I was sitting in a plane next to a guy who was the CEO of a major company. Turned out he was unhappy with the monthly video web reports he was doing. His PR department would shoot them themselves over a day. He felt they were taking too much of his time to do and he wasn’t happy with the quality of the result. So I gave him my card and said I could do better. Let’s face it, looking at their stuff, handheld in front of a white wall, off the camera mic, it wouldn’t be hard.
So I got an abrupt call from the PR department grudgingly booking me. I shot it in front of a location the CEO had always wanted to do but had been told by the PR team was not possible. It was lit, looked great and sound was perfect and all shot in under 30min. I cut it and had it loaded to their website in under 2 hours. Everyone but the PR people seemed happy.
Since I had the password I could follow the infometrics of how the video’s on their site were trending. Previously the monthly videos received about 200-300 views with most stopping after the first 30seconds, almost no one watching the full 3 min. My video had over 2,000 views and over 80% stayed till the end. Job done I thought.
Then next moth no phone call and I saw they were back to the PR shot crap video, 158 views.
Recently I ran into the CEO. He had left that company and gone to a new one, so I asked him why they didn’t call me back in. Was it the price?
Oh no, they thought I was good value for money. Saving the CEO’s time was worth a lot more to the company than my half day fee.
So what was the problem?
The PR team felt the poorer video quality would appeal more to a younger demographic