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The shift towards internal teams

Alan Parry

With alogrithims and audiences to please, companies are finding that external suppliers cant keep up with their day to day video needs

40% of video created, is created for less than $500.

Read that again.

40% of video created is created for less than $500.

That cant be right, surely? Even worse, 89% is being created for less than $5000.

Reading that, I immediately worried I’d chosen an awful time to start a production company. There’s no way a production company, even one as lean as Velvet Pig could run on $500 jobs. Was this the race to the bottom we often hear about around sites like Upwork, Fiver and other marketplaces?

Well, yes and no. Once I quietened my initial gut reaction and looked at the landscape, the explanation become pretty straightforward. A brief flick through Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn not to mention YouTube, quickly made it apparent how many brands now recognise the importance of video. But the nature of these videos has changed.

The solution for many? Utilise your employees, have them create content - or assume a more active role in developing content. We’ve seen it for a long time, with marketing teams taking more active roles in developing concepts and scripts before engaging with production companies or, increasingly often, individual freelancers (often motion graphics designers).

Others have brought the whole process internal, shooting interviews and testimonials over zoom calls or on iPhones and using free editing software to cut out the bits they want to use.

The results are… varied….but the reasoning is sound; the big change is the sheer QUANTITY of content businesses put out today, and the numbers suggest there’s still a strong appetite for bigger budget production work, either creating explainer animations with deeper development, professionally filmed interviews or brand videos and commercials that require a higher level of expertise to develop and execute.

Larger tent pole projects are still very much the domain of the dedicated production company, who will always deliver a better product, but the needs of businesses have increased to now include weekly or even daily content, where an internal team essentially becomes a no brainer.

So I’m not so worried about the future of production companies just yet. On the contrary, we’re finding our clients to be much more familiar and engaged with the process.

Of course, this can create some… awkward… conversations that need navigating, but the upside is that people are already creating content and have started to develop a style and voice and have seen at least some of the benefits video can deliver.

The next question is, how do we empower these individuals and teams to create better performing, better looking and more interesting content?

- More on that coming soon.