Who stands behind the texts for the START streaming service: AI or people
My name is Christine I run the Copywriting Team at the START streaming service. Here I am going to explain how our team works, how you can diversify your tasks to avoid burnout, and whether it is really true that we spend all day watching TV shows and that AI will soon replace us all. All this and more — under the cut :)
What Does the Copywriting Team Do and What Other Teams Do We Interact With?
We write text content for movies and TV series, bringing in a wide variety of audiences, and we make sure that the website is SEO optimized. In simple terms, we create descriptions using keywords and terms of reference, and we try to do it seamlessly so that the search bots are happy and users see nothing out of order. Texts we make can go to our partners or be used for mass notifications and social network announcements. That is why it is important that we write clear and easy-to-understand texts that do not disrupt further communications.
We get new optimization tasks from the Product Team, while our Copywriting Team is part of the Editor Department, who work directly with content. Colleagues submit terms of reference and mockups, and I use them to build first prototypes and then delegate them to my team. For me, it’s important to see the full context and the big picture, to think all new things through. Descriptions for channels, playlists, and plots all have internal logic and clear requirements. Sometimes we ourselves come to the Product Team, asking to, say, expand the block of texts or update the terms of reference to better fit new conditions, help with the recommendation system for our Magazine (START Media), or even just direct us towards more efficient ways of user interaction.
We mainly work with descriptions — a short summary that appears in the search snippet — which is something you’re likely to see on any video streaming platform. We call it a synopsis out of habit, but it is usually just a recap of the plot with a few keywords here and there.
For texts that are designed only for site optimization, we try to place them on the page in an intuitive way, so that the users would see what is important to them first. Users probably do not need every detail about the E03 of Addicted or The Vampires of Midland — just a sentence or two to remember where the story is headed. But all the details are there, too, if they are needed. But our texts won’t ruin the fun of watching the movie or TV show, because we never spoil the most interesting parts. Descriptions are designed to encourage watching the movie or show, not replace it. If the user needs 15 seconds to decide — the descriptions are there to help. If they want to learn more about the title — there are other formats. For example, season recaps for people who have missed something or are trying to figure out where the story ended up the last time.
The Technical Editors team aggregates videos, images, texts, and metadata (cast, year, genre, and other data) in the admin panel and helps keep the entire team in sync, especially when dealing with batch updates — i.e., when posting a large number of titles at once, each requiring a separate page.
Content Management System (CMS) editors know what every department does, including ours. They know where SEO-optimized sentences go or what language we use for different statuses. That’s why they can make adjustments to the texts themselves without needing to involve copywriters. We make sure that descriptions are not cropped out, that the information is easily readable on different devices, that it is not repeated in adjacent blocks, and that the design is uniform. If there’s something that could be improved — believe me, we are already on it!
All copywriters in our team can work with all kinds of texts for online streaming services. However, it is important to me that each writer is assigned to a format that they know best, and can, therefore, contribute to product development or improve the writing style in the format, be it collections or playlists, facts or texts for children’s compilations. Our originals are the most challenging and interesting projects to work on because we have to add something unique to the product but still conform to its positioning. When the project is announced, you do not yet know 100% what users are going to enjoy or how to properly present the material to them. Writing for sequels is not much easier. You will have to be more thorough than the most loyal fan of the series, knowing all the details, the twists and turns of the romantic plotlines, all the Easter eggs and references, and you will have to pay attention to all of the fan favorites. But sometimes you get people who have never heard about, say, Lena Shirokova from Russian Affairs or Zhenyok from The Vampires of Midland. In this case, you will have to make them love the stories at the first sight.
We like to experiment and prototype new formats, working under tight deadlines to get the best results. Streaming service copywriters are always looking at each other’s creations. Authors write loglines — brief descriptions at the top of the page, intended to hook users — texts for episodes, plot summaries, and collection pages. But everyone’s approach is different. Some like to overoptimize and retell the how story, letting outsourced copywriters do the dirty job. Some are too lazy to watch the whole show, so they write something quick after watching the first episode. But that’s the wrong way to go about it. You have to understand the plot in full, not try to guess it. Some don’t care about spoiling things, and some just slightly rewrite descriptions borrowed from competitors. We’re looking to strike a balance between driving our search engine rankings and making sure our texts are a bold and accurate extension of the product, both in style and tone.
Preventing Burnout
We need highly unique texts, so we write them from scratch. Sometimes, there’s no ready-made content or factual information, especially when the product is foreign-made. I mean, we can watch the movie or TV show or find out its context (i.e., what people have said about the project, which awards it won, what was its message), but the important thing is to tap into the atmosphere of the movie or show and the phrases used in it so that the texts come out unique.
We can get preview copies (draft copies of a movie or an episode to be watched before release) of several projects at once in the course of a month. We watch them together so that, by release time, all copywriters would understand the project’s positioning and could write an episode description or prepare material for the Magazine. We read the series scripts, the episode-by-episode summaries, the treatments (detailed retelling including all the important scenes, tone, and plot points), and the presentations so we understand what the title is about.
Sometimes watching the first two episodes, the middle, and the ending is enough to summarize the plot without missing important plot twists. We can’t spoil the plot anyway, as we only outline the major plot points and potential resolutions. Comedies and other titles with lots of dialogue aren’t really about breathtaking camera sequences, exquisite details, or scenic locations. Generally speaking, you get used to having 2 or 3 parallel plot lines in a title. Everything else usually can be skipped if we’re talking about a story or an announcement in the Magazine. But when we write for specific episodes, we watch the whole thing to miss nothing.
If we are working with dramas, like A Good Man, The Duel Club, or Storm, then the atmosphere, music, locations, and titles are all important to the mood. Retelling the plot is simply not enough, we have to dig deeper, look for patterns, parallels, and subtexts, and, naturally, see all the available materials for the title.
We quickly jump between different tasks. First, you write for a short film, then you pick up an animated series, then you rewrite someone else’s text for a collection to make it relevant for March 8. It goes on ad infinitum. I always try to delegate tasks so that employees do what they know and love. If I see any signs of burnout, we immediately change the genre they write in. I write too, so I know that writing good summaries for thrillers all day long is just not possible. Good texts, by my criteria, must engage with the strong side of the project and compel users to watch it. They must feel and look like they were written by a passionate person, not a bot or a mindless drone. When you have a 100-episode Turkish soap opera, writing consistently good summaries for each and every episode is very difficult. But it must be done. And we have our own ways of doing it.
Copywriting is a creative occupation and copywriters are not much different from creative writers. But we know we are the face of our company, so we keep the style consistent. This doesn’t mean that personal touches are unacceptable: everyone can contribute and come up with something we can scale up to the whole company. We don’t write the whole thing from our point of view — we take what’s already in the project: ideas, accents, and keywords. The scriptwriters have already thought everything through and marketing has bundled it together. We broadcast it using our own tools, and we look for a key to each story, something valuable in the project, something that it could give the viewers. We wrap it in gift paper and wait for it to be opened. We regularly gauge the reaction of the audience and switch the focus of the texts. Naturally, we strive for perfection.
Magazine and Our Interactions with SMM Team
The idea behind the Magazine is that no one knows more about our projects and how they are created than we do. And there is a lot to tell. The Magazine can tell users which TV shows they would enjoy if they liked Russian Affairs or Hotel Eleon, what happened in Addicted, or about the previous career of the guy who played the protagonist in Season 2 of Passengers. And, of course, our media provides industry news, helping our readers explore the now-popular true crime genre, identify hidden messages in Korean productions, understand the movie critics’ terminology, and much more. We try to get people interested in the world of film or tell them about a new TV show they should watch because it is so much similar in style and spirit to their favorite one.
We also promote the Magazine’s content through social media. This way, our streaming service shows itself from different angles, offering something big to read. It’s an opportunity for us to analyze what content we need to produce. We look at the social network feedback and gauge what users want: which actress they like, which season of a TV show they found awesome, and which song they keep playing on repeat… When it comes to the Magazine, I keep track not only of the texts but also of what content is worth releasing, whether there is something newsworthy to report on, and what the audience wants right now. The better the feedback on a certain topic, the more we write about it.
AI is a Friend, Not a Threat
Neural networks are not going to replace us any time soon, they do not always understand the nuances of natural language, confusing literal and figurative meanings. It is often hard to guess what the author meant without a broader context that machines lack. AIs do well when it comes to short formats, collecting facts and substance (list of titles, actors, etc.) for larger pieces, and rewriting descriptions. Neural networks don’t feel bad about gutting texts that we’ve poured many hours into.
If a user wants to find 2022-made comedy movies and cares not for the details, but only the plot and the starring cast, then AI-made texts do really well. Although search engines will sooner or later find out if you go overboard with this content. Yes, AIs can shorten texts or write something like “Why do we like romantic comedies?” where users aren’t going to ask questions and you have no movie to watch beforehand. I wouldn’t use AIs for all formats because they have serious issues with factual information in Russian. They are convincing liars though. AI isn’t gonna be much of a help if you have to write something for a preview copy of a TV show that hasn’t even been released yet.
They also don’t do metaphors really well or use evocative language like “chills” for a Scandinavian TV show. And the systems themselves are still human-interfaced. The operators, our copywriters, for example, have to set keywords and limits, provide references, proof the output text, add some frills, and so on. You can’t just tell the AI something like “Write in the style of START” or “make it funnier.” Because no amount of references loaded into the dialog is going to replace experience and insight into industry trends. Funny things come in different packages: subtle and blunt, for kids or adults, ironic or mischievous. We can delegate boring stuff to the machines, like templates, monotonous SEO, or texts for category pages, while writing more complex and unique stuff. Reaching the next level and looking beyond the horizon requires first dealing with the routine stuff.
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