New Delhi: The sound of Lights, Camera Action! may be deterred, but the power of a creative has found another path in this new time of social distancing.
As the leadership of the ‘Digital First’ production agency, MediaMonks, decided safety before everything else, it was time for artists to make their sanitised homes the new creative environment.
With over 30 ongoing projects, in India and triple figures globally, this was the first bucket to be solved. Thanks to global scale and the fact that MediaMonks has always worked across borders and time zones, our Directors worked with producers to complete pre-production details, whilst the graphics team worked on the post production elements of those projects like nothing had changed. All done remotely, and yet brought together by the power of digital technology.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY
Operating as a single team around the globe, with alternative locations for live shoots balances out limitations that brands are faced with, when producing content today. In-house studios in India, Singapore, USA and the Netherlands built to create fit-for-format content enables our team to quickly shoot, edit and deliver content at speed and proximity with clients giving creative direction from their homes — an essential capability in times where production teams are postponing projects and waiting for COVID-19 to be contained.
This speed helps with another major content challenge brands face: the volume of content to be produced within a tight deadline. Because shooting so much content could be logistically difficult, we notice the need to prioritize. Prioritizing and centralizing content is just one example of how brands can (and should) plug in with creative partners when needed to quickly fill in capabilities gaps or offset strains.
Brands that already have the right content might also want to, revisit it to re-use, re-edit and re-purpose, and provide a fresh take on what’s worked for them so far…
While these are unusual times, one thing is certain; people will be spending more time at home behind screens than ever before, looking at and for things to surprise and delight them, to see and share, creating an unparalleled footprint for digital content that is delivered in the right format, through the right channel and at the right time. For brands speed is of essence.
Kantar Media’s Chief Research Officer Jon Swallen puts it elegantly, “Digital media enable marketers to adjust campaigns more quickly as compared to linear media like TV or print,” he explains, emphasizing, the “net result: the lead/lag cycle has gotten shorter.”
We see a rise of digital events from live experiences, gamification of content and live streaming as a solution for trade events to influencer capsules and user generated content shot at home all becoming an emerging mantra for brands to stay connected and engaged with their consumer family.
HOW DOES IT COME TOGETHER?
“I think it is important to look at what has structurally changed and what is frictional. The tools – Google Hangouts, Zooms have been around for a long time, but only now are we having to rely on them for 100 percent of our process. This will inevitably force companies to look at what has been made more effective and what has suffered. The business is adapting well to this change. From a client perspective we expect a lot of the changes will impact and accelerate the drive to digital. Many of our clients are looking at this as a tipping point to leapfrog to the next digital level,” adds Poran Malani, Director, S4 Capital India.
Robert Godinho, MD, MediaMonks, India believes “that this is a paradigm shift towards content search rather than content dissemination for a consumer.” As we all stay safe, there is a huge role that brand communication will play for a relatively remote individual with a huge amount of access to digital information.”
