Mobile media became the buzz-word in 2006 for advertising agencies, television networks, content creators and, of course, the mobile device companies themselves. But with enormous sums of money being invested in mobile media initiatives there is still no clear way to make money from it evidenced by the closure of Mobile ESPN just nine-months after it launched.
The problem? The need is there for more content to fill all these new media outlets including cell phones, video sites like YouTube and podcasts but there isn’t enough ad revenue from it to justify producing original, broadcast-quality content for mobile devices.
“With the purchase of YouTube everyone is on this craze about what YouTube is going to do to the media industry,” notes Kevin Schaff, CEO for motion imagery company Thought Equity Motion. “Everyone loves consumer-generated content from a price and budget standpoint. The ad agencies know that if they can get a viral video to happen it’s worth a whole bunch of money. From a buy-in perspective the corporations are saying they want that stuff to happen at that price and that turnaround but they want it at what they are used to having: custom built content with a professional end look and feel and quality. So they want more video because there are more places to put it but they want professional quality on a smaller budget with faster turnaround times.”
And therein lies the dilemma because as the old industry adage goes: you can have it cheap, you can have it fast, you can have it look professional, but you can only pick two of those three options. So without the money to produce original, professional content many content creators have begun turning to stock footage to fill this void.
“What we’re seeing it there are tons, literally tens of thousands of desktop editors/producers that are saying, ‘I know how to do that’ and it’s basically repurposing content,” notes Schaff. “That is really where the chips are not only going to fall but stay in this new semi-pro and professional New Media area. The only way to effectively compete in that market that wants a smaller budget and tighter time frame is to leverage pre-produced material because it gives you access to a billion dollars worth of material.”
Thought Equity recently commissioned a survey of the advertising community, including freelance producers, small, medium and large ad agencies, to discover how agencies are looking to pre-shot imagery to address the needs of new media. The study found that 44 percent are using pre-shot motion imagery more than ever with the growth of new media and with 38 percent declaring pre-shot motion imagery to be the most useful tool in creating a new media advertising campaign. Another 34 percent of ad agency professionals said email/instant messaging link videos that can be forwarded are the most effective method for video-based new media advertising. To read the complete study click here
“Repurposing in my opinion, it may not be that exact term but that concept will end up being the biggest drivers of content creation over the next 36 months. More accessibility to more content,” declares Schaff.
But why won’t original content work? Again it goes back to the need for fast, cheap, professional-quality content.
“Places like MaximOnline are asking for content and specifically want to be given a story that they can sell the ad space around. So one guy is out producing short, video-magazine type lifestyle pieces and he sells them out. The problem is he builds them for $1,800 and they look like they are produced for about $1,800. So if he wants to move upstream closer to the professional market and clients, he doesn’t have the pro camerawork. But at the same time a customer of ours builds the same type of product for about the same price but he leveraged about $25,000 worth of existing camerawork to do it. It was just a little travel-destination show that he produced that showed an overview of Rio: the top three daytime activities, the top thee night-clubs, the hotels and other tourist attractions. He puts that together and sells it. He doesn’t have to rent the helicopters for those shots, he didn’t have to travel to Rio he didn’t have to cast the models. So the interesting thing as far as repurposing is he is killing the guy that is investing $1,800 to shoot something with his HandyCam.”
To address this growing need Thought Equity is preparing to launch a new section of its Web site centered around the needs of the new media content producer.
“One thing you will see is a shot reel. We’ve gone back through and repackaged our content so that when you click the shot reel you actually get a whole scene instead of just a clip. So instead of just getting a shot of a city street you get an establishing shot of the city, a helicopter shot, a shot above the street, on ground level, and some close-ups of people in the street, rather than just a individual clip. So when an editor comes in they have access to all that footage in a logical form,” notes Schaff.
Mo’ Money
Along with this trend in mobile markets Schaff says he is seeing a growing need for pre-built commercials that can be used by local networks, mobile and Web.
“We have a producer/editor that just got a $36,000 check from us for the last quarter.” Says Schaff. “He does contract work for agencies but in his downtime he creates these commercials using our footage, adds some value to them and then we sell them to cable companies, Web sites and mobile phone companies. We sell a lot of pre-produced material like that and those spots just get personalized at the very end. A pre-produced commercial performs 23 times better than the average clip in our collection. We are able to bring Madison Avenue quality to mainstream America by supplying them to local cable companies. And we also have found a lot of editors can make a higher margin by taking one of our pre-built commercials and customizing it for a certain project rather than creating something from scratch.”
Check out some of Thought Equity's production ready commercialshere
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