We work with organisations of all sizes from global brands to local businesses and one thing that we have found is that there is no one size fits all approach to how we plan and make video content with our clients. Burger King coined the advertising slogan ‘Have It Your Way’ which demonstrated that they would make your burger how you liked it not how they made it and the video production service, in our opinion, is very similar.
We’re not going to risk an expensive lawsuit by stealing the slogan from Burger King but we do, at least, follow the principle. Our clients come in all shapes and sizes and we have some who will tell us at the outset that they have a background in video production service whether it’s filming or editing video content or working at a video production company or just having worked on video marketing projects in the past. At the other end of the spectrum, we have clients who freely admit that they have never worked on a video production project before and that they are terrified of the process – purely because it’s something of a dark art to them.
Either of these is fine to us, it just means that we have to cut our cloth accordingly. We can hold hands with a client through every step of the video production process or we can just turn up on the day to film because the client has everything in hand. Or we can offer something that falls somewhere in the middle. The truth is, that those who are scared of video services don’t actually find that it’s that terrifying in the end and actually quite enjoy it while those with the experience in the video industry will either remember how much they miss it or why they left it! Our philosophy is simple – we will work with our clients to give them what they want and that can be as hands on or as hands off as required. At the end of the day it’s their project after all so they need to get what they want (and are paying for) when all is said and done. We can offer the benefit of our experience and guide some decisions that we know aren’t going to work out well but we are very open to the fact that when it comes to ideas and creativity, we don’t have the monopoly on getting this right. Anyone can come up with a great idea, we just need to make it happen and ultimately nobody knows their business and the audience like the client. The chances are that we have experience and history in the industry or sector that we are working in so we can point to previous videos or just general past experiences to help shape where the video content is going to go. Our experience is as diverse as professional football clubs to hospitals, cemeteries and funeral directors to schools and communications companies.
There are also times when the client simply leaves us to it. We work with a lot of marketing agencies who just want one less thing to think about so they will hand over the brief lock, stock and barrel for us to get on with. We’ll contact the client, arrange filming dates, liaise directly for edits and deliver the final video leaving the agency knowing that their client is in safe hands. This can often be a great solution for all involved – we cut out the extra layer of approvals and communication, the end user can give direct feedback and our client has the peace of mind to get on with all of the other work that they need to do knowing that the job is going to get done at the level they require.
The truth is that we like all of these different approaches. It makes things interesting because we can approach different projects in different ways and allows us to tailor our video production service accordingly. Sometimes things will crossover and we’ll feel that we will have step in when we’ve not been required to or we back away even though we’ve been asked to be involved but that comes with the judgement calls you can make when you’ve working in an industry for so long. And our clients appreciate it, our approach to working with clients is the reason why they keep coming back to us. We build relationships and understand when to jump in and when not to.
So, if you want a video and you want to have it your way, then speak to us. We can’t promise that we’ll take the gherkins off your burger but we will work with you in whichever suits what you want.
Blog writer: Adam Snelleksz is a director of CMA Video and has worked in marketing for over 20 years. He has worked in video production in Birmingham for five years with CMA Video and has been using video for marketing for nearly 10 years. He also set up the video TV channel Blues TV, the official online channel of Birmingham City Football Club. Some of the projects that Adam has used promotional videos for include the Birmingham Half Marathon, the European Gymnastics Championships and the World BMX Championships.
Our video marketing blogs have been recognised as one of the Top 50 Video Marketing Blogs on the internet. We hope you enjoy reading them and gain valuable insights into CMA Video and show that we’re not just another Birmingham video production company but we do more from animation videos to event filming, video strategy to social media video campaigns.
