It is always satisfying when you get to do what you love. One of the greatest pleasure’s we know as a group of like-minded souls is when we are out on location, pulling a story together.
Earlier this year we had the challenge and pleasure to bring to life the stories behind Total Wine & More’s Winery Direct program. Who wouldn’t turn down the chance to spend 10 days in Napa interviewing and filming what are effectively the rock stars of Californian wine making. But I guess that is the rub, how do you do justice to a request like that with limited time and limited resources?
Intelligent collaboration is the way we do things and bringing together the right team for this job was, for us, theory in practice.
Five days, 10 vineyards, and what felt like an infinite number of products to capture, to do justice to this request was only going to be achieved if we thought differently about things. Just creating content was never going to be enough. Today we seem to live in a world where content is king, but that isn’t enough, less really is more. Rather than just flood the world with more things, we need to create better things, we need to connect with consumers on an authentic, sincere level.
On a lifetime value basis, emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly satisfied customers, these emotionally connected customers buy more of your products and services, visit you more often, exhibit less price sensitivity, pay more attention to your communications, follow your advice, and recommend you more – everything you hope their experience with you will cause them to do. So, deploying emotionally – connection-based experiences can help drives significant improvements in business outcomes.
At LO:LA we seek out and engage with the emotionally connected customer. The Brand Storytelling Report 2015, commissioned by content marketing agency Headstream, revealed that while 80% of people (UK adults) want brands to tell stories, 85% of them can’t remember a good one.
So, we’re constantly looking for ways to relate. To us it’s about holding up a mirror to consumers and letting them know the story starts from and with them.
“Show customers you know them and show them you care”
This then became our mantra for how we went about capturing our content. To deliver on this we strive to be as authentic as possible. We believe that having a nimble crew is not only cost effective for the client, it’s also improves our ability to be authentic. When large crews show up talent has a tendency to feel overwhelmed, especially when they aren’t hired talent. The winemakers we interviewed were relieved when they saw the size of our crew and more relaxed. Nothing was scripted, just a list of questions tailored to capture the topics we needed in the cut. We were able to move around from vineyards, tasting room and barrel rooms, capturing product still photography, b-roll and drone footage within a few hours.
Having a nimble crew was a huge advantage for us as well. We were able to cover two wineries a day. Even on days when we drove from one wine region to the next, we delivered on the ask. Each location had unique elements we wanted to identify and capture. With walkie talkies in hand, we would split up and scout the best options and quickly get set up for the interview. Meanwhile, our photographer set out to capture product stills. Very passionately, we were amazed with what he was able to pull off with very little direction.
Creating content is a labor of love. Having trust as a team instills trust with the interviewees and the client. Being open to all suggestions and working with a team that shares your passion and strives to deliver the best result is how we deliver on our promise of intelligent collaboration.
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