How can Brian Eno and Coldplay make you a superstar in the eyes of your clients
Hello and welcome to your video boosting tip of the week from Captain. Helping you plan, direct, and perfect smartphone video content to engage your client's audience and enhance their brand.
Today we’ve set a crazy question. How can Brian Eno and Coldplay, help you take your clients’ videos from good too great?
Brian Eno. Coldplay. What have Coldplay got to do with anything? Well, let me explain.
Now I’m not the biggest fan of Coldplay, but I love that Viva La Vida album. And I mean…love it. Before then, they were ok, they were like water. They were fine if you’re thirsty, but you’d rather have Vimto… or just something more interesting.
Coldplay needed some flavour... some colour
Then, Brian Eno, the record producer, came along, and suddenly Coldplay exploded from Black and White into colour - everything clicked, everything made sense.
So obviously what a record producer does, is they’re assigned to the band, they take the bare bones of brilliance, and in the studio they add their own expertise and insight. They manage the process, they take the record and they elevate it from here (points low)… to here (points high).
Sound familiar? That’s you. That’s you, or it can be with your client’s user generated video content. So if your client’s trying to make their own video, it’s great that they want to make their own stuff, but it’s essential that you can demonstrate where you can add value, keep a piece of that pie, and elevate the whole thing.
So: here’s a triple-tip, not about how to create great content, which I’m sure you can, but how to position yourself as a superstar producer in the minds of your clients.
1. Demonstrate Authority
Get a viewpoint on this stuff. Don’t just sell UGC as a nice-to-have. Develop a strong, easy-to-explain philosophy that sets you apart from other companies doing the bare minimum.
Preferably, get an outlook on it that fits in with the clients values, and syncs with the big picture of what they’re trying to achieve.
2. Fear is good
Try to nudge them out of their comfort zone, even if only slightly - cos as you’ll know, that’s where the really interesting stuff is.
If you can, don’t just do what they ask you to do, don’t give them just what they say they want. You’ve got to elevate it, remember.
Standard agency stuff you’ll be doing already, but user-generated content gives you a unique opportunity for experimentation, and expectation is generally pretty low, so it’s worth pushing it.
3. Shape, don’t create
This is a bit of a weird one. Now, while the producers fingerprints will inevitably be visible on a record, you don’t want your stuff to feel like an identikit copy of whatever project you last worked on. The client’s content should feel uniquely theirs. So figure out how you can do things differently for them, talk them through how and why you’ve done it, and again, then you’re separating yourselves from the companies who just do the basics.
Be more like Brian. Be a music producer
So that’s today’s tip. Be the music producer, the one who takes the bare bones of authentic brilliance, then takes it from here (points low) to here (points high).
Be Brian Eno with Coldplay.
Or Norman Cook turning Brimful of Asha from a plodding bore, into an absolute banger.
Owen Morris rescuing Definitely Maybe with his wall of sound.
Ross Robinson with that 90s Nu Metal stuff (if you liked that kind og thing).
William Orbit with Madonna and All Saints.
Quincy Jones with, he who shall not be named.
Or Nile Rogers, George Martin, Mark Ronson, the list goes on.
Be the producer, be the hit-maker.
I'll see you next time. Until then, this is Captain helping you plan, direct and perfect smartphone video content to engage your clients audience and enhance their brand.