In-house Video Production: a Must for Agencies Today

Smooth sequences shot free-hand, breathtaking drone footage and a mix of stories, music and different filming techniques - Casey Neistat launched his daily YouTube Vlog four years ago and met the expectations of the VoD generation head-on. Today, New York's best-known YouTuber has over eleven million subscribers and serves as a source of inspiration for many up-and-coming creators. 

Self-directed video production: What has long since established itself in the B2C sector, through social media, is still in its infancy in B2B. The main focus there is on perfectly scripted storylines and high-quality content created by external production companies - no room for experiments and unusual formats. 

Snaps vs. classic corporate videos: two very contrary worlds seem to be colliding. But market demands have changed and triggered a chain reaction. As the boundaries between professional and private become increasingly blurred, social networks are also gaining in importance in the B2B sector. In Instagram and Co., the popularity of video formats is increasing. The reaction of companies? New tasks for their agencies. They must now create cost-effective, fast and channel-specific video content. But will production companies still be commissioned to create additional social media videos, or will agencies take production into their own hands?

No way back for Agencies

In my opinion, there is no way around this development. And there are three decisive reasons for this: First off, companies are no longer willing to pay huge amounts of money for video production due to the new possibilities. Budgets for motion picture contracts is therefore shifting in favour of social media content. Secondly, a lot of time and corporate knowledge is lost to outsourcing. This in turn leads to the last point: Video productions are not identical. TV commercials, for example, have completely different requirements than social snippets, which agencies can implement in-house much more efficiently. 

1. Old World vs. New World 

So far, video productions were pure throughput items and very cost-intensive. If, for example, a company planned an image film, it would approach an agency, which in turn commissioned an external film production company. On the one hand, this resulted in highly professional video material. On the other hand, this also resulted in immense production costs, long decision paths and a video that was only suitable for a certain channel. 

However, LinkedIn, Facebook and Co. as well as technical innovations in the video sector, today offer completely new alternatives for addressing target groups via motion picture. The trend is clearly facing away from elaborate and impersonal image productions towards authentic company presentations. In times of Casey Neistat, Beauty Vlogs and other influencers who have achieved major success with their self-made videos, the question inevitably arises: "Why should I invest horrendous sums for video content if others celebrate equally great success with self-made videos? Although film production remains expert knowledge, it is becoming technically more and more easy to implement. That's why prices are falling drastically. The result is increased competition among agencies and other contractors. To keep the cost gap in check and remain competitive, far-reaching in-house production is the logical consequence.

2. Organizing Inhouse-Production

In order to realise in-house video production, brand, channel and technical expertise must first be bundled into a single unit. It is the responsibility of these brand experts to include corporate values, language and CD into the production process. Because extraordinary corporate content ensures the company's recognition value. The channel specialists then contribute their knowledge on the channels that have been chosen for broadcasting. How long must Facebook videos last on average? How do I address users on Instagram? And which No-Gos should be avoided on LinkedIn? Next, a team of experienced production staff is responsible for the technical implementation. All the knowledge is now passed on to a creative team. Based on the input from the other teams, they create entertaining and individual motion picture formats for the various channels. These are produced in a way that they can be combined differently, depending on each channel’s requirements.

But not every video is produced in house: so-called hero content, i.e. large productions such as TV and online commercials, still see the consultation of external suppliers. Above all, this ensures the high quality of spots, which do not play a leading role in the social media sector.

3. Video for Social

New Formats

Facebook encourages longer running landscape formats for its news feed videos, while Instagram favours a maximum of 60-second portrait clips and Snapchat offers short videos that disappear after 24 hours. Each platform has its own unique requirements that users should be aware of and follow. If an elaborate corporate video in landscape format is produced externally for a company website, the effect of the film on Instagram would fizzle out because the complete image format cannot be displayed. If the video doesn’t contain any subtitles, as is usually the case with Facebook, it will also be viewed less frequently on that platform. With the help of in-house production, it would be possible to flexibly develop specific content for one platform and later adapt it to another. Trying to follow a new video trend? No problem, the video sequences can be put together as desired.  

New Content

Social content is snacked on the go. Whether waiting at the bus stop, during lunch break or on the couch in the evening - users are used to consume when and wherever they want to. The result: they become harder to please. In order to reach their target group with moving images reliably, agencies must be able to produce material flexibly, quickly and cheaply. It doesn't always have to be the most expensive and highest-quality spots that pull users out of their usual consumer behaviour. Content just needs to be entertaining. It is of secondary importance whether it was elaborately produced or simply shot by hand in a Neistat-like fashion. The motto is "Let me entertain you".  

New Mechanics

There is no way around storytelling if you want to achieve the greatest possible output from a production. A story should be prepared for several channels at the same time and continuously told with different facets of the narrative. Tomorrow’s challenge will lie in generating new content from multiple video sequences instead of producing each video individually. On the one hand, this will reduce production costs. On the other hand, customers and users with a brand affinity will be taken along on the companies pre-imagined journey.