It’s every decision maker’s nightmare. You’ve done your research. You’ve found what you believe to be a top-quality company, they say all the right things and wham! You get their finished product, and think to yourself, “What the heck?! How did I get this so wrong?” Sound familiar?
Before co-founding Tribe Films, I was a senior level marketing executive for a multi-billion-dollar publicly traded company. Trust me, I’ve experienced my fair share of embarrassing moments throughout my career, but none more than when I hired my first video production company.
Here are the three lessons I learned along the way that ended up saving me a tremendous amount of time and money later in my career. I hope it does the same for you.
This may be one of the best kept secrets around. If you haven’t used a creative talent placement agency or heard of one before, hold tight because I’m about to blow your mind. Had I known about this, there would be no lesson #2 or #3.
Talent agencies act like recruiters. They have networks of creative freelancers and companies within marketing, performance media, video production, content creation and product industries that can find the right partner for any project.
This service is worth its weight in gold, trust me. You’ll thank me later.
One great example is Dallas-based Artist Uprising. This nationally recognized, award-winning talent agency has served some of the world’s leading brands in creative solutions.
They recently contracted with Canon to curate a digital artist and a production company for a commercial on their newly launched imagePROGRAF Pro-300 printer.
Take a look at the case study here, or watch the commercial with world-renowned digital artist Magdiel Lopez.
There’s a quote that best describes this from Benjamin Franklin. He said, “the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is long forgotten.” Boy, isn’t that true.
I will never forget the moment we hired a Dallas video production company for the first time. We made our decision based on cost rather than quality and ended up learning a that lesson first-hand.
We had just launched a subsidiary division and decided to use branded video content for the new website. The only problem was we had little-to-no experience at the time with video production and didn’t really understand what we were looking for or what to ask.
So, what did we do? We did what any other budget conscience, penny-pinching company would do. We used Google. We typed “video production companies in Dallas” and started sifting through the self-proclaimed award-winning, full-service video service companies.
Of the numerous proposals we received, I ashamed to say we made our decision based on cost rather than quality. The final video was so bad we never used it.
In fact, we ended up spending MORE money fixing the branding/quality issues rather than simply doing it right the first time and finding a trusted partner who could deliver the quality we needed. Which leads me to the third and final lesson.
Make no mistake about it, there is a major difference between a production partner and a service provider. We learned the difference immediately after hiring the second video production company.
Whereas the first company told us everything we wanted to hear, the second company didn’t. They came in like a consultant. They asked questions about our competition, our audience, and what made us different from our competitors.
They took our creative ideas and elevated everything about them. They were positioning themselves as a partner, really understanding our story.
By starting with the end in mind, they understood the creative process better and how to accomplish our vision. Shortly after that first discovery meeting, we received comprehensive creative treatments with various scripts and production themes. They advised us which would have the potential best outcome for our goal and worked multiple proposals around our budget. It was eye opening.
The production we received exceeded our expectations and we ended up using them for years afterwards. We even contracted them with other subsidiaries within the company.
In the end, we realized there is a huge benefit to partnering with a company rather than paying for a service. Take the time to ask tough questions about your partner because in the long run, they can either elevate your brand or diminish it.
As a former marketing executive, take the lessons I’ve learned and apply them to your future video production, creative content, media or product placement.