Not all content creation is equal. There are plenty of click-bait blogs or bright, flashy and noisy ads out there, all vying for your attention. And with the average person being exposed to more than 5,000 ads per day, it’s somewhat understandable that many advertisers take this approach. Marketing can be seen as a competition.
At Gigasavvy, we don’t think anything cuts through the noise better than good storytelling. You don’t have to compete; you just have to connect. That takes good strategy, a compelling narrative, and good production. How do we achieve this magic? We’re going to let you in on some of our secrets with a look at our content creation process.
Understanding Your (Actual) Content Creation Needs
Obviously, our clients typically have products or services to sell, and platforms to sell on. But it would be a mistake to think of selling first. Great projects don’t start with a decision to make a viral video or to hop on a TikTok trend. They start with a decision to tell your brand or product story to a relevant audience. With that objective in mind, you can produce content that can easily be formatted for any platform.
Understanding Your Audiences
When thinking of audiences, it’s easy to jump ahead to think about buyers. It’s also easy to ignore the buyer and only listen to the brand. But good content creation requires investing the time to fully know BOTH. That’s why our discovery process is not a simple one-hour meeting with a checklist of questions.
Sure there is a discovery meeting. But that is neither the beginning nor the end. We continue discovering things about our clients and their customers for as long as we work together. We dig in deep to get to know our clients: Why do they do what they do? What are their business goals? What inspires them? How do they define success?
And we dig just as deep to understand their customers. Only after we are armed with this strategic foundation can we develop a strong creative brief that gets to the heart — the core human truth — so that it will resonate with all people, even if they are not in our target audience.
Weaving a Narrative
We know we are intruding on peoples’ lives with the ads we create, so we want to make sure it’s really worth it. We take special care to speak to what they care about — and to do so in a way that matters and inspires.
We believe in relentlessly attacking the creative brief to accomplish this. Our creative, strategy and account teams work together — asking every question, debating every nuance, and looking at things from every angle to make sure we have it right. Then, when we have a clear and concise creative brief that gets to the heart of the matter our team works together to visualize stories that connect.
With our approach we get to know our clients so well that it is often hard for them to choose among multiple concepts that really fit their needs.
Considering the Channels
You may have felt something has been missing in the process described thus far. We have not yet talked about the channels where the content will live. That is not an oversight; it is an intentional order of operation. While we definitely create for and manage to the media plan, we don’t believe that impactful projects start with a goal of “making a viral video” or producing a video for TikTok, etc. We believe that the story comes first. After the story is outlined, we create custom content that consistently tells that story in a way that is native to each of the media platforms where it will live.
Bringing it to Life in Production
With the story agreed on and the appropriate channels established, we get to work on production. At this point, some creatives prefer to go work and come back with a finished project. At Gigasavvy, we believe it’s important to continue to collaborate with our clients to make sure they are heard and understood at every stage of the process.
We recognize that at any point — from location scouting and talent management to filming and post production — there may be a need to enhance, update or pivot. We embrace flexibility within a framework in order to create the best deliverable.
Project Wrap-Up
As mentioned above, discovery never stops. We don’t wait for things to go wrong and schedule a project retrospective. We proactively wrap every project with a discussion on all of the things that went right, and any learnings or opportunities for future projects. Whether our key takeaways are client specific, project specific or process-oriented, we take the mindset that there is always something to celebrate, and always something to learn.
With that, we are ready to start the whole process over again with another happy client. Next time, maybe it will be you. Just let us know what you’re ready to work on.
Gigasavvy is an award-winning content creation, brand strategy and creative agency that has successfully developed and brought many brands to life with authentic storytelling. Contact us to see how we can help you tell your brand’s story.
