Ops Cast
Ops Cast, by MarketingOps.com, is a podcast for Marketing Operations Pros by Marketing Ops Pros. Hosted by Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo & Naomi Liu
Ops Cast
The Evolution of Video Production with Christian Schu and David Siciliano
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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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Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast brought to you by MarketingOpscom and powered by other mod pros out there. I am your host, joined by my dog. Thank you, just perfect timing. I'm joined by my co-host, mike Rizzo. Naomi's not here today, mike, how's it going?
Speaker 2:Hey everybody.
Speaker 1:Good, it's, early for you, early for you, it is early for me.
Speaker 2:I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking, it's all good for me.
Speaker 1:I got workers at the house, you got dogs barking, it's all good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and by workers I mean we're adding a room addition to my home. It's been chaos. I have two small children for those of you that follow along and we needed more space desperately. So it has been. It has been a fun couple of weeks, but I'm glad to be back on the show.
Speaker 1:All right, awesome, we're glad to have you and, as you can see, we have guests today. So joining us today we're going to be talking about the evolution of video production with two guests. So joining us today are Christian Schuh, who's in I think you're in Germany. Every time I talk to you you're in a different location and David Siciliano and David, you have to do this.
Speaker 3:All right, I was pretty good. No, no, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, I did. All right, all right. Christian has known he was interested in cameras, film and television since he was a child. After treating filmmaking as a hobby, he eventually made it his vocation. Today he develops ideas, produces and films as a team for many companies in the high-end hi-fi audio industry, among many other projects. So look forward to talking about that. And then, with more than a decade of experience in video production, david has a wide range of projects in his portfolio. He has assembled and managed teams of 20 plus crew, established systems and processes, managed budgets up to eight figures and ideated content for some of the biggest brands in the United States. So we've got people from two different continents. Christian David, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much for having us, for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same, same. It's nice to hang out with you guys. Yeah, for those that that are, the other thing that david is for us is, uh, he's. He's all the secret sauce behind the mopsapalooza, like hype reels, the video post all the things video that we are doing. David and his team are doing so that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's, let's uh, let's have you come on the show and talk shop with us? Uh, alongside Christian here, who I'm super excited to learn from both of you, and, um, I know Michael has the hard task of trying to figure out how to stitch all this together. Like, why do marketing operations professionals care about the video side of things? But look, marketing ops isn't just marketing. It's so much more than that and we need to learn about the whole some of the parts right.
Speaker 1:That's why we wanted to have you two on, so we're excited and I know I'm curious because it's always been a mystery to me. When I hear about it, and especially when I hear about how much it costs but we probably won't get too much into that they're like what are you talking about? Yeah, right, no. But yeah, david should look familiar to some folks. He was at Mopspalooza back in November.
Speaker 3: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:Well, why don't we start with this? Liked having both of you on is, I think. Maybe you both sort of do different 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 to you first, and then David, uh, if you want to jump in as well sure?
Speaker 4:um well, what I'm doing, uh, basically these days is producing content, for most of my clients are in the hi-fi and high-end industry, so we are talking about Focal from France, name Audio from the UK, bang Olufsen from Denmark, macintosh Labs from the US and a few other competitors that I work for and that I help to, yeah, produce content in whatever way they need it. Like, for example, they have a new product launch and I'm the one to weave that product into a story, into a compelling story for the audience to buy more of it. I mean, at the end, it's all about sales and I'm helping them, I do my best to achieve it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we're not doing that much different. To be honest, a lot of what it is now is performance content. So meta ads, facebook ads, linkedin videos, youtube, ctv is huge now I think linear TV is kind of less popular these days, but streaming ads, all that kind of stuff, so, um, yeah, that's what we do. We're trying to bring some of that and a big brand agency style stuff towards the middle and lower. Lower, uh, middle and smaller, um brands, uh, so they can, they can play too okay, ctv linear tv I'm sorry, I was gonna say
Speaker 2:you're gonna have to. No, it's okay, it's just me learning as I go here. Yeah, yeah. For those of us that haven't ever spent time in ad tech, please explain what's TV and linear TV is.
Speaker 3:Yes, linear TV is. I don't know why it's called linear, 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 you make ads and they place them there. Connected TV is CTV, so that's your like. Hulu, amazon Prime, netflix, well, netflix, are they doing ads? Yet I don't think so. It's all the streaming networks that are doing ads.
Speaker 1:They are doing ads, I think.
Speaker 2:Are they doing ads now? Yeah, they just introduced it, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they doubled down. They're increasing the subscription and they're doing advertising.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it was a little surprising they hadn't done that yet. To be honest, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: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 the distribution network for the rails that were built for Skype, even though it's getting like sunsetted officially now, like when those rails were built, like they sort of just like oh, so much you know the underlying infrastructure is what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they had the most nominated films at the Oscars this year. Netflix did See that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Wild, I know it was a big deal when they had one a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:How many? Okay, so I'm not following movies. I was at somebody's house the other night when that was on. How?
Speaker 3:many movies were nominated for Best Picture? Oh, I don't know. Do you know Christian? Someone asked if it was like eight or nine, no idea, I was like how did?
Speaker 4:they get eight or nine. I love the film industry but I'm not following up on this because I'm mostly in marketing, I mean in marketing-related stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, marketing-related, like film production, right, and content production.
Speaker 3:I'm with you. I also have two kids.
Speaker 1:I don't have time to watch a three-hour movie, right, right, well, I know, like for me, I'm going back and watching movies that I grew up with and a lot of it was with my kids right and seeing, like, which ones still resonate so well. It's interesting, kristen, that you brought up, right that you're in marketing. So this is one of the things I think in talking to both of you individually. That struck me is that you talked about that you're really a marketer as opposed to a filmmaker, a video producer, whatever, which kind of surprised me and kind kind of did it. But, um, you know, why don't you walk through? Like, what do you? What does that mean to you? And David, why don't you go first and then, christian, you can jump in as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I mean when I, when I started, it was, you know, hey, there's a video line in your marketing budget and I mean now it's your. Your marketing budget is your video budget, your marketing budget is your video budget. I mean, it's just changed so much and I think some of what we've seen is like, you know, the traditional video production model where you charge a hundred grand for a 30 second video and you know that's all you get is just not going to cut it anymore. You need continuous content. You know on a, on a, on a cadence and across all your channels, and you know you be able to afford it. And you know ROAS and all these things.
Speaker 3:And so all these terms, that marketing terms and sales terms that get thrown around, that I didn't know a while ago. We now have to know so that we can size our projects to their goals, their metrics, their tracking, their budgets, their sales objectives. And if we're making something that's got a really cool crane shot or something they might not need that crane shot because that adds money to the project. So, unfortunately, we have to know it now. So, yeah, I agree with Christian, I think we're more sales people, we're like an extension of their sales team, kind of yes.
Speaker 4:I mean, my experience is 10 years ago the market was still different. Now you have a 15 seconds video that will work on youtube. The audience clicks on it, then it they will find they will go to the instagram account or to a facebook account, whatever social media and there will be the one minute length and then they still click on and then they will reach, uh, the website where you have a three minutes, the whole clip of it. So what you need to make sure as a filmmaker nowadays is that it all works on each platform. Those small little seconds 15 seconds clip needs to work. The one minute clip needs to work, but also the three minutes clip needs to work at the end.
Speaker 4:So the audience will feel like, oh nice, ok, I want to buy that product or I want to learn more or whatever it is, but they interact with the company and with that account. And to make that possible, you know, 10 years ago you shot with like a shotgun onto the people. 20% were hit and they were interested, and 80% yeah, whatever, I don't care. Now, with the tailored niche that you can target directly, it's so different from the old days. I mean, I don't know about you, david, but for me it's definitely changed a lot and the old days meaning like 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. It's not 10 years ago, just 10 years ago.
Speaker 3: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 selling their REDs. I mean, the RED camera was a branded camera. That was really popular, you know, five, six, seven years ago, because it was the first you know really nice cinema camera. That wasn't already and the whole thing. And now my two thousand dollar camera is just as good, and so is my twenty thousand dollar camera. So why do I need the? Eighty thousand dollar camera. Everything's changed.
Speaker 2:It's pretty wild yes, there's so many like follow-on questions I want to unpack that I'm sure are laid out in our document that I probably didn't actually read because, no, it's all good, I'm the worst person on the planet when it comes to that.
Speaker 2:But what I do want to say is that's the connection, like I don't know for our listeners and maybe for you, michael, but like I am hearing so many similarities in the way that a marketing operations person thinks about go-to-market across the tech stack, like being able to think about derivative sort of use cases of data and asset right, like being able to segment, get down to a very specific audience because they have to understand at the sort of like top layer, let's call it, what is the go-to-market goal that you're trying to achieve and what markets do you want to enter, what messaging, what type of testing and frameworks do you need in place and how do we support the underlying ecosystem to be able to storyboard a piece of content that can be sliced down to a sort of 15 second segment that's still going to resonate for probably not just like this little slice of the audience that you want to talk about, but like, more specifically, this slice of the audience at the top of the buying curve, right like, or the funnel rather right, and so, like you're fully marketers, like you're thinking about a funnel, and so are we, and I think that, like, in order for you to do your job well, you have to know.
Speaker 2:I would imagine this is more of a question than kind of a statement, but a question I would imagine you get into conversations pretty quickly about, like, more or less the personas and the data for the customers. Is that an accurate or a fair assessment of whoever wants to say yes, well, go for it someone gonna speak up.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say you can go first, christian, it's all right, all right right?
Speaker 4:um, well, for me, definitely. Uh, I agree on that a hundred percent. The the most talk I have with with companies, especially if they are larger companies, is with 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? Uh, yeah, video production, whatever they need, who is watching it and what are they supposed to do after that? That's the most important thing, and then only I can come up with a storyline that hopefully will drive the audience that that way. Um, but most of the most of the talking I'm doing with the marketing department there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I 100% agree. Do you have awareness content? Where are they in the customer journey? Is this a consideration phase thing? I have to have all those conversations which I didn't have to five years ago. Now it's what other types of content are you doing? Where is this in the sales funnel? Okay, great. Who are your target customers? What else are they consuming? Well then, we should probably look a little bit like that, or similar to it, or contrast to it. I have to be aware of you, know what else is in their feed. I mean, it's full blown marketing strategy and it's tough for us because we have to do, I have to draw a line of I can't tell you your marketing strategy. I'm not. You're not hiring me as a marketer, you're hiring me as your video production producer. So, but I need to be able to have those conversations too. And yeah, it's um yeah, oh also like sorry go for it, go ahead.
Speaker 3:No, this happened just a couple of weeks ago. You know we're doing a cooler commercial and, hey, my marketing team is going to want to have that same cooler. But in all the other six colors that the cooler comes in, can we swap it out real quick? We totally can, because they need to ask for that. Because I've been in the other situation where it's like, hey, can we swap in and do the same shot with six other products and we're like, no, we don't have time. Now it's yeah, we've made time because I know that's coming. Your whole team needs so many assets beyond this one little project. Let's plan for that at a time. I mean, it's just completely changed. It's a whole different type of project now. Yeah, am I hearing this?
Speaker 1:right. So, like in those old days, right, you would basically be contracted to do sort of one sort of big piece of content right in a video that would be used typically, and maybe one or maybe you sliced up and use it smaller bits for for things. But now you have to be doing like. You need to understand the strategy of how this one set of content you're developing that may or may not all be one piece at one point right, could be multiple pieces, and then what elements are going to be reused in other places and how it's going to be used along with other content, which is, I think, what you said, david. Is that, like, is that really the big shift? Like, then, why you need to now be thinking about what's the marketing strategy and who is it, who the audience is and all that kind of stuff. Christian's nodding his head in a way that like, no, maybe not quite right, what is? What's your thought, christian?
Speaker 4:I, I would say yes, it's really different, because before you produced, like you mentioned, michael, one piece of film and that was finished and the client was happy. But nowadays you need to prepare for so many options. Let's say like for, for example, what, what I'm doing, there is a product coming out and this product is available in five different colors or in five different finishings, with oak and with walnut and whatever. You need to show all of this. If we don't do it, uh, fully digital, if we really shoot it in, in, in, like, in on location, in reality.
Speaker 4:We need to show all of this because one thing is the most of the people have a lot less imagination, a loss, a lot less attention spent than a few years ago. So we need to show that, that the people can imagine how it looks like in their home, in their house. They cannot imagine the walnut. If you give them that looks like walnut or oak tree, they are like uh-huh, okay, but how does it look like in my home? So they want to really see that. So we need to show it to them and for this we need to prepare the same speaker, the same device, whatever it is, in the same location. Basically, best would be with a robot to film that, because you can just repeat the shot 100 times. It doesn't matter, just do it again, and, again, and again. So we have the material and from there we go, we take it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think the symptom was hey, we need, you know, instead of this one deliverable or this one deliverable in five languages or whatever very small deliverable list, we need 200 deliverables. You're already there, right, you know. You can just add it on to the day and so, and and you know. Oh, and, by the way, like we now are needing to spend across all these other channels, can we, can we make the budget smaller? Can we cut some of the crew? So then I think I think the natural response was okay, how do we, how do we adjust then, if that's the new ask now, all the time, and so that's where it came into like, okay, well, we got to understand. What are they doing? What are they doing with this material? Why is this coming up? Oh, so they don't need x, y or z. They need, they need more, but they still need the quality to be good. Okay, how do we solve that?
Speaker 1:it became a whole different kind of conversation and then they have the budget like constraints as well, typically. Yeah, mike, were you to say some?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was just. It's interesting, um, this.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I guess the best way I can talk about it is because we're doing it every day with with david and his team and so, like I shocked, david probably loves and hates me all at the same time, because I just like fire off emails to him like hey, like we should try to do this next, and he's like, oh god you are an idea generator, mike are an idea, man and a connector yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, uh, but so you know the, the thing that's interesting to me, um, about your you, christian and David, your sort of roles in this like what I've perceived from this conversation and my experience so far in working with with folks like you is, um, how freeing it is to sort of have some of these ideas but be able to rely on someone that um can be effectively like a product marketer, um, and a creative in that way. Um, I heard you, chris, a uh that you, you sort of you know, and you, you too, david, but you both were talking about how you have to sort of figure out how to tell the story right and how to stitch it together in a new way. I shot an email off to David the other day and, for our listeners, we're making lots of improvements to the way that membership is going to happen in the community and we need a way to make sure you all see just how important that is and how valuable that's going to be to you. And I don't know how to stitch that together perfectly, like, I feel like I've tried a bunch of different times, but at this point, like I've, I was like you know what we need to work with storytellers right that that can help us pull the emotion into the transaction that we're going to ask you all to to be a part of right. We would love for you to become paid members, and so do you feel.
Speaker 2:This is me like getting to this question. I tend to talk long, I apologize. Do you feel like your role is that you're taking on this product? Are you literally looking at the features and functionalities of the products you're trying to sell to then figure out how to tell a story? Have you ever adding on to this? Have you ever had to try to figure out how to repackage something and suggest to a team that, wait, maybe this isn't quite right, because you know the way you structured this set of features together just doesn't fit with what you're who you're trying to sell to Christian.
Speaker 4:I'll start with you Repackage. Well, what I experienced? That some people in the marketing department are too close to the product. They are talking about the features and what the product can do. Um, but I believe and that might be a little bit tough when I say that but I believe the product doesn't matter, it must be good, but it must work for the target audience, that it should do what it's supposed to do. You can't sell a car that doesn't drive, but anything besides, that is only emotion and you need to make sure that you trigger this emotion in your audience. And that only works with storytelling. No matter how good or bad is that product, hopefully it's good so the company will sell some value. But it's about uh, it's about the story. It's not about the product. It's about what the product does with the client, with the audience yeah, yeah, um.
Speaker 3:I use an example to instead of saying the same thing, because I think christian and I are in lockstep on that. An example for us would be this cooler 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 the voiceover, say that because it sounds cool and fancy, but you got to show that it is, can go, you know, roll over rocks and get thrown off a cliff and thrown in the water and it's fine because it's injection molded okay, so it's tough the story I'm telling is that it's durable, it's tough, it gets me outdoors, I don't have to worry about it, it's got a vibe, you'll do it.
Speaker 3:Those are fun, evocative, emotional things. But and so I learned that this word makes me feel a certain way. But it's not really about injection molding. What is that right?
Speaker 1:well, I Well, I mean that reminds me of the story about the marketing of the iPod right when it first came out. There's all the technical specs and when they changed it to, I can't remember. 5,000 songs in your pocket, right? That's kind of the difference you're talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly However many gigabytes or what kind of chip or name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what formats it will play?
Speaker 3:Yada or yeah. What formats it will play? You gotta get it. Yeah, no one knows what the m2 chip is. Oh yeah, you know what it makes it feel m m4 pro max man
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm, I'm old, I'm sorry, we're at m4 now see exactly what is that. What is that?
Speaker 1: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 so that makes sense so, christian, you mentioned you spent a lot of time up front talking to the marketing team, cmo, about the strategy and what the objective is Like, what comes like, what's your process after that, like once you kind of go through that initial step of understanding that.
Speaker 4:That initial step can, by the way, take quite long. I mean, we are talking about hours that I need to understand the target group and what is? What is the target of the company? What do they want to achieve? Sure, um?
Speaker 1:so to me it seems like the most important step this is the.
Speaker 4:For me, that's the most important step, because everything after that, if, if you don't want it to be lucky like, oh yeah, we hit the right spot by accident If you want to reach really the target, you need to understand this first step. That's the number one thing. I will pull myself out of that and really think about how would I sell that to somebody in a conversation or what examples would I bring up. And that's not only me. I also have a team behind thinking about what story can we use to sell this product or to show that product. Sometimes the marketing department will come up with some ideas already. We take them in consideration and either we weave them into a better story or a good story or we invent, let's say, some other things that works for that client, for the target group, yeah, for the niche they are serving.
Speaker 1:David, how about you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what are our first steps? I agree with a lot of that. I think I. Well, mike, hopefully I do do this, but it's always what's the goal, right, we know what are we trying to do here. I want to know where it's going to.
Speaker 3:I think that's because my background at the big agency was like those were for, you know again, linear TV projects. That was a very specific type of process. But if I'm doing a video and it's going to be a post on a feed that you know people won't see in 48 hours, that's a whole different project. So for me that's really important. It's like where is this going? Where does it need to go after that? Uh, so I can like think about okay, so how am I, how do I do this to get them, those many things, or the right type of things, to those places?
Speaker 3:Right, like, if it's going to be in social media feed, does it really need to be a super crafted, well-lit thing, or should it just be like an iphone clip of someone like talking about the product? Um, so that helps me orient myself. First, those two questions and then 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 three seconds at the beginning of the video that people are only going to watch, that we have to to convince them to keep watching and maybe click on something.
Speaker 1:Are you typically doing with? Oh, go ahead. Christian.
Speaker 4:Sorry. What also is important for me to know is I need to understand what is the marketing department going 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 for Christmas. And now is August, for example, and now we are preparing for Christmas, and that film will be out, or that clip will be out for like one month, beginning of December, until Christmas, or in one year or in two years. That clip still must look good and must be fancy and the people still need to be interested in this. This is also a huge difference you need to consider when doing your story. I mean for sure for David, that's the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely I love it. That's hitting a little bit at where I was going to go.
Speaker 1:It's too far question Do you typically get these requests as sort of they're a one-off thing, or are you getting involved in sort of if there's like multiple type, like there's, um, an overarching story, right, and you're doing a chapter at a time, right, I don't know what, if that's the best analogy, does that make sense? Is that like, is it? Are you, is it? How important is it for the strategy and the goal for that one particular thing, how is? How important is it to understand how it fits into the overarching overall strategy, whether it's video or other components?
Speaker 1:feel like the business side of david, you look like you were ready to go on that one.
Speaker 3: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 you know, when you don't have kids, you watch people have kids and you're like well, this is how I would do it, right? Oh yeah, it feels a little bit like that, like I don't have the business but I'm on the outside, so like I get these briefs and it'll be like okay, here's our holiday campaign we're going to I understand the process, blah, blah. Hey, we want a testimonial because we want to sell our product. Oh, what else are you doing? No, no, that's it, we just want to. You know it's like oh, okay, well, what else are you going to do with it? Like we have to kind of coach them out of it. So I feel like we get a really interesting perspective on brand to brand, how they're approaching whatever marketing sales campaign there is, and I don't think there's a right way or wrong way.
Speaker 3:I think it's completely fine to come 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 is it you're trying to do? We can make that, but let's like flesh out more of it just in case and maybe that will you know, help us come up with other things we need to make. Or we can make that one thing and then make sure Should we capture other stuff at the same time. So it's a really funny question. It comes in all forms. I want to make a thing, or here's what I want to do, and anywhere in between.
Speaker 2:For our listeners. I would like a new field in the CRM. It's like that's great For what?
Speaker 1:Right, yes.
Speaker 2:Oh, I want to capture this data. Okay, okay, but why do you want to capture the data? Oh, because we're trying to do this. Okay, but what is that thing? Okay, now we're getting to the like underlying you know what? Maybe let's not create that new field.
Speaker 2:We already have these other ways we can solve this problem right right I was just like, as you were all talking, I'm like, yep, that happens all the time. I think at a bare minimum, our marketing ops team needs to be able to like sit in on your discovery calls just to learn how to do our back like our version of discovery on the tech side, because you're pulling out information to try to get to the underlying sort of why, sort of why, in the same way that we're trying to coach our sort of constituents across the organization you know to say, hey, maybe we don't need to do it that way.
Speaker 3:Just tell me more Christian. I'm curious your point of view on this. I feel a little bit like we're a therapist, sometimes for the marketing person who's on the call. They're like stressed and they're like they have all these demands from their CEO or whatever and like their CMO wants this thing and the ops people need something. And they're like, okay, I just need, like, I just need that shot in four different colors and and and like cool, like you know what's the, you know trying to 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:And it's always their fault. No matter what they do, they are wrong. It's their fault that it's not selling. It's their fault that the video team is not doing what they're supposed to do. It's always their fault. So, actually, sometimes, maybe not, sometimes, maybe often I feel like a psychologist here. Yeah, I will be like okay, actually, what are we going to do? And exactly like how you mentioned that before, david, we can do the whole project, the whole year of video production for you. But what do you want us to do? What do you want to achieve with it? We can do that seasonal thing and we can do the whole thing. What? What is your, your target? And for me, for example, um, what?
Speaker 4:What applies to me is when I work with big companies and I work with most of my clients for many, many years. It's not just one project, it's a long time working together, um, but of course I I'm German, I'm mostly working in Germany, 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 the UK market, but when it comes to, for example, france or the rest of Europe, they will ask me to do that, and then I need to find a way to find the right appeal to that target group. In Germany, it's different what the people like than in France, than in Spain, than in Poland or wherever they are in Austria and Switzerland. All of this is different and you can't just produce one spot for all of this or one story for all of this and then put that all over them.
Speaker 4:It won't work. You need to be very careful about the national interest and what they are like the values. For example, italy, andain is a lot more religious than the rest, so you need to make sure that you don't hurt any feelings when it comes to this. Yeah, so it's. It's such a wide, wide thing, and that's why I sit so long with the marketing team at the beginning and ask them okay, what is it we are talking about?
Speaker 3:yeah, I I cannot agree more. The amount of times I recently have gotten hey, can we um do this shop without any seltzers in it, because it won't sell on the east coast. It's like, okay, sure like we'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 permutations and variations on it.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting. The cultural component of what you have to be thinking about on top of just is the message and the story good too.
Speaker 2:I hadn't thought about that. Um, and I hope for our listeners. I think this is where, like, there's this really clear um you know moment where a market you know I I posted a year ago marketing ops isn't marketing and people just sort of like they're lost their minds, like what are you talking about? Right?
Speaker 1:like literally. Is that a year ago now?
Speaker 2:that's crazy. It's like coming up on a year.
Speaker 2:It's pretty close yeah um and and and this is kind of what I was trying to say is that, like, you should be fundamentally aware of these things, these fundamentals that a brand marketer or a just someone who's trying to sell products across various personas, the things that they need to consider, and the reason you need to be aware of that is so that you can do your best to support the underlying ecosystem, to enable them to go achieve the thing that they're looking to achieve. Right, if David and Christian are sitting there saying that we're going to have to produce this asset that sells across coast to coast, and the marketers think they need to do that, and then you turn around, you go, hey, but guess what? We only have two percent of our database that is actually on the east coast, which would be bananas. But, like, let's just pretend for the sake of the argument, two percent are there. You're like, well, maybe we don't need to spend money on that. Or you're entering the market and you're like we really go hard on this. And like let's not waste time because we're already saturated in the West Coast. So like, let's just focus on what that side of the market is going to need.
Speaker 2:It's not your job, though, to know those specific cultural differences, and that's what I was trying to say. Is that, like it is really important for you to know broadly marketing for peas, product price, placement, positioning, all that stuff. But you don't just, like David said, like hey, we're not your strategist, we're not going to help you become a marketing like, a better marketing team or whatever. We're going to help you do the thing that we are really good at marketing operations professionals. We're also not your marketing strategist. Please stop throwing everything at us right.
Speaker 2:Marketing ops isn't just marketing, it's about so much more. And I was just like those are the things that are super important. I remember being in college, like I graduated the business marketing degree and I was told, oh yeah, there was a shot of a Mercedes that they, incidentally put the like basic. They basically put the wrong color palette in the market and it was like a very specific thing, like it was something like if the handle was white, it would never sell. Like it was like something very specific like that, like they would they just like literally never sell that version of the car there, and it was the wrong image put into the wrong market and it was the wrong image put into the wrong market and it tanked because they're like our cars don't look like that what does that?
Speaker 2:you know like that's the name.
Speaker 3:I'm curious if you, if you think this is similar for marketing ops, but, um, I think there's. Uh, christian, I know you'll agree with this. I think there's a kind of like magic in what it looks like we do. Um, you know, like we like ask you for this thing and like make this thing, and you just like magically produce these images like whoa, and that's amazing. But it is a trade and there are very specific steps and a process and in order to make that magic, like I, we have to ask a lot of questions to for you to articulate what it is you're going for and why and how, because that's how the magic happens.
Speaker 3:And so there is a really weird moment between the marketer and the video producer of you know, okay, but tell me about that feature. Well, what does that mean? Okay, does your market care about that? Do they care about that more than this other feature? There's just so many questions and I've had to really be really careful because I'm a doer, so I'll be like, yeah, let's do it, but I have to slow down and make sure I'm asking so many questions to get you to articulate to me what it is you actually want to do and what your marketing strategy is. I can't tell you what it is. I have to help you articulate it. But it does need to be articulated, otherwise magic does not happen.
Speaker 4:But at least most of the times, you hopefully have the marketing team knowing these things that you ask them. Sometimes I happen to have the situation that I ask questions and they are looking at me like I don't know how to describe that. They never heard about it and I'm like no, no, that's important. What color are we showing? What accessory are we showing? Is that something that your target group wants to see or not? Right, like no, no, that's important. What color are we showing? What accessory are we showing? Is that something that your target group wants to see or not?
Speaker 3:right, and they are like we don't know which, to be fair, is also fine, but it does mean oh well, then maybe let's shoot both. And now we're shooting more, by the way. Let's shoot both and you can a b test it in your marketing ops. What am I doing?
Speaker 4:with the product. You know what? What am I doing? As a film? I cannot. I mean, I can produce 10 different videos that are slightly different, but it's all over the same for you. But you don't want to pay that price, Right?
Speaker 1:Actually it's interesting because you just brought up A-B testing and when Mike started his, I was like we've talked a lot about sort of changes over the last several years in terms of, like, the production side of it and what the outcomes are. But are you, are you also being driven by either data that your clients have about what works, what doesn't work, that they have, and are you getting any feedback about how yours are performing in terms of the overall outcome?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was gonna ask the same, like I. I feel like the buck might stop with the deliverable um, at the end of the day, for for you all, but I would. I would love for it to not stop there, but, um, yeah, how's that? Are you guys getting any feedback from? Okay, yeah, like this one asset actually was the winner, or whatever.
Speaker 3:I don't know what you think, christian. I mean. This is a great question. I feel like this is where things are changing. I don't know what it's like in Europe. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.
Speaker 4:Okay, mostly the answer that I get is, maybe half a year or three months later I get a call from the team, from the CEO, from the CMO or from whoever from that company saying Christian, can we do that again? That's mostly my feedback that I get, but I don't know the 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 even though I would like to know, this is nothing that they will mostly disclose to me, because then I'm still the external part, I'm still not yet part of, or not no part of, that company, even though we work so close together. But, yeah, they have what they need. They will put some money into ads, uh, and and ad spend and you use, uh, my footage that they have, or the film, whatever they have from me. They will use it on across their website, social media and ad um, and then it performs or not, 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:I mean, I agree. I think we have one brand we've worked with. Who, uh, their ceo? It's a very small brand, I think they're like two million revenue or four million revenue, something, um, so smaller um side.
Speaker 3:And, um, he wanted me to sit down 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 the most invaluable thing I've ever done. I know exactly what's working and not working. Okay, great, next shoot, let's do this and make sure we shoot these three hooks because that's what performed. And we've now like, over itperformed all the still graphic ads, which for this brand, is a big deal. And like, because it's a small brand and video is typically on meta, which is getting in the weeds but typically costs more to make a conversion than a static ad does, but you need video to kind of warm up people.
Speaker 3:It's like a whole thing that I've now learned from these calls and I wish I had that for all of our brands. I wish I knew what actually worked. Like, what are you finding? Let's do twice as much of that on the next one. And now we're an invaluable part of your team. We're growing with you. We can start creating a playbook on what's working or not working, how that changes over time. I mean God, I crave that. But we're never. That's very rare, unless you're a huge agency or part of a whole team and you're already selling that service alongside your video team. But that's not us.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so is that change what you're asking when you, when you're doing this sort of uh investigation phase about it, like, are you starting to now ask for data to inform some of this stuff or, and you're finding are, are you getting that or are you finding that a lot of these companies or agencies don't don't actually know?
Speaker 3:uh, it's kind of both some don't know, some I think it's like another step they don't want to do, um, I don't know. I think I get the sense from their perspective that it that's just, it's just not something that's top of mind or obvious to them, that we'd want to know that 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 about this shoot. What do you think based on that? You know, like that's a different kind of conversation. I just I don't think it's obvious.
Speaker 4:I think we were traditionally just vendors, right, hand-in-hand photos, you know, and sometimes I even hear something like why do you want to know that? Why is it important to you? And then I need to explain why I would like to have these numbers and the data so I can have a better storytelling at the end for them. But sometimes I need to educate as well interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think there's again parallels to what our marketing ops audience has to 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 access to the data, right, so we can. We could provide feedback about, like, actually this other thing works better when we do it this way. Um, so we're running out of time. I do want to. I want to hit one more topic and get your thoughts on this Cause it's hard to avoid this topic in any conversation these days. But, like, how do you see AI, in whatever form you want to think about it, either already influencing what you're doing and what's happening in the video space, and then, what do you any ideas of? Like, what's coming around the corner? Christian, do you want to go first?
Speaker 4:Christian, you go first. Yeah, ai is okay. How to say that I like AI in general? Because I like the idea that I have an assistant next to me that works 24-7 if necessary and do research for me, give me some analysis and those kind of things I really appreciate and I use AI for that. I really appreciate and I use AI for that.
Speaker 4:But when it comes to understanding a story and triggering emotions, I would say not yet there. Maybe in a few years, maybe next year, I don't know, but not yet there. What happens is they? Yeah, I also asked them to write me a story that is compelling and so on. Yeah, but it's missing. It's very generic. It's like somebody is having an idea and the AI is writing from this idea and then like copy pasting it more or less, but it's nothing unique and there is no twist to it. But it's nothing unique and there 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:Yeah, I agree no-transcript. Oh my goodness, I, I, it's like it's a tool but it still needs architects and it. Um, I mean, we've been using ai for for a long time. A bunch of the tools on my my adobe suite all of a sudden were branded as ai. But they're the same tool that we 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, they said, oh yeah, this is an ai tool. So now there's all these ai tools in the w suite.
Speaker 3:Um, the tools are also getting better, exponentially faster, and we can do the uh, what I call the david fincher thing. This is maybe again to film nerdy, but david fincher and his movies won't use cg on the main thing you're looking at. But he'll like change the mountain in the background to be like three skyline, like three skyline buildings, whatever, so that like it feels a little bit more urban. Right, it's something in the background like I've. I can now do that with ai. I can do a shot and be like there's this weird pole or something in the shot here. Why don't we just move it and add a window? Because now it looks more open and and breezy and maybe that fits the brand.
Speaker 3:So, um, but it's still me doing it like it's not like it. Before it would have been very expensive to do that and my, my big agency job, that would have been very expensive, which we did all the time to do that kind of thing. And, um, now everyone can play because it's it takes two seconds. So you don't need, like a compositor, to spend three days recreating a beer cup because it had a pump hidden in it to, like, make it explode, like. You can just do it with ai.
Speaker 4:Um, so I don't know yeah, as a tool, I think it's great, great tool yeah well.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like. I mean it's kind of what I've been hearing. I think in a lot of ways like it's, it's it's become a really helpful tool for, um, repetitive and mundane kinds of things right that are easily reproducible. I mean, I think your point about it not really providing creativity and the humanity part of it right. I mean, I'm not a music. I'm not. I don't have any musical talent. I love music and one of the things 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: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 to think like specifically the thing we use it the most for is motion tracking. So if someone moves their hand across the screen, I can use ai to track their hand and remove it, and this means I can like put text behind someone's head and I can like make cool things happen. You could do that before, but it would take so much time and they don't have money for it, so you 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 ginormous brand that I won't name. So, um, you know, now it's like I can do that for Mike's videos and it doesn't take more time. It takes two seconds and it's great and it looks really cool and it looks like really high, high, high production value, right Like um. So I don't know, I don't know if it's really eliminating anything yet for us, but we'll see, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: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 are at a minimum, but, um, so I I think this will be useful for our audience if, if folks want to connect with you or learn more about what you're doing, what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 4: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 media and YouTube, but it's all on my website, so basically, that's the first place to be to find me.
Speaker 1:Terrific.
Speaker 3:David, same here as SavvyStudioscom, which, by the time this publishes, we will have a whole new website with new branding and everything which is exciting. So, yeah, everything is on there, so you can find all the links there.
Speaker 1:Awesome Well guys thank you again, appreciate it. Mike, thanks for joining, as always. Uh, thanks always to our listeners for continuing to listen to us, support us. Uh, watch us now. Um, we appreciate that. If you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest, reach out to Naomi, mike or me and we'd be happy to chat with you about it. Until next time, bye, everybody.
Speaker 3:Bye, Thanks guys.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much.