How Much for a Video?
Video is blowing up. We've known it for a while, but its in full-blow-up-mode right now. At Hotbed, we are receiving calls from all sorts of businesses, people, whoever, saying, "I want a video. How much?!" It's the video revolution and I think its great. Video killed the radio star and now web video is killing the TV star. Video is a powerful tool to communicate and finally its available to the masses, well, at least distribution is. Check this out.
Anyone can buy TV media using Google Adwords. Crazy. Media buying is a nuanced relationship business. That probably won't change. But the fact that Joe Blow can by media on TV and put an ad up on his favorite TV channel is mind bending. Hell, when I saw this, I wanted to start making short films and filling ad space with whatever. For some reason it feels liberating as hell. If I have a message, I can put it on TV. Sure, it may air only once at two AM but who cares! Its on TV! The walls between me and audiences are crumbling.
Anyone can buy TV media using Google Adwords. Crazy. Media buying is a nuanced relationship business. That probably won't change. But the fact that Joe Blow can by media on TV and put an ad up on his favorite TV channel is mind bending. Hell, when I saw this, I wanted to start making short films and filling ad space with whatever. For some reason it feels liberating as hell. If I have a message, I can put it on TV. Sure, it may air only once at two AM but who cares! Its on TV! The walls between me and audiences are crumbling. Let's go back to the days before the Internet. To have a video seen by a lot of people you had two choices, deal with the media buyers and spend tons of money on TV media or duplicating VHS tapes. When I first got into this business in '97, we had clients that spent more on duplicating VHS tapes than they did on the actual video production. To mail ten thousand tapes cost roughly $40K. Now you just throw your video up on Youtube or your website and send out a link. You can reach a lot people with a really powerful medium for very cheap.
Here's the catch. Distribution has gotten cheaper, but production hasn't...at least good production. The mindset of low cost, immediate video distribution has some how spilled over into video production. It has people asking, "I can post it for free, why can't I make it for free?" The people want video and they want it cheap and they want it good. Correction. They want good video, but have no idea how much video production costs and they have no guidelines. So, that's when our phone rings and we get the question, "I want a video. How much?"
Back in the day, there were channels. Clients called agencies, agencies called production companies. Production companies produced video for agencies who sold it to clients. While the big ad game is still played in those channels, lurking just below the big game is a video free-for-all. The only calls we used to get were from moderate to big ad agencies and marketing departments of large corporate clients. Now we are getting calls from all sorts businesses, businesses that have never produced video, businesses big and small saying, "WE WANT A VIDEO. HOW MUCH?!"
Every time we get one of these calls I say, "Heck Yeah!" I get super excited. I am excited to be a part of the democratization of video. I want to help people put their ideas on video (or ideally film) and get them out there. I want to see clients get results. I want to see the videos work for our clients. Collectively we are forging new ground, but with that, comes challenges.
When work comes through traditional channels, most of those clients have worked with video and they typically understand the process and cost associated with video production. But, in this new environment, production companies are faced with the challenge of educating new clients who've never worked with video, don't understand the production process or the cost of production. Nor do they understand the process with which production companies arrive at their production budgets. That's okay. I have no idea how to build a house or how housing construction is bid out. Not knowing is not bad a thing. But, the result is that the process of bidding video projects can be very frustrating for both the production company and the client. That frustration usually begins with the question. "how much for a video?"
Why the frustration? For the most part, even the most simple video productions are unique. There are many decisions to make: What format should we shoot on? Does the concept require shooting on a stage or on location? How many locations? How many talent? How long does the piece need to be? Does it need production design? The video budget is the sum of all the answers to these questions. A video budget is the matrix to the video world.
I've spent some time pondering this and have come up with a single piece of advice that should smooth out the bidding process. Here it is:
When clients approach production companies they need to have one of two things figured out:
If clients have one of these two things figured out, a production company can either attach a number to the clients' concepts or tell them what they can get for their money. Boom. Communication lines are immediately open.
If clients don't have a concept or know how much they have to spend, then clients just need to call up a production company and tell them exactly that, "I want a video / TV spot, brand film, I don't have a concept and I don't know what I want to spend." They will be able to walk clients through the next steps. Clients will be much further down the path more quickly than if they simply ask "How much for a video?"
How about a million dollars.
Here's the catch. Distribution has gotten cheaper, but production hasn't...at least good production. The mindset of low cost, immediate video distribution has some how spilled over into video production. It has people asking, "I can post it for free, why can't I make it for free?" The people want video and they want it cheap and they want it good. Correction. They want good video, but have no idea how much video production costs and they have no guidelines. So, that's when our phone rings and we get the question, "I want a video. How much?"
Back in the day, there were channels. Clients called agencies, agencies called production companies. Production companies produced video for agencies who sold it to clients. While the big ad game is still played in those channels, lurking just below the big game is a video free-for-all. The only calls we used to get were from moderate to big ad agencies and marketing departments of large corporate clients. Now we are getting calls from all sorts businesses, businesses that have never produced video, businesses big and small saying, "WE WANT A VIDEO. HOW MUCH?!"
Every time we get one of these calls I say, "Heck Yeah!" I get super excited. I am excited to be a part of the democratization of video. I want to help people put their ideas on video (or ideally film) and get them out there. I want to see clients get results. I want to see the videos work for our clients. Collectively we are forging new ground, but with that, comes challenges.
When work comes through traditional channels, most of those clients have worked with video and they typically understand the process and cost associated with video production. But, in this new environment, production companies are faced with the challenge of educating new clients who've never worked with video, don't understand the production process or the cost of production. Nor do they understand the process with which production companies arrive at their production budgets. That's okay. I have no idea how to build a house or how housing construction is bid out. Not knowing is not bad a thing. But, the result is that the process of bidding video projects can be very frustrating for both the production company and the client. That frustration usually begins with the question. "how much for a video?"
Why the frustration? For the most part, even the most simple video productions are unique. There are many decisions to make: What format should we shoot on? Does the concept require shooting on a stage or on location? How many locations? How many talent? How long does the piece need to be? Does it need production design? The video budget is the sum of all the answers to these questions. A video budget is the matrix to the video world.
I've spent some time pondering this and have come up with a single piece of advice that should smooth out the bidding process. Here it is:
When clients approach production companies they need to have one of two things figured out:
Their creative concept or How much they can spend
If clients have one of these two things figured out, a production company can either attach a number to the clients' concepts or tell them what they can get for their money. Boom. Communication lines are immediately open.
If clients don't have a concept or know how much they have to spend, then clients just need to call up a production company and tell them exactly that, "I want a video / TV spot, brand film, I don't have a concept and I don't know what I want to spend." They will be able to walk clients through the next steps. Clients will be much further down the path more quickly than if they simply ask "How much for a video?"
How about a million dollars.
posted by Hotbed Media at
1:57 PM
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