From Facebook to Broadcast
When producing video content, strategy matters. Take for instance the following video. One version is optimized for broadcast, while the other is optimized for Facebook, can you tell which is which?
If you guessed that the first one is optimized for Facebook, you’d be right. When creating these assets we kept in mind how and where they would be viewed. This asset was initially a social ad that the client loved and asked us to turn into a broadcast spot. What follows is a brief explanation of the strategy behind our creative decisions.
Passive vs Active Audience
The broadcast audience is passive. If they’re watching a show that they like, they’re likely not going to turn the channel because they see a commercial they don’t. They’re also likely watching the show on a relatively large screen with the sound turned on.
The Facebook audience is active. They are in control of how much of an ad they watch with the flick of a finger or the click of a mouse. If they even assume that they might not like something, they’ll scroll right past your ad and move on to something else. The Facebook audience is most likely viewing the ad on mobile with the sound turned off.
Structure
We structured the story linearly, with the product front and center giving the subject the confidence she needed to go out on a successful date. It’s the popular formula of introducing a problem, positioning the product as the solution, and then showing the benefits. This basic structure is present in both edits. The main difference in the broadcast video is that there are more instances of explicit branding and the shots of the product in use are more close up.
Audio
For the Facebook edit, we knew that the user would likely be viewing the video on a mobile device, which meant that the video would likely be muted, the video would show up in the users feed as a paid ad, and that we had to grab the users attention while showing the logo in the first 3 seconds. While we knew that the viewer would likely never turn on the audio, we wanted to make sure that if they did, it was on par with visuals.
In the Broadcast edit, we assumed that the viewer would have the volume turned up to an audible level. This allowed us to use voiceover to carry the narrative and build more of a story about the product benefits.
Strong Visual Story
Without the benefit of audio, we knew that the Facebook edit had to tell a strong visual story. We also knew that the client wanted to keep the focus on the product benefits, which in this case were the nails. One of the early decisions for this series was not to show the subject’s face. The strategy behind this was based on the idea that the viewer would more easily be able to see themselves in a faceless character. In every shot, we worked to make the nails the star. This strategy continued as we restructured the video to fit the broadcast format.
The Edit
For the Facebook edit, we knew that it would loop, it would appear in the timeline with copy, there would be a link to a profile with more information about the product right above the video, and we knew that we were fighting with all of the other content on Facebook for attention. All of this meant that we needed to make this story as short as possible while communicating all of the benefits and a satisfying narrative. This strategy informed decisions in the edit like the split-screen product usage or the opening shot montage.
For the broadcast edit, we knew that we needed to be more deliberate in our storytelling, include more explicit branding, and come in at exactly thirty seconds. This meant more close-up, more simplified shots, and featuring more brand assets throughout the video.
Color Correction
It may seem like a small change, but we pushed for a more stylized faded look on the Facebook edit. We were attempting to emulate a lot of the VSCO filters that had recently become popular in the hopes that viewers might see the brand as standing out from the more saturated higher contrasted looks of its competitors. While this worked on Facebook, it felt out of place with some of the more explicit branding elements of the broadcast edit, so we went for a more standard CPG look that wouldn’t look out of place when our audience was waiting for the next contestant to be eliminated from The Bachelor.
It makes sense that something that works on one platform would work well on another, and in a lot of cases it does, but there are a number of strategically significant ways to make your content work harder based on where it’s going to live. The more you know about the destination of an asset before you start shooting, the more money you can save and the less time you’ll waste.