States.
So we've got people from twodifferent continents.
Christian David, thanks forjoining us today.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Thank you very much for having us, for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, same, same.
It's nice to hang out with youguys.
Yeah, for those that that are,the other thing that david is
for us is, uh, he's.
He's all the secret saucebehind the mopsapalooza, like
hype reels, the video post allthe things video that we are
doing.
David and his team are doing sothat's right.
Yeah, let's, let's uh, let'shave you come on the show and
(02:10):
talk shop with us?
Uh, alongside Christian here,who I'm super excited to learn
from both of you, and, um, Iknow Michael has the hard task
of trying to figure out how tostitch all this together.
Like, why do marketingoperations professionals care
about the video side of things?
But look, marketing ops isn'tjust marketing.
It's so much more than that andwe need to learn about the
(02:31):
whole some of the parts right.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
That's why we wanted to have you two on, so we're
excited and I know I'm curiousbecause it's always been a
mystery to me.
When I hear about it, andespecially when I hear about how
much it costs but we probablywon't get too much into that
they're like what are youtalking about?
Yeah, right, no.
But yeah, david should lookfamiliar to some folks.
He was at Mopspalooza back inNovember.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I've been at both Mopspaloozas.
I hope to be at all of them.
They're really fun.
I like them, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, why don't we start with this?
Liked having both of you on is,I think.
Maybe you both sort of dodifferent types of videos that
you produce on a regular basis,so maybe just describe the kinds
of stuff you do.
Um, christian, I'll throw it toyou first, and then David, uh,
if you want to jump in as wellsure?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
um well, what I'm doing, uh, basically these days
is producing content, for mostof my clients are in the hi-fi
and high-end industry, so we aretalking about Focal from France
, name Audio from the UK, bangOlufsen from Denmark, macintosh
Labs from the US and a few othercompetitors that I work for and
(03:39):
that I help to, yeah, producecontent in whatever way they
need it.
Like, for example, they have anew product launch and I'm the
one to weave that product into astory, into a compelling story
for the audience to buy more ofit.
I mean, at the end, it's allabout sales and I'm helping them
(04:01):
, I do my best to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, I mean, we're not doing that much different.
To be honest, a lot of what itis now is performance content.
So meta ads, facebook ads,linkedin videos, youtube, ctv is
huge now I think linear TV iskind of less popular these days,
but streaming ads, all thatkind of stuff, so, um, yeah,
that's what we do.
We're trying to bring some ofthat and a big brand agency
(04:29):
style stuff towards the middleand lower.
Lower, uh, middle and smaller,um brands, uh, so they can, they
can play too okay, ctv lineartv I'm sorry, I was gonna say
Speaker 2 (04:43):
you're gonna have to.
No, it's okay, it's just melearning as I go here.
Yeah, yeah.
For those of us that haven'tever spent time in ad tech,
please explain what's TV andlinear TV is.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yes, linear TV is.
I don't know why it's calledlinear, but it's broadcast
television.
It's you know, you're Fox, cbs,it's you know when you used to
watch TV in the 90s?
That's linear TV.
It's all programmed and youmake ads and they place them
there.
Connected TV is CTV, so that'syour like.
Hulu, amazon Prime, netflix,well, netflix, are they doing
(05:15):
ads?
Yet I don't think so.
It's all the streaming networksthat are doing ads.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
They are doing ads, I think.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Are they doing ads now?
Yeah, they just introduced it,all right.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, they doubled down.
They're increasing thesubscription and they're doing
advertising.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean it was a little surprising they hadn't
done that yet.
To be honest, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They're going to eat the world, though they are.
I'm sort of bullish on that,their distribution.
It's kind of like when thedistribution network for the
rails that were built for Skype,even though it's getting like
sunsetted officially now, likewhen those rails were built,
like they sort of just like oh,so much you know the underlying
infrastructure is what you'retalking about.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, they had the most nominated films at the
Oscars this year.
Netflix did See that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wild, I know it was a big deal when they had one a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
How many?
Okay, so I'm not followingmovies.
I was at somebody's house theother night when that was on.
How?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
many movies were nominated for Best Picture?
Oh, I don't know.
Do you know Christian?
Someone asked if it was likeeight or nine, no idea, I was
like how did?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
they get eight or nine.
I love the film industry butI'm not following up on this
because I'm mostly in marketing,I mean in marketing-related
stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, marketing-related, like film
production, right, and contentproduction.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I'm with you.
I also have two kids.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I don't have time to watch a three-hour movie, right,
right, well, I know, like forme, I'm going back and watching
movies that I grew up with and alot of it was with my kids
right and seeing, like, whichones still resonate so well.
It's interesting, kristen, thatyou brought up, right that
you're in marketing.
So this is one of the things Ithink in talking to both of you
individually.
That struck me is that youtalked about that you're really
(06:56):
a marketer as opposed to afilmmaker, a video producer,
whatever, which kind ofsurprised me and kind kind of
did it.
But, um, you know, why don'tyou walk through?
Like, what do you?
What does that mean to you?
And David, why don't you gofirst and then, christian, you
can jump in as well?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, sure, I mean when I, when I started, it was,
you know, hey, there's a videoline in your marketing budget
and I mean now it's your.
Your marketing budget is yourvideo budget, your marketing
budget is your video budget.
I mean, it's just changed somuch and I think some of what
we've seen is like, you know,the traditional video production
model where you charge ahundred grand for a 30 second
video and you know that's allyou get is just not going to cut
(07:36):
it anymore.
You need continuous content.
You know on a, on a, on acadence and across all your
channels, and you know you beable to afford it.
And you know ROAS and all thesethings.
And so all these terms, thatmarketing terms and sales terms
that get thrown around, that Ididn't know a while ago.
We now have to know so that wecan size our projects to their
goals, their metrics, theirtracking, their budgets, their
(07:57):
sales objectives.
And if we're making somethingthat's got a really cool crane
shot or something they might notneed that crane shot because
that adds money to the project.
So, unfortunately, we have toknow it now.
So, yeah, I agree withChristian, I think we're more
sales people, we're like anextension of their sales team,
kind of yes.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
I mean, my experience is 10 years ago the market was
still different.
Now you have a 15 seconds videothat will work on youtube.
The audience clicks on it, thenit they will find they will go
to the instagram account or to afacebook account, whatever
social media and there will bethe one minute length and then
(08:38):
they still click on and thenthey will reach, uh, the website
where you have a three minutes,the whole clip of it.
So what you need to make sureas a filmmaker nowadays is that
it all works on each platform.
Those small little seconds 15seconds clip needs to work.
The one minute clip needs towork, but also the three minutes
(09:00):
clip needs to work at the end.
So the audience will feel like,oh nice, ok, I want to buy that
product or I want to learn moreor whatever it is, but they
interact with the company andwith that account.
And to make that possible, youknow, 10 years ago you shot with
like a shotgun onto the people.
(09:22):
20% were hit and they wereinterested, and 80% yeah,
whatever, I don't care.
Now, with the tailored nichethat you can target directly,
it's so different from the olddays.
I mean, I don't know about you,david, but for me it's
definitely changed a lot and theold days meaning like 10 years
(09:45):
ago.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's crazy.
It's not 10 years ago, just 10years ago.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I mean, it's true, I actually was just on set
yesterday and someone was like,oh, you're not shooting with a
RED.
I was like everyone's sellingtheir REDs.
I mean, the RED camera was abranded camera.
That was really popular, youknow, five, six, seven years ago
, because it was the first youknow really nice cinema camera.
That wasn't already and thewhole thing.
And now my two thousand dollarcamera is just as good, and so
is my twenty thousand dollarcamera.
(10:11):
So why do I need the?
Eighty thousand dollar camera.
Everything's changed.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It's pretty wild yes, there's so many like follow-on
questions I want to unpack thatI'm sure are laid out in our
document that I probably didn'tactually read because, no, it's
all good, I'm the worst personon the planet when it comes to
that.
But what I do want to say isthat's the connection, like I
don't know for our listeners andmaybe for you, michael, but
(10:38):
like I am hearing so manysimilarities in the way that a
marketing operations personthinks about go-to-market across
the tech stack, like being ableto think about derivative sort
of use cases of data and assetright, like being able to
segment, get down to a veryspecific audience because they
(10:58):
have to understand at the sortof like top layer, let's call it
, what is the go-to-market goalthat you're trying to achieve
and what markets do you want toenter, what messaging, what type
of testing and frameworks doyou need in place and how do we
support the underlying ecosystemto be able to storyboard a
piece of content that can besliced down to a sort of 15
(11:29):
second segment that's stillgoing to resonate for probably
not just like this little sliceof the audience that you want to
talk about, but like, morespecifically, this slice of the
audience at the top of thebuying curve, right like, or the
funnel rather right, and so,like you're fully marketers,
like you're thinking about afunnel, and so are we, and I
(11:51):
think that, like, in order foryou to do your job well, you
have to know.
I would imagine this is more ofa question than kind of a
statement, but a question Iwould imagine you get into
conversations pretty quicklyabout, like, more or less the
personas and the data for thecustomers.
Is that an accurate or a fairassessment of whoever wants to
(12:11):
say yes, well, go for it someonegonna speak up.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I was gonna say you can go first, christian, it's
all right, all right right?
Speaker 4 (12:22):
um, well, for me, definitely.
Uh, I agree on that a hundredpercent.
The the most talk I have withwith companies, especially if
they are larger companies, iswith the marketing department
and with the cmo.
That I need to figure out, uh,what, what is the persona we are
talking about?
Who are we targeting this clip,this?
(12:44):
Uh, yeah, video production,whatever they need, who is
watching it and what are theysupposed to do after that?
That's the most important thing, and then only I can come up
with a storyline that hopefullywill drive the audience that
that way.
Um, but most of the most of thetalking I'm doing with the
(13:05):
marketing department there.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
Do you have awareness content?
Where are they in the customerjourney?
Is this a consideration phasething?
I have to have all thoseconversations which I didn't
have to five years ago.
Now it's what other types ofcontent are you doing?
Where is this in the salesfunnel?
Okay, great.
Who are your target customers?
What else are they consuming?
(13:28):
Well then, we should probablylook a little bit like that, or
similar to it, or contrast to it.
I have to be aware of you, knowwhat else is in their feed.
I mean, it's full blownmarketing strategy and it's
tough for us because we have todo, I have to draw a line of I
can't tell you your marketingstrategy.
I'm not.
You're not hiring me as amarketer, you're hiring me as
your video production producer.
So, but I need to be able tohave those conversations too.
(13:50):
And yeah, it's um yeah, oh alsolike sorry go for it, go ahead.
No, this happened just a coupleof weeks ago.
You know we're doing a coolercommercial and, hey, my
marketing team is going to wantto have that same cooler.
But in all the other six colorsthat the cooler comes in, can
(14:11):
we swap it out real quick?
We totally can, because theyneed to ask for that.
Because I've been in the othersituation where it's like, hey,
can we swap in and do the sameshot with six other products and
we're like, no, we don't havetime.
Now it's yeah, we've made timebecause I know that's coming.
Your whole team needs so manyassets beyond this one little
project.
Let's plan for that at a time.
I mean, it's just completelychanged.
It's a whole different type ofproject now.
(14:31):
Yeah, am I hearing this?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
right.
So, like in those old days,right, you would basically be
contracted to do sort of onesort of big piece of content
right in a video that would beused typically, and maybe one or
maybe you sliced up and use itsmaller bits for for things.
But now you have to be doinglike.
You need to understand thestrategy of how this one set of
(14:54):
content you're developing thatmay or may not all be one piece
at one point right, could bemultiple pieces, and then what
elements are going to be reusedin other places and how it's
going to be used along withother content, which is, I think
, what you said, david.
Is that, like, is that reallythe big shift?
Like, then, why you need to nowbe thinking about what's the
marketing strategy and who is it, who the audience is and all
that kind of stuff.
(15:15):
Christian's nodding his head ina way that like, no, maybe not
quite right, what is?
What's your thought, christian?
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I, I would say yes, it's really different, because
before you produced, like youmentioned, michael, one piece of
film and that was finished andthe client was happy.
But nowadays you need toprepare for so many options.
Let's say like for, for example, what, what I'm doing, there is
(15:44):
a product coming out and thisproduct is available in five
different colors or in fivedifferent finishings, with oak
and with walnut and whatever.
You need to show all of this.
If we don't do it, uh, fullydigital, if we really shoot it
in, in, in, like, in on location, in reality.
We need to show all of thisbecause one thing is the most of
(16:08):
the people have a lot lessimagination, a loss, a lot less
attention spent than a few yearsago.
So we need to show that, thatthe people can imagine how it
looks like in their home, intheir house.
They cannot imagine the walnut.
If you give them that lookslike walnut or oak tree, they
are like uh-huh, okay, but howdoes it look like in my home?
(16:30):
So they want to really see that.
So we need to show it to themand for this we need to prepare
the same speaker, the samedevice, whatever it is, in the
same location.
Basically, best would be with arobot to film that, because you
can just repeat the shot 100times.
(16:50):
It doesn't matter, just do itagain, and, again, and again.
So we have the material andfrom there we go, we take it.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Yeah, I mean, I agree .
I think the symptom was hey, weneed, you know, instead of this
one deliverable or this onedeliverable in five languages or
whatever very small deliverablelist, we need 200 deliverables.
You're already there, right,you know.
You can just add it on to theday and so, and and you know.
Oh, and, by the way, like wenow are needing to spend across
all these other channels, can we, can we make the budget smaller
(17:22):
?
Can we cut some of the crew?
So then I think I think thenatural response was okay, how
do we, how do we adjust then, ifthat's the new ask now, all the
time, and so that's where itcame into like, okay, well, we
got to understand.
What are they doing?
What are they doing with thismaterial?
Why is this coming up?
Oh, so they don't need x, y orz.
They need, they need more, butthey still need the quality to
be good.
Okay, how do we solve that?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
it became a whole different kind of conversation
and then they have the budgetlike constraints as well,
typically.
Yeah, mike, were you to saysome?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
yeah, I was just.
It's interesting, um, this.
Well, I guess I guess the bestway I can talk about it is
because we're doing it every daywith with david and his team
and so, like I shocked, davidprobably loves and hates me all
at the same time, because I justlike fire off emails to him
like hey, like we should try todo this next, and he's like, oh
(18:12):
god you are an idea generator,mike are an idea, man and a
connector yeah, yeah, yeah, forsure, uh, but so you know the,
the thing that's interesting tome, um, about your you,
christian and David, your sortof roles in this like what I've
perceived from this conversationand my experience so far in
(18:33):
working with with folks like youis, um, how freeing it is to
sort of have some of these ideasbut be able to rely on someone
that um can be effectively likea product marketer, um, and a
creative in that way.
Um, I heard you, chris, a uhthat you, you sort of you know,
(18:56):
and you, you too, david, but youboth were talking about how you
have to sort of figure out howto tell the story right and how
to stitch it together in a newway.
I shot an email off to Davidthe other day and, for our
listeners, we're making lots ofimprovements to the way that
membership is going to happen inthe community and we need a way
to make sure you all see justhow important that is and how
(19:20):
valuable that's going to be toyou.
And I don't know how to stitchthat together perfectly, like, I
feel like I've tried a bunch ofdifferent times, but at this
point, like I've, I was like youknow what we need to work with
storytellers right that that canhelp us pull the emotion into
the transaction that we're goingto ask you all to to be a part
(19:42):
of right.
We would love for you to becomepaid members, and so do you
feel.
This is me like getting to thisquestion.
I tend to talk long, Iapologize.
Do you feel like your role isthat you're taking on this
product?
Are you literally looking atthe features and functionalities
(20:04):
of the products you're tryingto sell to then figure out how
to tell a story?
Have you ever adding on to this?
Have you ever had to try tofigure out how to repackage
something and suggest to a teamthat, wait, maybe this isn't
quite right, because you knowthe way you structured this set
of features together justdoesn't fit with what you're who
(20:26):
you're trying to sell toChristian.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
I'll start with you Repackage.
Well, what I experienced?
That some people in themarketing department are too
close to the product.
They are talking about thefeatures and what the product
can do.
Um, but I believe and thatmight be a little bit tough when
I say that but I believe theproduct doesn't matter, it must
(20:51):
be good, but it must work forthe target audience, that it
should do what it's supposed todo.
You can't sell a car thatdoesn't drive, but anything
besides, that is only emotionand you need to make sure that
you trigger this emotion in youraudience.
And that only works withstorytelling.
(21:13):
No matter how good or bad isthat product, hopefully it's
good so the company will sellsome value.
But it's about uh, it's aboutthe story.
It's not about the product.
It's about what the productdoes with the client, with the
audience yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I use an example to instead of saying the same thing
, because I think christian andI are in lockstep on that.
An example for us would be thiscooler company it's now
injection molded.
I don't know what that means.
No one knows what that means.
It doesn't matter.
I can say we can have thevoiceover, say that because it
sounds cool and fancy, but yougot to show that it is, can go,
you know, roll over rocks andget thrown off a cliff and
(21:54):
thrown in the water and it'sfine because it's injection
molded okay, so it's tough thestory I'm telling is that it's
durable, it's tough, it gets meoutdoors, I don't have to worry
about it, it's got a vibe,you'll do it.
Those are fun, evocative,emotional things.
But and so I learned that thisword makes me feel a certain way
.
But it's not really aboutinjection molding.
What is that right?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
well, I Well, I mean that reminds me of the story
about the marketing of the iPodright when it first came out.
There's all the technical specsand when they changed it to, I
can't remember.
5,000 songs in your pocket,right?
That's kind of the differenceyou're talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, exactly However many gigabytes or what kind of
chip or name.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, what formats it will play?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yada or yeah.
What formats it will play?
You gotta get it.
Yeah, no one knows what the m2chip is.
Oh yeah, you know what it makesit feel m m4 pro max man
Speaker 2 (22:47):
yeah, I'm, I'm old, I'm sorry, we're at m4 now see
exactly what is that.
What is that?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
yeah, yeah, I vaguely remember the ipod like thing
coming out of his pocket, right,yeah, state is such a cool
scene yeah, all in your talk sothat makes sense so, christian,
you mentioned you spent a lot oftime up front talking to the
marketing team, cmo, about thestrategy and what the objective
is Like, what comes like, what'syour process after that, like
once you kind of go through thatinitial step of understanding
(23:11):
that.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
That initial step can , by the way, take quite long.
I mean, we are talking abouthours that I need to understand
the target group and what is?
What is the target of thecompany?
What do they want to achieve?
Sure, um?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
so to me it seems like the most important step
this is the.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
For me, that's the most important step, because
everything after that, if, ifyou don't want it to be lucky
like, oh yeah, we hit the rightspot by accident If you want to
reach really the target, youneed to understand this first
step.
That's the number one thing.
(23:50):
I will pull myself out of thatand really think about how would
I sell that to somebody in aconversation or what examples
would I bring up.
And that's not only me.
I also have a team behindthinking about what story can we
(24:15):
use to sell this product or toshow that product.
Sometimes the marketingdepartment will come up with
some ideas already.
We take them in considerationand either we weave them into a
better story or a good story orwe invent, let's say, some other
things that works for thatclient, for the target group,
(24:40):
yeah, for the niche they areserving.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
David, how about you?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, what are our first steps?
I agree with a lot of that.
I think I.
Well, mike, hopefully I do dothis, but it's always what's the
goal, right, we know what arewe trying to do here.
I want to know where it's goingto.
I think that's because mybackground at the big agency was
like those were for, you knowagain, linear TV projects.
That was a very specific typeof process.
But if I'm doing a video andit's going to be a post on a
(25:10):
feed that you know people won'tsee in 48 hours, that's a whole
different project.
So for me that's reallyimportant.
It's like where is this going?
Where does it need to go afterthat?
Uh, so I can like think aboutokay, so how am I, how do I do
this to get them, those manythings, or the right type of
things, to those places?
Right, like, if it's going to bein social media feed, does it
really need to be a supercrafted, well-lit thing, or
(25:33):
should it just be like an iphoneclip of someone like talking
about the product?
Um, so that helps me orientmyself.
First, those two questions andthen yeah, and then I think it's
totally okay.
Great, how do we do this?
Like, what's the story here.
What's the?
What are the?
What's the hook?
You know what's the threeseconds at the beginning of the
video that people are only goingto watch, that we have to to
convince them to keep watchingand maybe click on something.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Are you typically doing with?
Oh, go ahead.
Christian.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Sorry.
What also is important for meto know is I need to understand
what is the marketing departmentgoing to do with my video?
Is that a seasonal thing?
We are preparing for Christmas,now is August, for example, and
now we are preparing forChristmas.
And now is August, for example,and now we are preparing for
Christmas, and that film will beout, or that clip will be out
(26:20):
for like one month, beginning ofDecember, until Christmas, or
in one year or in two years.
That clip still must look goodand must be fancy and the people
still need to be interested inthis.
This is also a huge differenceyou need to consider when doing
your story.
I mean for sure for David,that's the same.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, absolutely I love it.
That's hitting a little bit atwhere I was going to go.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
It's too far question Do you typically get these
requests as sort of they're aone-off thing, or are you
getting involved in sort of ifthere's like multiple type, like
there's, um, an overarchingstory, right, and you're doing a
chapter at a time, right, Idon't know what, if that's the
(27:05):
best analogy, does that makesense?
Is that like, is it?
Are you, is it?
How important is it for thestrategy and the goal for that
one particular thing, how is?
How important is it tounderstand how it fits into the
overarching overall strategy,whether it's video or other
components?
feel like the business side ofdavid, you look like you were
ready to go on that one.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I I uh, um, it's a little like.
It's a little like, you know,like, so, I have two kids, so I
feel like I can say this youknow, when you don't have kids,
you watch people have kids andyou're like well, this is how I
would do it, right?
Oh yeah, it feels a little bitlike that, like I don't have the
business but I'm on the outside, so like I get these briefs and
(27:51):
it'll be like okay, here's ourholiday campaign we're going to
I understand the process, blah,blah.
Hey, we want a testimonialbecause we want to sell our
product.
Oh, what else are you doing?
No, no, that's it, we just wantto.
You know it's like oh, okay,well, what else are you going to
do with it?
Like we have to kind of coachthem out of it.
So I feel like we get a reallyinteresting perspective on brand
to brand, how they'reapproaching whatever marketing
(28:12):
sales campaign there is, and Idon't think there's a right way
or wrong way.
I think it's completely fine tocome to a project after just
saying that.
Come to a project saying, hey,I think I want to make this, and
being like well, cool, what isit you're trying to do?
We can make that, but let'slike flesh out more of it just
in case and maybe that will youknow, help us come up with other
things we need to make.
Or we can make that one thingand then make sure Should we
capture other stuff at the sametime.
(28:33):
So it's a really funny question.
It comes in all forms.
I want to make a thing, orhere's what I want to do, and
anywhere in between.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
For our listeners.
I would like a new field in theCRM.
It's like that's great For what?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Right, yes.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Oh, I want to capture this data.
Okay, okay, but why do you wantto capture the data?
Oh, because we're trying to dothis.
Okay, but what is that thing?
Okay, now we're getting to thelike underlying you know what?
Maybe let's not create that newfield.
We already have these other wayswe can solve this problem right
right I was just like, as youwere all talking, I'm like, yep,
that happens all the time.
(29:16):
I think at a bare minimum, ourmarketing ops team needs to be
able to like sit in on yourdiscovery calls just to learn
how to do our back like ourversion of discovery on the tech
side, because you're pullingout information to try to get to
the underlying sort of why,sort of why, in the same way
(29:39):
that we're trying to coach oursort of constituents across the
organization you know to say,hey, maybe we don't need to do
it that way.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Just tell me more Christian.
I'm curious your point of viewon this.
I feel a little bit like we'rea therapist, sometimes for the
marketing person who's on thecall.
They're like stressed andthey're like they have all these
demands from their CEO orwhatever and like their CMO
wants this thing and the opspeople need something.
And they're like, okay, I justneed, like, I just need that
shot in four different colorsand and and like cool, like you
(30:07):
know what's the, you know tryingto get out, like what is it
you're feeling?
You just need this to go faster.
Great, we can go faster, 100%100% agree.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
And it's always their fault.
No matter what they do, theyare wrong.
It's their fault that it's notselling.
It's their fault that the videoteam is not doing what they're
supposed to do.
It's always their fault.
So, actually, sometimes, maybenot, sometimes, maybe often I
feel like a psychologist here.
Yeah, I will be like okay,actually, what are we going to
(30:39):
do?
And exactly like how youmentioned that before, david, we
can do the whole project, thewhole year of video production
for you.
But what do you want us to do?
What do you want to achievewith it?
We can do that seasonal thingand we can do the whole thing.
(30:59):
What?
What is your, your target?
And for me, for example, um,what?
What applies to me is when Iwork with big companies and I
work with most of my clients formany, many years.
It's not just one project, it'sa long time working together,
um, but of course I I'm German,I'm mostly working in Germany,
(31:20):
even though I'm living in Asia.
But the market, for example,name Audio, is based in the UK,
so they have their teams for theUK market, but when it comes to
, for example, france or therest of Europe, they will ask me
to do that, and then I need tofind a way to find the right
(31:44):
appeal to that target group.
In Germany, it's different whatthe people like than in France,
than in Spain, than in Polandor wherever they are in Austria
and Switzerland.
All of this is different andyou can't just produce one spot
for all of this or one story forall of this and then put that
(32:05):
all over them.
It won't work.
You need to be very carefulabout the national interest and
what they are like the values.
For example, italy, andain is alot more religious than the
rest, so you need to make surethat you don't hurt any feelings
when it comes to this.
Yeah, so it's.
(32:26):
It's such a wide, wide thing,and that's why I sit so long
with the marketing team at thebeginning and ask them okay,
what is it we are talking about?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
yeah, I I cannot agree more.
The amount of times I recentlyhave gotten hey, can we um do
this shop without any seltzersin it, because it won't sell on
the east coast.
It's like, okay, sure likewe'll switch it out for beers,
because new yorkers drink beer,not, you know, spike seltzer.
That's california.
I mean it's yeah, there's.
There's so many um permutationsand variations on it.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's really interesting.
The cultural component of whatyou have to be thinking about on
top of just is the message andthe story good too.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I hadn't thought about that.
Um, and I hope for ourlisteners.
I think this is where, like,there's this really clear um you
know moment where a market youknow I I posted a year ago
marketing ops isn't marketingand people just sort of like
they're lost their minds, likewhat are you talking about?
(33:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:30):
like literally.
Is that a year ago now?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
that's crazy.
It's like coming up on a year.
It's pretty close yeah um andand and this is kind of what I
was trying to say is that, like,you should be fundamentally
aware of these things, thesefundamentals that a brand
marketer or a just someone who'strying to sell products across
(33:56):
various personas, the thingsthat they need to consider, and
the reason you need to be awareof that is so that you can do
your best to support theunderlying ecosystem, to enable
them to go achieve the thingthat they're looking to achieve.
Right, if David and Christianare sitting there saying that
we're going to have to producethis asset that sells across
coast to coast, and themarketers think they need to do
(34:18):
that, and then you turn around,you go, hey, but guess what?
We only have two percent of ourdatabase that is actually on
the east coast, which would bebananas.
But, like, let's just pretendfor the sake of the argument,
two percent are there.
You're like, well, maybe wedon't need to spend money on
that.
Or you're entering the marketand you're like we really go
hard on this.
And like let's not waste timebecause we're already saturated
in the West Coast.
(34:39):
So like, let's just focus onwhat that side of the market is
going to need.
It's not your job, though, toknow those specific cultural
differences, and that's what Iwas trying to say.
Is that, like it is reallyimportant for you to know
broadly marketing for peas,product price, placement,
positioning, all that stuff.
But you don't just, like Davidsaid, like hey, we're not your
(35:02):
strategist, we're not going tohelp you become a marketing like
, a better marketing team orwhatever.
We're going to help you do thething that we are really good at
marketing operationsprofessionals.
We're also not your marketingstrategist.
Please stop throwing everythingat us right.
Marketing ops isn't justmarketing, it's about so much
more.
And I was just like those arethe things that are super
important.
I remember being in college,like I graduated the business
(35:27):
marketing degree and I was told,oh yeah, there was a shot of a
Mercedes that they, incidentallyput the like basic.
They basically put the wrongcolor palette in the market and
it was like a very specificthing, like it was something
like if the handle was white, itwould never sell.
(35:47):
Like it was like something veryspecific like that, like they
would they just like literallynever sell that version of the
car there, and it was the wrongimage put into the wrong market
and it was the wrong image putinto the wrong market and it
tanked because they're like ourcars don't look like that what
does that?
you know like that's the name.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I'm curious if you, if you think this is similar for
marketing ops, but, um, I thinkthere's.
Uh, christian, I know you'llagree with this.
I think there's a kind of likemagic in what it looks like we
do.
Um, you know, like we like askyou for this thing and like make
this thing, and you just likemagically produce these images
like whoa, and that's amazing.
But it is a trade and there arevery specific steps and a
(36:26):
process and in order to makethat magic, like I, we have to
ask a lot of questions to foryou to articulate what it is
you're going for and why and how, because that's how the magic
happens.
And so there is a really weirdmoment between the marketer and
the video producer of you know,okay, but tell me about that
feature.
Well, what does that mean?
(36:46):
Okay, does your market careabout that?
Do they care about that morethan this other feature?
There's just so many questionsand I've had to really be really
careful because I'm a doer, soI'll be like, yeah, let's do it,
but I have to slow down andmake sure I'm asking so many
questions to get you toarticulate to me what it is you
actually want to do and whatyour marketing strategy is.
I can't tell you what it is.
(37:06):
I have to help you articulateit.
But it does need to bearticulated, otherwise magic
does not happen.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
But at least most of the times, you hopefully have
the marketing team knowing thesethings that you ask them.
Sometimes I happen to have thesituation that I ask questions
and they are looking at me likeI don't know how to describe
that.
They never heard about it andI'm like no, no, that's
important.
What color are we showing?
(37:34):
What accessory are we showing?
Is that something that yourtarget group wants to see or not
?
Right, like no, no, that'simportant.
What color are we showing?
What accessory are we showing?
Is that something that yourtarget group wants to see or not
?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
right, and they are like we don't know which, to be
fair, is also fine, but it doesmean oh well, then maybe let's
shoot both.
And now we're shooting more, bythe way.
Let's shoot both and you can ab test it in your marketing ops.
What am I doing?
Speaker 4 (37:55):
with the product.
You know what?
What am I doing?
As a film?
I cannot.
I mean, I can produce 10different videos that are
slightly different, but it's allover the same for you.
But you don't want to pay thatprice, Right?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Actually it's interesting because you just
brought up A-B testing and whenMike started his, I was like
we've talked a lot about sort ofchanges over the last several
years in terms of, like, theproduction side of it and what
the outcomes are.
But are you, are you also beingdriven by either data that your
clients have about what works,what doesn't work, that they
(38:32):
have, and are you getting anyfeedback about how yours are
performing in terms of theoverall outcome?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
yeah, I was gonna ask the same, like I.
I feel like the buck might stopwith the deliverable um, at the
end of the day, for for you all, but I would.
I would love for it to not stopthere, but, um, yeah, how's
that?
Are you guys getting anyfeedback from?
Okay, yeah, like this one assetactually was the winner, or
(39:01):
whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
I don't know what you think, christian.
I mean.
This is a great question.
I feel like this is wherethings are changing.
I don't know what it's like inEurope.
I'd love to hear your thoughtsabout it.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Okay, mostly the answer that I get is, maybe half
a year or three months later Iget a call from the team, from
the CEO, from the CMO or fromwhoever from that company saying
Christian, can we do that again?
That's mostly my feedback thatI get, but I don't know the
(39:36):
specifics.
I don't get a feedback like,okay, that worked very well,
maybe then yes, but I don't know.
I really don't know, and eventhough I would like to know,
this is nothing that they willmostly disclose to me, because
then I'm still the external part, I'm still not yet part of, or
(39:59):
not no part of, that company,even though we work so close
together.
But, yeah, they have what theyneed.
They will put some money intoads, uh, and and ad spend and
you use, uh, my footage thatthey have, or the film, whatever
they have from me.
They will use it on acrosstheir website, social media and
(40:20):
ad um, and then it performs ornot, but as I guess it's
performing because they, yeah,keep calling me, let's say like
that yeah, yeah, no, I yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I mean, I agree.
I think we have one brand we'veworked with.
Who, uh, their ceo?
It's a very small brand, Ithink they're like two million
revenue or four million revenue,something, um, so smaller um
side.
And, um, he wanted me to sitdown on their weekly ad
performance calls with their,with their ad agency, and at
first I was kind of like, okay,well, I can do other work while
I do it, it's fine.
And then I was like this is themost invaluable thing I've ever
(40:53):
done.
I know exactly what's workingand not working.
Okay, great, next shoot, let'sdo this and make sure we shoot
these three hooks because that'swhat performed.
And we've now like, overitperformed all the still
graphic ads, which for thisbrand, is a big deal.
And like, because it's a smallbrand and video is typically on
(41:14):
meta, which is getting in theweeds but typically costs more
to make a conversion than astatic ad does, but you need
video to kind of warm up people.
It's like a whole thing thatI've now learned from these
calls and I wish I had that forall of our brands.
I wish I knew what actuallyworked.
Like, what are you finding?
Let's do twice as much of thaton the next one.
And now we're an invaluablepart of your team.
(41:36):
We're growing with you.
We can start creating aplaybook on what's working or
not working, how that changesover time.
I mean God, I crave that.
But we're never.
That's very rare, unless you'rea huge agency or part of a
whole team and you're alreadyselling that service alongside
your video team.
But that's not us.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
So yeah, so is that change what you're asking when
you, when you're doing this sortof uh investigation phase about
it, like, are you starting tonow ask for data to inform some
of this stuff or, and you'refinding are, are you getting
that or are you finding that alot of these companies or
agencies don't don't actuallyknow?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
uh, it's kind of both some don't know, some I think
it's like another step theydon't want to do, um, I don't
know.
I think I get the sense fromtheir perspective that it that's
just, it's just not somethingthat's top of mind or obvious to
them, that we'd want to knowthat and so they'll be this
shoot.
Can we do this?
And I'd, rather than be like,hey, last shoot, we learned this
, so we have this idea aboutthis shoot.
What do you think based on that?
(42:33):
You know, like that's adifferent kind of conversation.
I just I don't think it'sobvious.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
I think we were traditionally just vendors,
right, hand-in-hand photos, youknow, and sometimes I even hear
something like why do you wantto know that?
Why is it important to you?
And then I need to explain whyI would like to have these
numbers and the data so I canhave a better storytelling at
(42:58):
the end for them.
But sometimes I need to educateas well interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's again parallels to what
our marketing ops audience hasto go through, right, it's like
when they get asked go, go,build this email for this
audience, you know, uh, the flip, the flip side is, typically
we're the ones who have accessto the data, right, so we can.
We could provide feedback about, like, actually this other
thing works better when we do itthis way.
Um, so we're running out oftime.
I do want to.
I want to hit one more topicand get your thoughts on this
(43:32):
Cause it's hard to avoid thistopic in any conversation these
days.
But, like, how do you see AI,in whatever form you want to
think about it, either alreadyinfluencing what you're doing
and what's happening in thevideo space, and then, what do
you any ideas of?
Like, what's coming around thecorner?
Christian, do you want to gofirst?
Speaker 4 (43:53):
Christian, you go first.
Yeah, ai is okay.
How to say that I like AI ingeneral?
Because I like the idea that Ihave an assistant next to me
that works 24-7 if necessary anddo research for me, give me
(44:20):
some analysis and those kind ofthings I really appreciate and I
use AI for that.
I really appreciate and I useAI for that.
But when it comes tounderstanding a story and
triggering emotions, I would saynot yet there.
Maybe in a few years, maybenext year, I don't know, but not
(44:42):
yet there.
What happens is they?
Yeah, I also asked them towrite me a story that is
compelling and so on.
Yeah, but it's missing.
It's very generic.
It's like somebody is having anidea and the AI is writing from
this idea and then like copypasting it more or less, but
(45:03):
it's nothing unique and there isno twist to it.
But it's nothing unique andthere is no twist to it.
And so that's why I mean yeah,as an assistant for all the data
, intense things that I have,like research and those kind of
things.
Analysis yes.
When it comes to creativity, no.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, I agree no-transcript.
(45:44):
Oh my goodness, I, I, it's likeit's a tool but it still needs
architects and it.
Um, I mean, we've been using aifor for a long time.
A bunch of the tools on my myadobe suite all of a sudden were
branded as ai.
But they're the same tool thatwe just didn't know they were ai
.
No one cared that they were ai,maybe that was, but they they
on that.
Once that became a thing, theysaid, oh yeah, this is an ai
(46:05):
tool.
So now there's all these aitools in the w suite.
Um, the tools are also gettingbetter, exponentially faster,
and we can do the uh, what Icall the david fincher thing.
This is maybe again to filmnerdy, but david fincher and his
movies won't use cg on the mainthing you're looking at.
But he'll like change themountain in the background to be
like three skyline, like threeskyline buildings, whatever, so
(46:25):
that like it feels a little bitmore urban.
Right, it's something in thebackground like I've.
I can now do that with ai.
I can do a shot and be likethere's this weird pole or
something in the shot here.
Why don't we just move it andadd a window?
Because now it looks more openand and breezy and maybe that
fits the brand.
So, um, but it's still me doingit like it's not like it.
Before it would have been veryexpensive to do that and my, my
(46:46):
big agency job, that would havebeen very expensive, which we
did all the time to do that kindof thing.
And, um, now everyone can playbecause it's it takes two
seconds.
So you don't need, like acompositor, to spend three days
recreating a beer cup because ithad a pump hidden in it to,
like, make it explode, like.
You can just do it with ai.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Um, so I don't know yeah, as a tool, I think it's
great, great tool yeah well.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
So it sounds like.
I mean it's kind of what I'vebeen hearing.
I think in a lot of ways likeit's, it's it's become a really
helpful tool for, um, repetitiveand mundane kinds of things
right that are easilyreproducible.
I mean, I think your pointabout it not really providing
creativity and the humanity partof it right.
(47:32):
I mean, I'm not a music.
I'm not.
I don't have any musical talent.
I love music and one of thethings I've like drives me crazy
is auto-tune, right.
It's just like I feel like, yes, is it right on pitch and all
those things.
Probably I want that.
I don't want the perfection.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Actually, when I hit, listen to music and so like
some of that's missing, yeah,yeah and um, you know, it's not
like because ai and trying tothink like specifically the
thing we use it the most for ismotion tracking.
So if someone moves their handacross the screen, I can use ai
to track their hand and removeit, and this means I can like
put text behind someone's headand I can like make cool things
(48:12):
happen.
You could do that before, butit would take so much time and
they don't have money for it, soyou just wouldn't do it.
They don't want to pay for it,and if they do want to pay for
it, cool.
They're you know some ginormousbrand that I won't name.
So, um, you know, now it's likeI can do that for Mike's videos
and it doesn't take more time.
It takes two seconds and it'sgreat and it looks really cool
and it looks like really high,high, high production value,
(48:33):
right Like um.
So I don't know, I don't knowif it's really eliminating
anything yet for us, but we'llsee, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Um, well guys, hey, this has been a lot of fun.
I I've learned a ton.
I know it.
No, it's ctv and linear tv areat a minimum, but, um, so I I
think this will be useful forour audience if, if folks want
to connect with you or learnmore about what you're doing,
what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 4 (48:56):
christian, you go first uh, well, basically, uh,
hit my website, christian-shucom, and shu is written s-c-h-C-H-U
in the German way and the same.
You can find me on social mediaand YouTube, but it's all on my
website, so basically, that'sthe first place to be to find me
(49:17):
.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Terrific.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
David, same here as SavvyStudioscom, which, by the
time this publishes, we willhave a whole new website with
new branding and everythingwhich is exciting.
So, yeah, everything is onthere, so you can find all the
links there.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Awesome Well guys thank you again, appreciate it.
Mike, thanks for joining, asalways.
Uh, thanks always to ourlisteners for continuing to
listen to us, support us.
Uh, watch us now.
Um, we appreciate that.
If you have ideas for topics orguests or want to be a guest,
reach out to Naomi, mike or meand we'd be happy to chat with
you about it.
Until next time, bye, everybody.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Bye, Thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Thank you very much.
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