A number of us at Armadillo recently attended an interesting webinar, “Beyond Beauty: L’Oreal’s journey to Data Driven Creative”. As a company, we’re absolutely committed to the use of data across everything we do, so it was a great opportunity to see how other big brands tackle the same topic.
Watching the webinar, it was great to see another company talking about how data accelerates creativity – something I firmly believe, and champion. But there are plenty of creatives that still feel like data is a hindrance rather than a help. So, I was inspired to explore the topic…
What’s the purpose of the creative?
If what you want to create is art, then it’s true that data might not be that relevant. However, if you want to make creative content – design, copy, concept – then data takes what you’re doing away from being simply artistic into being useful, relevant, and impactful.
When you create something, there’s always a purpose. If you’re creating within any kind of marketing context, that might be to educate, inspire, inform, or engage. But ultimately, your end goal is to make a sale.
Using data is a fundamental part of creating within this context. You could craft the most beautiful, lyrical piece of content, but if it has no impact on your intended audience, it’s not successful in achieving its purpose. The data tells you if you achieved what you set out to achieve, if you met or exceeded the results you were looking for, and if you generated any tangible value from what you created.
Don’t fear the data
Creatives can be afraid that data will get in the way of a great campaign, or that the numbers won’t match up to the idea and promise of that campaign.
And it absolutely can be disheartening to see a piece that you’ve worked on not generate the results you were looking for. But how much more disheartening would it be if your creative never generated great results? Or if you sometimes hit the nail on the head but never know why, or how to do it again?
When creatives embrace data, it allows us to see what worked, what didn’t, how the things we create turn into value, and what boundaries we can push.
Wouldn’t you rather know if the great idea you had resonated? Data tells us that our intended audience of consumers found our creative engaging. Admiration from the industry and our peers is brilliant, but results from our true audience is what matters in the end.
Data validates creativity
If you did get the green light for something experimental, the data will validate whether or not it worked. Did it increase average spend or brand awareness? If it did, you have more evidence to support your next idea, or a continuation of this one, or a change to the framework. If it didn’t, you can dig deeper into the data to try and find out why.
In-house or agency, the bottom line is always a factor.
When you bring data into the mix, you can free yourself from some of these limits. Data enhances creativity by validating it. It takes the subjectivity away, it proves the return on investment, and it drives the conversation towards getting a result.
Freedom within a framework
When you’re working within a data-driven framework, you have to stretch your creativity further. You come up with new ways to shine within that framework. Just like you can’t throw out all of the brand guidelines because you’ve had a cool idea, you can’t throw out the framework. If you’re creative enough, you can find a way to make that idea work within the boundaries you have.
Data is inevitable
Whether you’re convinced by any of this or not, it’s still time for creatives to start embracing data. Our world is so connected, so tracked, and so digital that we have access to increasing amounts of data every day. If you’re not looking at it, you’re leaving a huge advantage on the table.
Every agency is beholden to the bottom line. No matter how creative or inspiring your campaigns, ultimately our clients all need to make money. When you could be using data to drive your creativity to be the most effective it can be, leaving that information behind for fear that it will get in the way of ideas is not going to cut it.
Data isn’t just the remit of the analysts and accountants. If we leave it with them because ‘it’s just numbers’, we give away the opportunity to analyse that data through a creative lens.
If we take ownership of that data, we can not only build it into what we do, we can build stronger relationships between creatives and other disciplines, both internally and with our client partners.
Data shouldn’t stifle creativity – when used right, it empowers it.
Written by Natalie Howells, Senior Copywriter
Original Article on Little Black Book: https://www.lbbonline.com/news/magic-numbers-natalie-howells-on-letting-the-data-inspire-creativity
Founded in 1990, The Square is Bristol’s Private Members Club for the creative industries, located on Berkeley Square. Members of The Square are part of a unique community of like-minded creative professionals. The Square provides an arena of original thought and discussion, and members enjoy a range of personal and professional benefits.
Along with a vibrant events programme and an award-winning restaurant, The Square provides a dynamic social environment and a flexible workspace. Equipped with a boutique lounge, the Square Kitchen restaurant, the Lower Deck Cocktail Bar and hidden city-centre Terrace, The Square is ideal for working, socialising, holding events and meeting new people.
The Square Club connects creatives across the world, and has reciprocal arrangements with clubs in the following locations:
BCI members can apply for discounted membership at a rate of £60 per quarter. This not only gives members access to The Square Club, but to all of the reciprocal venues around the world.
For an additional fee, membership can be upgraded to include access to Square Works, The Square’s high-end, part and full time serviced offices and co-working space.
Square Member Benefits include:
To apply for discounted membership, please email [email protected].
Access Creative College, Condense and LocalGlobe have teamed up to offer Bristol students a Metaverse Development Scholarship to bring more diversity to tech.
Access Creative College, the UK’s leading games, music and media college, metaverse specialists Condense and venture capital fund LocalGlobe are offering up to eight fully funded scholarships to start in September.
To coincide with the launch, leading Bristol artists Lebo, Dread MC and Badliana were invited into Condense’s cutting edge metaverse environment on 26 July to perform.
Using a state-of-the-art 360-degree camera rig constructed by Condense, the three artists each stepped into a virtual landscape to record their own performance. It is the creation of these virtual landscapes and their live-streaming capabilities which Access Creative College are now offering the chance for students to study.
Jackson Armstrong, executive head of marketing at Access Creative College, commented: “What better way to celebrate the launch of this new scholarship programme than by having some of Bristol’s brightest upcoming artists perform in the metaverse, which our scholars will be working to produce.”
Kicking off in September, successful scholars will learn how to stream live events into one of the world’s most exciting new technologies, the metaverse. The successful applicants will take part in a 12-week programme, full of rich and intensive study, completely funded through the scholarship.
Jackson Armstrong continued: “When it comes to board positions within leading tech companies in the UK, the statistics are deeply concerning with the lack of gender split and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
“We’re excited at the prospect of helping to change that through this new scholarship programme and we’re currently on the lookout for applicants to apply online.”
Scholars will learn digital graphics, 3D modelling, photogrammetry and textures, realtime VFX, plugin integration, in game/venue scaling and enhancing virtual worlds, enriching virtual worlds, interactions, spatial sound, player movement and networking basics.
James Tong, head of people at Condense, added: “You should apply for this scholarship because while everyone has a story to tell, not everyone has the same opportunities in life.
“This is an incredible opportunity to carve out a career in engineering and metaverse content creation. It’s a 12 week fully-funded intensive course, so you will meet other people with similar interests and ambitions, and it could even lead to a permanent job with Condense.”
Applications for the course are now open, and can be made through Access Creative College here.
On a scorching weekend in July, two of us creatives from Flourish were lucky enough to flee the heatwave and head to the air-conditioned sanctuary Amsterdam RAI. But we weren’t there for the cool air. We were there for TwitchCon – a convention like no other that sees gamers and cosplayers mingle with drag queens and ASMR enthusiasts to indulge in a weekend of live streams, community meetups and IRL (that’s In Real Life to you and me) events. Here’s what we learned.
Cat Dickie, copywriter
1. There’s SO much more to live streaming than gaming
Let me tell you a secret. I’m not a gamer. And I didn’t go to a single gaming panel at TwitchCon. If you think that sounds a bit like going to Glastonbury and not seeing any music, let me remind you that there’s much more to the world’s biggest festival of performing arts than bands and DJs. And in the same way, there’s way more to Twitch than gaming. In the Just Chatting category alone there’s travel and adventure streams, feminist groups, drag, body painting – the list goes on. TwitchCon attendees were a wonderfully diverse bunch. That’s the wonderful thing about streaming. It brings people together from every walk of life. Which brings me to my second point…
2. Community is the backbone of Twitch
Communities are formed through shared experience and passions. So, it’s no surprise that on a platform like Twitch, where creators in every field come together to do what they love the most, community is front and centre of everything. Unlike pretty much any other social media platform, Twitch deals in live content, meaning real, shared moments and shared experiences happen every minute. Real friendships are formed through streaming, and that was tangible at TwitchCon.
3. Audiences can smell authenticity
One panel I attended was memorable in that the hosts – three women who were there to tell us about how women in streaming support one another – chose not to sit behind the table that had been laid out for the panel, but on it. Legs crossed, comfortable, open. There was nothing contrived about their choice – they just did what felt right to them. Like choosing a favourite seat in the living room. Midway through, they invited a woman from the audience, a fellow streamer, to join them. This realness, this authenticity, was a running theme throughout the event.
4. Streamers are at the top of their game
They might be streaming from their bedrooms, but affiliates and partners are incredibly good at what they do. Hours and hours of work has preceded their ability to make a living from streaming. For the cosplayers, thousands of hours go into making costumes. It’s skill and passion that makes streamers go big, and turns them in to stars. There was so much talent under one roof at TwitchCon.
5. Transparency and support keeps streams coming
It struck me how open panellists were about sharing tips about their craft. There was no secretiveness or reluctance to share. They wanted to get more and more people on board and encouraged people to join the space. There was no feeling of exclusivity, or mystique around what makes good content. The Twitch community is open, and want more and more people to find their niche and join in.
Michael Barbour, Designer
1. Creativity
The way that Twitch use their brand guidelines has been eye opening for me. The themes they use are bold and clear, with block colours and accompanying textures. The imagery created, echoes what is happening in their community and ties in the brand in nicely. From the signage to the immersive experiences at the conference, everything on display was innovative and purposeful, as well as consistent and well thought out.
2. Meaningful Wellbeing
Twitch really care about their streamers and viewers alike, and actively promote healthy wellbeing whilst streaming and using the platform. They are constantly improving the safety on the platform to keep streamers feeling appreciated.
3. Charity
The way charities team up with Twitch is a relatively new and out-of-the-box way to generate fundraising. Having visited some of the charity seminars, I really learned how Twitch as a platform can improve a charity’s reach within their communities, touching new audiences and finding new ways to promote income generation online via streaming. Read more about how charities can enhance their fundraising through streaming on the Flourish website.
4. The Diverse Community
The community cannot easily be sub divided into genres. There is such a vast collection of different people and interests to follow and connect with, and the sky is literally the limit on what content can be found on Twitch. It’s as diverse as the internet itself!
5. Tools Available to Streamers
The toolkit that is available to streamers is ever growing and expanding. They are introduced to a bunch of new tools that are going to help us as an agency and streamers alike. I was also interested to find out how much they actively promote the use of other social media channels for streamers.
To read more about the Flourish team’s experiences at TwitchCon 2022, visit our recent website blog. If you’re reading this and intrigued to hear more about the marketing opportunities and potential via the use of streaming, feel free to get in touch with the Flourish team.
“There are many people who don’t believe this actually happened. But it was real. There are the facts.”
Yuri Trush.
What makes a good story? What combination of narrative, character and place makes a story powerful enough to last? To break out of the confines of a single creative interpretation, it must be capable of jumping from one medium to another, adapting in form whilst retaining that universal seed of magic, re-inventing itself in the hands of successive authors, creating its own mythology as it goes.
I was interested in what had happened to people living in the remote forest communities along Russia’s eastern border with China after the collapse of the Soviet Union? What happens to people when the protections of the state disappear? How do they live with no work or pension?
Looking for a commercial ‘hook’ on which to hang this somewhat abstract question, I began researching the illegal tiger trade when I came across a small but epic story.
All great stories tend to be focused on a single emotion- anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, surprise and fear. These combine in subtle ways to create a colour wheel of emotion.
The potent emotion at the heart of this story was fear. That particular fear of being hunted, a fear that still lurks deep in the recesses of our primitive imagination, buried in our pre-history when the tiger was our most feared predator, and man was easy prey. Slow, deaf, blind and foolish.
Long before the ‘blog post’ was a cultural norm, the internet was still a treasure trove of fragments of personal experience ripe for creative treatment. All one needed was a keen sense of the necessary ingredients and a focused search. A local Russian journalist had uploaded an account of a very unusual series of tiger attacks on people, written from the field notes of an eminent field ecologist, Dimitri Pikunov.
Pikunov describes a dark and disturbing series of events initiated by a desperate hunter called Vladimir Markov.
To make a mistake is only human, and we hope and expect to learn from each one. But Markov made a series of mistakes, each one compounding the next, and each steadily reducing his chances of applying the benefit of hindsight.
First he stole meat from a tiger. Then he shot at the tiger. And missed.
A wounded animal is much more dangerous, forcing ‘unnatural’ behaviours that lead inevitably to confrontation. In this case, the tiger was intent on revenge, tracing the scent of the man back to his hut where it lay patiently in wait before stalking and killing him.
Markov had triggered what was to become an infamous series of tiger attacks on people. The authorities called in specialist tiger trackers, a ‘Conflict Tiger Unit’ headed up by Yuri Trush. Yuri was charged both with investigating what had happened and with finding, and killing, the tiger.
This is Pikunov’s account of the final moments of Yuri’s deadly encounter-
“The tiger, now limping badly, wandered the logging road when, in the frosty air, came the rumble of an approaching vehicle. The predator turned off into the glade where the log deck had formerly been and lay down in a shallow ditch overgrown with wormwood. The GAS-66 truck had already made its way up to the corner of the glade.
Yuri Peonka, sitting next to the driver, saw some tracks from inside the truck that appeared to be the ones that they were looking for. Jumping out of the truck, he tested the tracks in the tried and true manner: if it ‘crumbles’, then it is absolutely fresh. Rushing to get his gun, Yuri yelled out to his partners: “He’s here!” Their dog, catching the scent of the tiger, yelped in confusion and, tucking in his tail, hid behind the truck, only sharpening even more the unbelievable tension that mortally threatened all the participants in what was now an inevitable confrontation.
A quick check of the log deck, with its occasional clumps of wormwood, yielded nothing. It was decided that Trush would be the first to go along the hot trail, to the right would be Shibnev, and a bit to the rear and to the left, Peonka. In this kind of wedge, holding their fingers on the trigger, they moved forward. In a little more than twenty meters an instantly soul-numbing roar cracked the frigid air forcing everyone, as if on command, to come to a halt.
The tiger, not more than ten meters away, flew out at them as if from under the ground from an absolutely open, clear spot.
The enormous, ferocious mass of stripes, mad from pain and enraged at people, flew like a hurricane at the first of the shooters – Trush. In a half-unconscious state, he managed to get off two shots. In a simultaneous echo, from the right and the left rang out his partners’ shots on whose accuracy Yuri’s life now depended. These two experienced hunters did not let him down and the bullets hit their mark. The enormous carcass struck the barrel of the rifle and the already lifeless mass slammed down on top of Yuri, its claws, like knives, shredding his outer, winter coat and bloodying it with hot tiger blood.
The three guys immediately composed themselves. The confrontation had taken place so quickly and so unexpectedly that no one even had time to freak. Only later, when talking about what had happened, did the three of them come to the conclusion that everything had come together all too well. And especially the fact that the confrontation had taken place on a completely open spot. What if the confrontation had occurred somewhere in the thickly wooded Bikin taiga? Most likely there would have been yet another victim. Everyone seemed to agree that Yuri Trush was born under a lucky star.”
The idea of a vengeful tiger, enraged by man’s stupidity, was lure enough for me travel to Luchegorsk, a 10-hour train journey north of Vladivostok, to meet with Yuri Trush in person. Pulling into the station on a winters night, I was greeted first by the silhouette of a small back dog, followed by the imposing figure of Yuri himself. I nervously introduced myself and explained my interest in his experience. I mentioned the idea of making a film whereupon Yuri gave a broad smile, revealing a set of sparkling gold teeth. “Sasha”, he said “I have something to show you.”
Back at his flat he sat me down in front of his old TV and inserted a VHS tape. It was only at this point that I realised that he had used a video camera to record parts of his investigation of the Markov incident and I had a film to make.
The story clearly had a universal potency, playing at film festivals around the world from Seoul in South Korea, to Goias in Brazil, winning 19 festival grand prizes and audience awards.
A year after its first release, I received a call out of the blue from the American author John Vaillant. He had seen ‘Conflict Tiger’ at the BANFF Mountain Film Festival and described a ‘light-bulb’ moment in which he realised that he had found the subject for his next book. He asked for my blessing, for some help with contacts, and, by way of thanks, sent me a copy of his previous novel in the post. ‘The Golden Spruce’ dropped through my letter-box a week later and began an extraordinary 7-year creative exchange, a subject for a separate post.
The story first made public in Dimitri Pikunov’s journal had made the leap to another medium, and was on its way to wider international exposure. 3 years later Penguin Random House published John Vaillant’s ‘The Tiger- A True Story of Vengeance & Survival’.
Here is an extract from the book that recounts the lead-up to Yuri’s brush with death-
“The sun shone brilliantly on the undisturbed snow; the only shadows there were those cast by the men themselves—long, even at midday. Gitta continued darting up the trail and then back to Trush, barking incessantly, but she gave no clear indication of the tiger’s whereabouts. She didn’t know. As they walked, the men scanned the clearing, an expanse in which it would have been difficult to conceal a rabbit, and then they focused their attention on the forest ahead, which was beginning to look like one enormous ambush. With the exception of the dog, everything was calm and nearly still. Behind them, smoke rose lazily from the Kung’s chimney, drifting off to the north. Gorborukov was still standing there by the back door, holding his rifle like a broom. In the clearing, the slender stalks and blades nodded reassuringly, as if everything was unfolding according to plan. The men had gone about twenty yards when Shibnev, picking up some kind of ineffable, intuitive cue, calmly said, “Guys, we should spread out.” A moment later, the clearing exploded. The first impact of a tiger attack does not come from the tiger itself, but from the roar, which, in addition to being loud like a jet, has an eerie capacity to fill the space around it, leaving one unsure where to look. From close range, the experience is overwhelming and has the effect of separating you from yourself, of scrambling the very neurology that is supposed to save you at times like this.
Those who have done serious tiger time—scientists and hunters— describe the tiger’s roar not as a sound so much as a full-body experience. Sober, disciplined biologists have sworn they felt the earth shake. One Russian hunter, taken by surprise, recalled thinking a dam had burst somewhere. In short, the tiger’s roar exists in the same sonic realm as a natural catastrophe; it is one of those sounds that give meaning and substance to “the fear of God.” The Udeghe, Yuri Pionka, described the roar of that tiger in the clearing as soul-rending. The literal translation from Russian is “soul tearing-apart.” “I have heard tigers in the forest,” he said, “but I never heard anything like that. It was vicious; terrifying.” What happened next transpired in less than three seconds. First, the tiger was nowhere to be seen, and then he was in the air and flying. What the tiger’s fangs do to the flesh its eyes do to the psyche, and this tiger’s eyes were fixed on Trush: he was the target and, as far as the tiger was concerned, he was as good as dead. Having launched from ten yards away, the tiger was closing at the speed of flight, his roar rumbling through Trush’s chest and skull like an avalanche. In spite of this, Trush managed to put his rifle to his shoulder, and the clearing disappeared, along with the forest behind it. All that remained in his consciousness was the black wand of his gun barrel, at the end of which was a ravening blur of yellow eyes and gleaming teeth that were growing in size by the nanosecond. Trush was squeezing the trigger, which seemed a futile gesture in the face of such ferocious intent—that barbed sledge of a paw, raised now for the death blow.
The scenario was identical: the open field; the alert, armed man; the tiger who is seen only when he chooses to be seen, erupting, apparently, from the earth itself—from nowhere at all— leaving no time and no possibility of escape. Trush was going to die exactly as Markov and Pochepnya had. This was no folktale; nonetheless, only something heroic, shamanic, magical could alter the outcome. Trush’s semiautomatic loaded with proven tiger killers was not enough. Trush was a praying man, and only God could save him now.”
It’s a strange experience to see ‘your’ story through the prism of another narrator’s imagination. John had brought new depths and insight to it with the space and time a book affords both author and reader. It’s interesting to compare how different media handle the spontaneous moment, a narrative territory that is meant to be the special preserve of the documentary film. But the written word exposes different kinds of meaning, and the experience of reading, as opposed to watching, allows us to ‘inhabit’ the story over a longer time. We become immersed in it over days, slowly losing track of where the story ends and we begin. Film is a much faster burn. But what medium has the best claim on the ‘real’? Does it matter? Working together they achieve a higher, deeper meaning, refracting different shades of emotional truth.
And so the story moves on, mutating in unpredictable ways, waiting to make the next leap in the collective imagination.
A month ago I received another note from John Vaillant. ‘Did I keep abreast of the movie news’? he asked. ‘The Tiger’ was to be adapted again, this time with big money and Hollywood production values. Ukranian Director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi is to direct Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Alexander Skarsgard.
He attached a link to an article featuring this quote from the producer Darren Aronofsky-
“As a producer, I’ve wanted to do two things for a while now: one is to make this film, and the other is to work with the brilliant auteur that is Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi. I am truly excited to be involved with a project that will allow me to do both, and cannot wait to bring this story to the world.”
Aronofsky doesn’t make boring films, and his partnership with an out-an-out ‘auteur’ (best known for his 2014 film ‘The Tribe’ set in a school for the deaf using Ukranian sign language and no subtitles) bodes well for a fresh re-interpretation rather than a dumbed down ‘Hunt For Red October’ version, with Yuri as some tooled up ‘Rambo’ hero primed to tame the wild and bring ‘civilisation’ back to the Taiga.
I pray they do the story justice, but I know it would survive even a proper mauling. Already percolating in the public imagination in multiple forms, it has already proved resilient and adaptable. We have to hope that we will fare as well as we continue to distort nature as we pursue our foolish ends.
Returning to the question of what makes a good story? A mysterious location, vivid characters and an epic battle do not alone explain its universal appeal. Its lasting impact comes more from the way it unfolds. It offers the familiar tension of a dramatic thriller pivoting our empathies from the preyed upon man to the suffering animal. But ultimately resolves as a parable, timeless and universal, that speaks emotively of their shared destiny.
Got a story to tell? Or purpose to communicate? Need some friendly advice?
The founders of The Big Plastic Count – Greenpeace UK and Everyday Plastic – appointed purpose-driven creative agency, Enviral, to create its latest national campaign, which has lifted the lid on the country’s recycling rates and exposed that the government is talking trash about our plastic problem.
Through their launch video, The Big Plastic Count and Enviral encouraged 31 MPs and 97,948 households to take part in counting their plastic for a week in May, which equates to 1 in every 262 households in the UK. This was the biggest ever investigation into UK household plastics and the data uncovered will be crucial in convincing the government, big brands and supermarkets to take ambitious action on reducing plastic packaging.
Throughout the investigation, participants counted over 96 billion pieces of plastic and uncovered that only 12% of our plastic waste is actually recycled with 17% exported abroad, 25% sent to landfill and 46% incinerated.
Working in close partnership with the The Big Plastic Count team, Enviral developed the creative, the narrative and oversaw the shoot productions to create three hard-hitting films; a launch film, a how-to film and a shocking results film which puts pressure on the government to act.
Chris Thorne, Plastics Campaigner at Greenpeace UK said: “The plastic crisis is out of control but if the government acts we can get a grip on the problem. That’s why The Big Plastic Count is so important. Getting the narrative right on a campaign like this can be make or break. Through Envirals understanding of our needs and their collaborative approach they’ve helped us create assets we know the public will connect with and will lead to more and more people pushing the government to take ambitious action to end the plastic waste problem.
Joss Ford, Enviral Founder, comments: “We’ve been consistently beating the drum around the role of creatives in fighting the climate crisis and in connecting hearts and minds. So being able to partner with such an impactful organisation like Greenpeace UK really is a huge moment for our team and one which we hope brings real impact and holds those in power to account.”
This project embodies Greenpeace UK’s wider mission to defend the natural world from destruction, with a vision for a greener, healthier and more peaceful planet that can sustain life for future generations to come. The campaign evolved out of The Everyday Plastic Survey, pioneered by Everyday Plastic, a research-led non-profit focused on evidence-based education and campaigns. With the aim of mobilising and inspiring the UK population to help lift the lid on our recycling, it’s hoped this campaign will hold the government to account and bring real, positive change.
Enviral was awarded the contract after a competitive pitch process. With previous agency nominations including The Drum’s Best Use Of Video For Digital Advertising, Enviral is a full-service ethical brand communications agency based in Bristol that leverages the power of storytelling to effect real change for future generations.
Watch the launch video in full here.
We’re delighted to support premium cycle tyre brand Vittoria by launching Great Expectations. This series of mini-docs and social content reveals the inner thoughts of professional riders as they reflect on what cycling means to them.
We created the campaign to take a more personal approach, giving riders the freedom to express what cycling means to them as they prepared for the new season – and The Ride Ahead. It’s all part of The Ride Ahead positioning we developed with the brand’s leadership team that’s now being rolled out across Their global communications.
Filmed on location at the team training camps, Great Expectations launches with riders from XC team Santa Cruz FSA and road team DSM. The films open the door on the curiosity, optimism and courage of each rider in a series of intimate portraits as they share their hopes and ambitions.
“Visiting many places helps you to grow as a man – as a human – because you can see the world from different points of view,” says Maxime Marotte, Santa Cruz FSA, in one of the films.
“One of the nicest things in cycling is to go on a new road – that brings you to a beautiful place,” adds, Romain Bardet, Team DSM.
Firehaus worked with Italian production company Yanzi and director Marco Marcasolli along with the brand’s marketing team on the mini-docs and a range of short edits.
Vittoria CCO Ernesto Garcia Domingo said “ Great Expectations brings a new approach and fresh voices to our audience with pro riders sharing some of their personal insights and motivations. This has been a great collaboration so far under The Ride Ahead banner and we look forward to sharing more over the coming months”.
Ian Bates, Founder and Creative Partner at Firehaus said “This series of mini-docs has given us the space to produce content that is more personal and inspiring”
The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series led by Prof. Michele Barbour Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor: Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol.
The series has been created to inspire entrepreneurs and help them to realise impact from their ideas. Michele interviews founders, researchers and academics from different disciplines and career stages who’ve been part of the University’s Enterprise ecosystem. Each episode is a treasure trove of information covering a range of topics from funding, licensing and IP, consultancy, contract research and business incubation.
Guests include Konstantina Psoma, Professor Wuge Briscoe, Professor Roberta Guerrina and Dr Tom Carter.
Bristol now tops the list of UK universities for the return on investment achieved by spinouts and is ranked in the top 3 for equity investment.
Prof. Michele Barbour said: “The University of Bristol has an impressive track record of enterprise and innovation and we’re keen to share that knowledge within our community as well as with a wider audience. The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series that brings to life the personal stories of spinout Founders and how our enterprise ecosystem has them.
Firehaus took our idea and created a branded content series, introducing the broadcast-style interview approach, as well as the name and look and feel. The approach has allowed me to develop rich conversations with our interviewees and showcase their experience of our ecosystem which will be of huge benefit for anyone involved in research, innovation and enterprise.”
Nick Barthram, Strategy Partner at Firehaus said: “Firehaus has worked with a range of organisations in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise space, including UKRI, Made Smarter Innovation and The University of Bristol. Consequently, we’ve developed a clear understanding and methodology to ignite opportunities at the intersection of academia and industry”.
Strategy, Concept and Art Direction: Firehaus
Film Production: JonesMillbank
See more images here
Top floor, corner of St Nicholas St and Clare St above Four Wise Monkeys – BS1 1YH
Minimum 6 month contract
Hey! What? and Duchess Media are looking for freelancers or small start ups to come share our recently expanded creative office space with us. We have 4 more desks available in our bright and spacious second room that includes its own kitchenette and a shared meeting room space.
We are a fun, creative and social group and are looking for people who will fit into the environment we have created.
Rent includes:
• Desk
• Internet
• Electricity
• Showers
• Cleaning
You will need to provide your own chair.
Anyone interested in coming to have a look please get in contact here or call Hamish on 07866 915 863.
Video marketing is fundamentally the use of video content to promote and market products and services, increase social and digital engagements, and educate and reach target audiences. That’s a lot of potential uses, which is why video marketing is becoming ever prevalent with our clients and the brands of today. Audiences are also watching more online video content than ever before. This growing appetite in viewership and engagement has made it an ideal channel for performance marketing.
Something that has become crucial to the acceleration of video’s success within marketing is that now it is truly measurable like the other more established performance channels. Marketers and brands are now able to feel more assured by results like Return on Investment (ROI) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) offered by video, as we’re able to effectively see its influence on traffic, leads, sales and audience impact. Video is a tried and tested way of driving high performance ads and generating results across a variety of metrics.
Performance-driven creative and creative-driven performance.
What? Well, traditionally campaigns have either been led around an innovative creative idea, but this idea, whilst it may be unique, or eye-catching, lacks value if it doesn’t lead to tangible actions or results. At the other end of the spectrum we see campaigns heavily led by KPIs, but lacking creativity. We believe in finding a sweet spot; we’ve proven that great things happen when you find a balance and believe that brands of today will need to shift their focus from one or the other and merge the two.
Rethinking the way we approach creative to be optimised for performance is not about being less creative or restricting big ideas, it’s about bringing data to the forefront and using that to inform our decisions and learnings. By re-prioritising the way we approach creative, with data-led insights upfront helps ideas reach the audience effectively, resonate emotionally with their needs and drive the desired outcome. By no means should data mean ‘do the same as everyone else’, it should give you the ground to understand what resonates and how to differentiate yourself in your market. Ultimately, performance-driven creative is focused on the end result, the desired action, therefore for the concept to work, it needs to deliver results.
Bringing this back to video, with an ever-changing landscape of video trends and platform capabilities, even on a daily basis, our creative intuition of how to capture attention best can be subjective, emotionally led and provide a narrow view. This is where data helps to steer our vision towards what is proven to be most effective, ensuring that ideas are backed by something more than instinct. As well as steering the idea, it’s also important to be aware of the best practices for each platform with a generic view and specifically for your audience – for example, are the majority of your audience watching on a mobile device or desktop, do they perform better with or without sound, what length is most effective? Each of these data points can inform how to optimise your video content.
When it comes to optimising channel-specific content, take this example from Mercedes Benz. This YouTube pre-roll concept has really embraced the requirements of this format and engaged the audience in a creative way that directly links to their specs. The ad creative makes clever use of quick video cuts and great sound design of a roaring engine to engage its viewers’ senses. This way, its audience can actually see and hear the intensity of reaching 60 MPH in only 3.8 seconds.
However, from our experience this also works on a much smaller scale, with more agile budgets. Take one of our consumer brands, independent, family-run company Cotswold RAW. We’ve been working with them since they started up and video was a new consideration for them – something we were keen to grow to differentiate them in the pet market and demonstrate their expertise, unique offering and quality of product. Working within a limited budget from a one day shoot, we managed to create two master ads (one consumer focused and one for their retailers) social cuts (for Facebook & Instagram) and cut downs for YouTube pre-roll ads – that’s a lot of content! When it came to results, we managed to get tails wagging. On a limited ad spend over a highlighted month period, this led to an incredible conversion rate of up to 46.6%. Off the success of this campaign, we are now currently in the production process for a new video series.
On the other side of our client roster, Cytel, the largest provider of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design and execution, looked to us to develop and support their new brand messaging. For this we took a multi-channel approach to video, we utilised LinkedIn to ensure we could reach their defined target audience within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. We also created additional uplift in awareness by integrating YouTube into our approach, which allowed us to target specific relevant video content to generate the most effective levels of engagement and retention. This gave us a multilayered approach and therefore greater depth to our brand awareness results.
Finally, test and learn, test and learn. A huge part of the success of our campaigns relies heavily on optimisations and an integrated approach to reporting. Feeding back learnings to evolve existing campaigns as well as using them to inform new development of visuals and messaging is a huge part of creative performance. Testing and analysing efficiently is the best way to be effective.
Historically video is (generally) approached by the industry as “part of a wider campaign” and often handed to a one-off production agency and director who haven’t been involved in the same brand journey and strategy as the creative agency.
Being fully integrated at AUK, our unique approach helps us to ensure video is ingrained at the heart of our brands journeys and considered as part of a wider marketing strategy, not just a singular campaign activation. We think beyond just making amazing content, we also consider how and where to use it for maximum impact and results.