What’s the big idea? It can seem there are endless decisions to make when starting a B2B video marketing project. In this episode, Guy and Hope discuss what the single most important thing you need to invest in to get the most effective video ad possible. 

Additional discussions include what to look for when choosing a video ad agency. (We know a good one, but they’re not right for everyone.) And listen to the end of the episode for a special announcement.

For more, listen to the episode or read the transcript below.

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Transcript

Guy Bauer:

Keep in mind, when you procure video, you're not procuring minutes of video, you're procuring a feeling, you're procuring an idea.

Hope Morley:

Hello and welcome to Death to the Corporate Video, a podcasts with tools and advice for how to make B2B video ads your prospects actually want to watch. I'm Hope Morley.

Guy Bauer:

I'm Guy Bauer.

Hope Morley:

Welcome, Guy. Today on the show, we want to talk about production value and the relative importance of different parts of a video production project. Part of this came up in our internal conversations because it's easier than ever to make beautiful images with a video camera. The technology has gotten great. It's easier with a smaller crew to make things that look really fantastic. It's just as hard as it ever was to make something worth watching.

We want to talk today about that distinction of making something that looks good versus making something that's worth watching. The worth watching piece is about the creative and the idea that goes behind the video. It's not really about the camera that you're using or how fantastic your set is, it's really about what you thought about before you actually got onto your set and the backstory of what you're making?

Guy Bauer:

For B2B brands listening to this podcast, it's more about how you think about allocating money and how you triage budgeting for your video project. What we want to do is kind of impart on you the idea that don't get hung up on the purchasing of video production. You should be getting hung up on the purchasing of ideas that will relate to your target buyer that will get them to buy through the medium of video. Video production is something that needs to get done, yes, in order to communicate to your target buyers through the medium of video.

But it's not the thing that will get them to buy. What will get them to buy is the idea. What we want to do is talk about budgeting. It's very sexy. Warren Buffet says that his key talent is just cash allocation, that's just his God-given talent is that he knows where to allocate capital. To me, that's what you have to do as a marketer. As a marketer, when you are setting out to do a video ad or a video of some kind for your company, success and failure is how you allocate budget. 

Hope Morley:

Yeah, it's about the relative value of the production versus the ideas when you get to that final product.

Guy Bauer:

Right. Where is the value coming from?

Hope Morley:

The value is created in the idea, the value is not necessarily created in the making of a video. 

Guy Bauer:

Yes. Not to say that it's that, well, then just shoot on your iPhone. For sure, there's value created in the production, but what I would say, it's like 80/20.

Hope Morley:

Yeah, relative value.

Guy Bauer:

80% of the value is created in the idea, 20% is created on set. We just had a shoot yesterday where we did ads and I had this concept, it was going to go a certain way in my head, and then on set, the talent were like, "Wait, what if we do it this way?" And I was like, "That's way better." But they're still playing in the 80, that master idea, and they're just adding icing on.

They made it 20% better. We were able to make it 20% better on set through direction, through acting, through cinematography, but in the end, they were still playing within that 80% idea. Actually, this 80/20 rule, I think I'm the first person to notice this ever, but there is an 80/20, we should call it Guy's principle, but it keeps showing up, Pareto's principle keeps showing up. I have an anecdote. Can I share this anecdote with you, Hope?

Hope Morley:

Please. 

Guy Bauer:

So early on, if you go back eight years, back in the day, what we would do as a production company, if a client, I'm just going to use round numbers, if a client gave us $100,000, we would spend $80,000 making the thing on production. Honestly, I don't even think we'd spend $20,000 on creativity. We'd probably-

Hope Morley:

Yeah, I was going to say.

Guy Bauer:

If we had $100,000 production budget, we would've spent $100,000 on production. The idea would all be done on the margins.

Hope Morley:

You would spend like $2,000 writing a script.

Guy Bauer:

Maybe. I'm talking about eight years ago, a long time ago, most of it was done on the way to the shoot. Meaning we set a shoot day, the shoot day is one month from now.

Hope Morley:

One month, how luxurious. 

Guy Bauer:

Yeah, actually, that's kind of crazy. The shoot day is next week. Then we would do something creative in order to hit the shoot date. Now what we do is before we talk about shooting, we have to have thorough idea vetting and scripting and all that stuff before you even think about production. But I always say the idea was made on the way to the shoot.

Now, we just had a project where, without naming specific numbers or clients or whatever, where we had a specific budget that we then as an agency have to triage how we spend that money. Literally, literally, literally 80% of the budget went to creative activities, 20% went to onset production. Client loved the spot, boom. They didn't go like, "Wait a second, you didn't use an Alexa 35 with a T-boom arm?" Whatever, that's not-

Hope Morley:

Are those real words? I don't even know. After Alexa, you lost me. This is my job and you lost me after the brand name of the camera. If you're talking about what matters to your client in terms of the final delivery, they don't know any of that stuff. What they see is the idea and then the final product. How you get there is part of your creative challenge. If you're a video person trying to figure out how to get the happiest client that you can, they're not going to know how much you put into some of this.

I don't mean to hide it from them. I don't want it to come off as you should hide from your clients how much you're really spending on your budget or something like that. But what they see is the final product, and then they're going to be judging it based on the idea, and the final execution of it. They're not going to be judging it based on how many lights you had on set that day.

Guy Bauer:

Yeah, I mean substitute client for your prospect if you're a B2B brand. You've heard this if you're a regular listener, no one's going to write you an angry letter because someone doesn't have perfect eyelight things. Or if your camera isn't in a ISO, no one's going to know that you didn't have perfect weather for that scene or whatever, it doesn't matter. What they will know is if something is just relatable or a clever idea or just in any way applicable to their situation. The value's created in the idea and the writing. Here's another example is when you look at the moon landing-

Hope Morley:

The footage from the moon landing?

Guy Bauer:

Yeah, the footage from the moon landing, that was faked in a studio. No, I'm just kidding.

Hope Morley:

Disclaimer, we do not believe the moon landing was faked.

Guy Bauer:

We totally landed on the moon. The way I just said that makes it think that I don't think that. I know that we landed on the moon, to be clear. Anyway, when you look at the footage, the footage stinks. It's like an awful video, it's an awful sound, it's grainy. It's terrible. But my kids will see that, my kids' kids will see that, that's a thing that will live on forever. But why does it live on forever? It's not because of the production.

If it was living on because of the production of the investment in the video things, then we'd have that beat a million times over, because how many movies have there been made about landing on the moon and on other planets and stuff? It's not that. It's not the cinematic achievement of a man getting out of a lander and walking on the moon. It's about the idea of, holy crap, we did it. We're on the moon. You know what I'm saying? The reason why you like things isn't because they use a certain camera or not.

The reason why you like things is because of the idea of the feeling it gives you. That's where you need to invest. If you're a B2B brand, first of all, if you're a B2B brand, I'll give you a little inside scoop. Everybody can do amazing videos at this point. Go to any production company's website, they all have great portfolios. They show spiny products. They could show people jogging in a sunset. Everybody has good looking images.

These reels that everyone has are kind of useless because they all just look great. What you have to do is go into the portfolio and look at the work and go, "Do I feel anything watching this? Or is this just a video?" Keep in mind, when you procure video, you're not procuring minutes of video, you're procuring a feeling, you're procuring an idea, you're procuring something that will give your prospect impetus to consider you. That's what you have to look for when choosing your agency.

Hope Morley:

This all comes back to the goal of why you're making video for your brand in the first place. The point of making a video ad is not to have a video ad. The point of your video ad is to have an asset that's working for you and actually performing. If it's a LinkedIn ad or if it's something on your website that's trying to convert users, video has a purpose and the purpose of that will be more effective if you invest in the idea behind it.

If you're just looking to plop a video on your website, you can go anywhere and get that. It's pretty easy now to get a video if the point is a video. But if the point is we need something that's going to help convert more people once they land on our website, then you need to think about, "Okay, well how do you speak to those people that are landing on your website?" That is the idea and the thinking behind the video that really needs to come through for that to convert.

Guy Bauer:

By the way, this is not just for video, this is anything. I can get a logo on Fiverr made for five bucks. Will it be any good? Probably not because it's just clip art logos. There's two minutes of thought that go into it. A designer we used to work with told me a very poignant thing once. He was like if you were to actually video him making a design, it would look like he wasted his entire week because for four of the five days, he would just sit there just looking around the internet, and reading magazines, going for walks.

Then on the fifth day, he would spend four hours designing different things. The last half of the day would be fine-tuning one of those designs. It would appear as 80% of his week was waste and only 20% was productivity. But where the value came in, again, the 80/20 thing is actually what you were really paying that guy for was that 80% of "thinking" and kind of just wasting time. That's where the beauty comes in. I always think about that, because if you were to film me when I'm coming up with ideas and writing scripts, you would see me on YouTube watching Charlie, I forget his name, Penguinz0, just YouTubers.

You would see me watching aviation videos of planes landing. How does that relate to what I do in banking or whatever? It doesn't. But that's just the process and that's what you're paying for. This is not a thinly veiled advertisement for Umault, a B2B video agency. Come on, we're not that cheap. But for real, you need to look at the work of the video agency you're going to be choosing. Again, we're not perfect for everybody and no agency is. That's why you've got to actually look and go, does this fit your vibe? Do a vibe check.

Hope Morley:

As the kids say.

Guy Bauer:

As the kids say. Anyway, do a vibe check, and is this kind of what we want? You're buying the idea, you're not buying the video. Stop thinking of procuring minutes of video. You're not getting hosed, you're not getting a bad deal if you pay more for an agency to give you a 30 second ad than you did for a different one to give you a five-minute video, you're not getting a bad deal. That's not how you make winners and losers in this thing of just minutes of procured video. The video is just a delivery. Van Gogh, if you look at Van Gogh, right?

Hope Morley:

The guy or his paintings. 

Guy Bauer:

Look at his paintings. Let's take his painting. What's your favorite Van Gogh, Hope?

Hope Morley:

I don't know, the sunflowers.

Guy Bauer:

Sunflowers are very nice. I like the absinthe bar, the one where there's a green guy in there, because he's drunk. If you look at the raw materials that Van Gogh used, it's like, I don't know, $5 worth of paint, if that. Actually, the Art Institute in Chicago here, he would do hundreds of practice drawings before he would paint something. There's hundreds and hundreds of practice and practice and studies and thinking and prepping and stuff like that.

But the painting itself is not what makes Van Gogh Van Gogh. It's the feeling, it's the creative behind the painting. But anybody can paint a Van Gogh if you just copy it. It's kind of proof. It's not in the production. The production is just one of the last most critical steps, because in the end, it does need to be produced onto a piece of paper, or in the case of video, it needs to be put on YouTube or Vimeo or something. 

But that's not the point of value. The point of value is the artist. That's where the agency comes in, because the agency you choose will have a roster of artists, or will have that stable of artists, and they have a point of view, and you have to make sure that your brand fits that agency's point of view, and that's what you're buying. 

Hope Morley:

A lot of B2B brands are still, we see it as an agency too, they still start the procurement process for a new video or a new video ad by sending a lower level person out to go through clutch reviews or go through Google and make a short list. I feel like it's still being procured as something that is just a simple little asset like a video. They're not really putting people with decision making powers, looking at these websites, and finding the right point of view, and finding the right vibe for your brand.

I understand that people who are higher level at these companies are very busy people. But also, this is or should be a big investment and a statement for your brand. If you're sending out your marketing associate to make your shortlist, you could be missing out on a lot of perfect fit ideas because they're just looking through who has the best clutch reviews in our city.

Guy Bauer:

Or the shiniest website or stuff that doesn't apply. A lot of people get kind of, bamboozled isn't the word, but shiny object syndrome. Say I make adhesives, I just looked at tape. I'm an adhesive manufacturer. Say I make adhesives. Then I go on this website and it has mountain climbing people, and helicopters, and extreme sports, and I'm like, "Cool, let's go with them." But they're not going to be good at adhesive stuff. You have to actually look. That's the thing, a lot of the lower level people, they get like, "Whoa, cool, jet skis," or something, really awesome.

Look at that stuff. Look at the car commercial. I think you're right. I think you actually have to get your hands dirty when you procure agencies and look at their past work and does this fit our vibe? Can they play in our arena? Because I'll tell you what, Umault, if you want to do some kind of mountain climb thing with helicopters and extreme sports, do not come here because there's no way we'd be good at that. There's no way. I'm not going to do any of that stuff.

Hope Morley:

I'm not climbing a mountain.

Guy Bauer:

I'm not climbing mountains. I mean, that's the thing. You have to go out there and stop thinking about the medium of purchasing the medium and start thinking about purchasing ideas. That's kind of the whole treatise of this podcast, as we have 68 or something episodes.

Hope Morley:

This is the 70th episode.

Guy Bauer:

70th episode. With that, we have some big news to share with you.

Hope Morley:

Yes, listeners. I'm sad to announce that I am leaving Umault at the end of April, so this will be my last episode of Death to the Corporate Video. I've had a lot of fun with this podcast. I just got a LinkedIn message from a listener yesterday, I've loved hearing from all of you. Any of you who love what I've had to say, you can find me on LinkedIn. If you hate what I have to say, congratulations, I am not going to be able to show anymore. I think Guy will be taking a little hiatus from the show to figure out what he's going to be doing with it going forward. But you can always follow the Umault team to hear what they're up to.

Guy Bauer:

Thanks. What's your big takeaway from this podcast? What's like the one thing, what's the smartest thing we ever said?

Hope Morley:

This episode is very much the treatise of the show. You're right. This is very much what we've tried to get in, but I think the smartest thing that we ever said is video is just a medium, it's just another thing that you can do for your company. Not every company needs a video, but more should have good video ads than currently do. You should probably be paying more for them than you used to, but you also don't need to pay what you think you need to pay.

Guy Bauer:

Yeah, yeah. I think you're right with that. Yeah, you should pay more, but it's not as much as you think it is. So don't be scared. When I was a younger man, I would be like, "Why doesn't everyone have video?" I thought it was a panacea, just a video, and then I'm good. It's like, no, no, no, you have to have everything. Or you don't have to have everything, but you have to have a stack of stuff.

There is no one channel. You know what I mean? You have to kind of do it all and video is part of that. It's part of that. It can be a big part. I think what we're advocating for, what we've advocated for is that it can have an oversized value if you do it right, it can actually be a huge difference maker, a force multiplier. It's been fun, Hope.

Hope Morley:

This has been fun.

Guy Bauer:

We can't play what I wanted to play, which was the Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World. 

Hope Morley:

Yeah, we're not going to license any expensive songs. I wanted Sarah McLaughlin, I will Remember You. I don't want to know what the licensing fees are on that, what the ASPCA had to spend.

Guy Bauer:

We'll have an in memoriam montage of-

Hope Morley:

I am not dying. I just got a new job. 

Guy Bauer:

You're going to do a great job. 

Hope Morley:

Thank you. Thanks for listening everyone today. Like I said, there might be a little bit of a hiatus in the show, but Guy will still have it, and can release it as soon as he decides what to do with the show going forward. So you can always find Umault on our website at umault.com. That's U-M-A-U-L-T.com. You can find us on all the social media channels, but mostly LinkedIn. It's the best place to follow us for exciting updates and news from the Umault Team.

Guy Bauer:

And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Thank you, Hope.

Hope Morley:

Thanks for listening to everyone. We hope we successfully killed your corporate video.