The idea is the thing!!

It was good to get back into the office yesterday.

The sun had finally decided to show its face in a meaningful way, there was a lovely spring breeze wafting through Fitzroy Square and I was ready for another week at The Big Shot.

Once settled, there in my inbox was yet another invitation to a workshop on distributing video content. 

These 'workshops' (Uggh how I hate that word) seem to be the new thing. I get almost as many invites to workshops on distribution as I get adverts for Viagra. For the record I need neither thanks very much.

Now don’t get me wrong the subject of content distribution is important.

If you’re going to make content you need to distribute it otherwise no one sees it right?

No one just sticks their video up on YouTube any more in the hope it will ‘go viral’ amongst the tens of thousands of pieces posted up each day – do they?

Well actually they do… A lot of brands are producing content, posting it on their site, posting it on YouTube and leaving it to it’s fate. 

That fate is pretty much assured to be a grim one.

 But distribution is a problem that’s easily fixed. A subject I will blog on another time if only to save you the invitation to another 'workshop' on the subject. By the way I am with the great Alexei Sayle on this subject and I quote.....

"Anyone who uses the term "workshop" who isn't connected with light engineering is a T*at!"

Moving on.....The problem with ‘failed’ content  lies ostensibly with that content being poorly conceived and essentially unfit for purpose.

By that I mean content not designed for the online audience. We view content in a different way there. Online video is dynamic with all sorts of interactive possibilities that can be worked into the production. This is before we get to the sharing options open to the viewer.

Marketers have noted the incredible rise in the popularity of video viewing and they quite rightly see the opportunity in connecting with a substantial number of their potential audience by providing them with content.

However the production of marketing entertainment is not a forte of the marketer and what often results is something that reeks of brand marketing and not of good content.

Or worse still, they’ve got some content they produced last year – webcast, corporate video, advert, their sons’ school concert etc and the attitude seems to be….

“lets get it out there and see what happens – its not costing us anything! What can we lose?”

Well, there are reputational issues in producing and distributing ‘bad’ content and that's a whole post on its own.

It is a very rare piece of brand marketing that captures the public imagination as pure content and an even rarer piece that delivers what marketers see as measurable results

 Will it blend?

GOOD CONTENT AND NOTHING ELSE WILL ATTRACT CONSUMERS TO YOUR MESSAGE

If the content isn’t relevant ,informative, entertaining, interesting or important it doesn’t matter where you distribute it – no one will watch it!!

Let me give you an example… 

I recently visited a large UK brand. They had just commissioned some video for the first time.

They wanted to help their customers get to grips with certain elements of their service.

A number of short films were produced featuring ‘real’ people and they had gone to great pains to make it clear that they were not using actors.

Unfortunately due to legal issues these people could not speak naturally about their experiences on film, they had to read from a script. Not being actors the results were fairly wooden and frankly dull.

This was a situation that arose during production – the client had not realised that they would be hampered by legalities and had not made allowances when casting or pre-producing.

I emphasise that these were low budget pieces and the overall premise was sound – all it needed was the ability to understand how to market online video to avoid that situation occurring

My question to the client was – "why would people watch this? Where is the need?"

And these are questions that all marketers should ask themselves before they start putting video out in their name.

What's the solution?

The problem advertisers and their agencies face in making this kind of activity work is in getting to grips with mixing the disciplines of marketing and content production  to provide viewers with good content, not barely concealed advertising. This requires expertise in both areas.

Brands need to reconcile themselves to the fact that consumers use their experience of video content to update their opinions of the brand and won't necessarily react instantly.

Online video will join other social media in influencing consumer's online purchasing decisions.

The very real danger exists that marketers will dip their toe in the water with video content and if it doesn’t live up to expectations they will relegate it to the “tried that didn’t work, its not for us” bin

Something to consider the next time someone offers you the chance to attend a seminar or a  workshop or a love-in to find out how to distribute your existing online video.