It’s said that the difference between art and science is that science gets the same results from the same process every time, but art can get many right answers even with greatly varied approaches.
While a creative agency has a lot of questions to answer for each client’s project (Who is the main audience? What are the messages desired? What is the budget? What is the deadline? and more), the best answers merge as solving multiple questions in one.
The recycling campaign, as with most civil, public sector communications, had far more information to get across than thirty seconds would allow. This is a common issue for most clients.
We interviewed the client and learned that they wanted to express many “rules” about newly introduced recycling bins in the community that were being improperly used, they wanted to reach householders in almost all demographics, and they wanted the message to be upbeat, pleasant and attractive. The topic was not “trash” but “recycling.”
They had a reasonable funding budget but needed a quick turnaround. Arranging video shoots would, in this case, triple the time to complete, and a traditional “storytelling” approach would be unable to cram even a third of the material into the spot. Joe suggested a very current approach using the “infographic video” approach.
All videos present three combined streams of information … what the audience hears, what they see and what they read. In many commercial productions information is repetitive for retention, so less information is presented, but is repeated in each and all of the main “layers” of the script.
The recycling campaign was very much on the order of consumer education. It was not a matter of choice about using the “big bins” (as we called them in-house) because they were distributed to all households, but was about how to use what they already had.
With an animated infographic approach, the iconic images substituted effectively for hundreds of words, held viewer attention with the colors (which also conveyed meanings) and reached young and old without condescension. School-aged children could grasp the content and perhaps point it out to parents, yet parents, having seen so many similar treatments in other media, would also appreciate the quick-connect imagery without feeling that the subject or they, themselves, were being treated as “childish.”
A practical result was also the relative time savings for committee-based client approval. Various stages of rough product could go by email (or FTP) to the client and his various collaborators, and when feedback returned, alterations could be made more quickly without having to re-shoot scenes, as a video would have demanded.
The result was a very effective ROI for the client and another feather in our cap.
Many people with no training can shoot video on their phones and edit the results on their tablets or PCs, but they are not experienced at finding effective techniques and creative approaches that satisfy multiple requirements. They don’t know the questions to ask and have not had the decades of experience at solving problems.
This is why a credible creative agency is a worthwhile investment when the message has more than casual significance. It is also why we love what we do at Media Quest, and why we get more repeat clients every year.
When your message is vital and you are seeking expertise in delivering it well, you are on a Media Quest.
