Why publishers are struggling to create high-quality video for advertisers

josh sternberg
Jul 24, 2017 · 6 min read

Chris Farber has an eye for content. As a videographer, director and photographer, Chris has traveled all around the globe telling stories — for both brands and editorial.

Chris was my go-to video partner at NBC News, as I leaned on his expertise.

You can see his work at his website, and follow him on Instagram at @christopherfarber.

Below is a Q&A we did for my media newsletter (sign up here for additional content) on his thoughts on sponsored content and where brands, publishers, and agencies can work more cohesively with production companies, such as his.

Josh: So when you get the call from a brand or publisher, walk me through what happens next. Talk about how you assemble your team.
Chris: I think publishers doing sponsored content for brands have a hard time understanding what actually goes into making a high quality video. Every brand and publisher is different, and sometimes the same client has vastly different needs from job to job.

Working with brands and publishers directly, rather than through an intermediary like an ad or marketing agency, has become way more common in the past five years, and my big takeaway has been that there is no standard as to what these clients will bring to the table when they reach out about a project. They might come with a project brief, bid specs, a script and/or boards. They might also come and say “An advertiser has $25,000 and they want something funny but serious”.

So it is my job as the lead creative, mostly working without a creative counterpart on the agency/client side (remember — I’m usually hired directly by the marketing team because they don’t have in-house production/creative) to assess how much project development is needed before even thinking about production. Do we need a concept? Do we need a script? I either take what creative they have or propose what I think they need, and start to put it through my filter for the narrative and visual approach, and prepare to present it.

Once those basic outlines are sketched, the next step is budget. For me, budget has to happen one of two ways — “here’s what it costs to do what you’re asking for” or “here’s what I can do for the budget you have.”

I usually let the client decide which way we approach it. And by keeping this paradigm in mind, it has ensured that my clients get everything they pay for, their expectations are met, and I don’t have to tell them that we actually need more money to do what I said we could do. This part of the initial conversations is really the basis of a good and ongoing relationship between a content producer and their clients. This gets presented with the creative treatment to the client, and represents my bid for the scope of the project.

Once the scope of the project is agreed upon (it sounds like a complicated process but actually can get handled through a few emails and maybe a phone call or two) my next move is to get the right producer on the project.

Some producers are great generalists, others have specific expertise like VR, run and gun documentary, working abroad, and others have more experience working with celebrity and high-end brands. Bringing on the right person is key for me, so that I can focus on attending to the client’s creative needs, while the producer is making sure that the culture we’re building around the production fits with the clients comfort zone and expectations.

The producer will go to work locking in shoot dates, the schedule for post-production, locations, crew (especially director of photography, audio, gaffer, and post-production team for video, or first assistant for still photography and retouching house if needed), and all the other logistics involved in keeping a shoot running on schedule and on budget.

Meanwhile, I am primarily focused on the creative, which not only includes script and storyboarding, but also possibly location scouting, researching, finding and pre-interviewing subjects, and developing a visual reference for the client.

While the producer is interfacing with me about production logistics and running things like schedule by the client, I am in frequent contact with the client, working to thoroughly work out the creative approach so that there will be no (unwelcome) surprises come shoot day and come delivery of the final content.

Josh: When you’re working on sponsored content, on a scale of 1–10, 1 being “why the hell did I agree to do this” and 10 being “best decision I’ve made in my career” what’s it like working with brands Publishers?
Chris: I think a great part about sponsored content is that budgets are usually high enough that even if the profit margin is not super high, I can still put together a great team and we can produce a high level shoot without pulling our hair out and asking why we agreed to do it.

However, the lack of a creative intermediary, as I mentioned before, can often leave a gap where there is no one on the client side to make hard and final creative decisions concerning the content. This is definitely more of a challenge with publishers.

With brands, I am working directly with the custodians of the brand identity. This is now more than ever because of the introduction of in-house social and media teams who really understand their brand and how they want to communicate it, even if they don’t have the in-house capabilities to actually produce the content.

When I am working with a publisher, this can get derailed because publisher’s marketing teams are often more in sync with their sales teams, and when they are tasked with “creating content” they don’t have an accurate enough vision for what that content should be with regards to the individual brand. So, what gets communicated to me from the publisher, on behalf of a brand, may not be wholly baked.

This leads to a post-production process that can get pretty far along between my team and the publisher before the brand gets a look. If there is some incongruity in tone or narrative approach, it’s easy to burn time to correct some of that nuance.

Josh: It sounds like a lot of this is a mess. How could the process be improved?
Chris: One way the process could be improved is by bringing the brand into the conversation early. Or, publishers should have some level of in-house production that should be empowered to be creative leads on the client side. Having that counterpart that is speaking clearly and directly to the brand, and then communicating accurately to me and my team is always an incredible asset for my team, the production and the final product. Otherwise, we’re often working in a bit of a vacuum and hoping everyone is happy at the end of the day.

Josh: Are you seeing more brands or publishers reaching out for content these days?
Chris: Brands especially are producing more and more through their social media departments. Bigger brands work with PR companies, generally, to find directors and photographers like me, while smaller brands work directly. In both cases, the brand is really laying out the strategy, if there is one, and the PR company plays a supervisory role.

Josh: So what advice do you want leave with?
Chris: I think the key to working with a client on sponsored content is to be flexible and open, because there is simply no standard for turnaround time, budget or production style.

And to be clear about where their limitations will meet reality, which is best summarized in the production triangle — good, fast and cheap. You can always have two out of three, and never have three out of three. And it is always my job to keep it in mind during those early conversations, and constantly reinforce it’s limitations throughout the initial stages of the project so that I build a clear sense of value into the production I provide.

josh sternberg
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