How does a Personalized Video get Made?

Reading: 4 mins

Photo by Natalie Parham on Unsplash

The creation of a commercial is an amazing process to witness. It starts as a simple idea floating in the air of a meeting room and then goes through many changes and phases until it finally arrives as a dynamic story on your screen. Dozens of people are involved in its creation, each with different, specific skills and a lot of thought goes into how to deliver the message to the viewer with maximum impact.  
 

A personalized video has an additional layer of work involved to add the personalized elements into the commercial. Compared to some of the other phases, it's relatively simple and straightforward but plays an important part in the process from the early stages.  
So, what needs to be done and who does what in the journey to the finished product? In this blog we'll look at the processes involved in creating a personalized video campaign and break it down step by step.  

Every commercial is different and every commercial arrives at the finished product in a different way. For simplicity's sake here, we'll say there are usually four key groups involved, although there are often more and some of the roles are interchangeable between the groups.   

The Client - The owner of the brand who want the commercial and finance it.  

The Agency - The creative organization who come up with the concept and oversees the completion of the video to the client's satisfaction.  

The Production Company - The team who carry out the shooting of the video.  

The CSM (Customer Success Management) Team - the technical team at Motionlab who help to create the personalized elements.  

The Creative Brief

This is where it all begins. The Client wants a campaign and so the Agency listens to what the client is trying to achieve and then writes up a brief including key factors like objective, message and target audience.  

Creative Concept 

Once the creative brief has been agreed on, the Agency will come up with several concepts that offer different solutions. Beside the creative issues, this is where the practicalities like budget, running time and format also come into the equation and need to be confirmed.  
For a personalized video, this is the point where the CSM Team become involved with advice on how to upsell customers and strengthen the brand etc.  

Script/Storyboards 

When the concept has been signed off on, the Agency will create a script along with storyboards. The script provides context for each scene and also includes dialogue, V/O and acting notes. 

Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

The CSM team collaborates with the Client and Agency to determine which personalized elements will become incorporated into the video and which scenes they will be used in. This is a consultation period for the CSM team where the technical requirements are determined, and advice and training are given where required.

Motionlab Platform has been designed in a user-friendly way so that it is the Client or Agency that carries out the actual personalization so they can retain full control and management of the process. Motionlab supplies the cloud-based technology and provides technical support. The CSM team talks with both the Client and the Agency but primarily with whoever is operating the platform for the campaign. It's crucially important here to discuss expectations with the Client in terms of not just the numbers but also the other potentially positive effects of the campaign. This is especially true if the Client is unfamiliar with video personalization, as a personalized campaign is not like a traditional video campaign... the results often exceed expectations.
 

Pre-Production & Shooting 

With a finished script, the project moves into the pre-production stage. The first thing is to bring in a director who now plays a crucial role in the decision-making process. Actors, crew, locations and music are then determined. The production quickly moves forward to the shooting stage which can take anything from one day to a week or potentially even more depending on the complexity of the shoot and the budget.  

Post-production 

After filming has finished, the footage is compiled into the rough cut. Editing, sound mix, colour grading and overlays then fine-tune the film to create the finished commercial. 
This is the stage where the personalization process really kicks in and runs in parallel to the other post-production steps. The video production team are onboarded to the Motionlab Extension for After Effects. The parameters are set - which involves the creation of the basic structure for preparing the user data and for carrying out the post-production in After Effects. Then the landing page is created for each viewer on the website of the brand with the Motionlab Player embedded in it. This is simply a piece of code pasted on the landing page. When the viewer clicks on the thumbnail, they are taken to the landing page and the Player takes care of everything else. 

Setting up the Template Creator on Motionlab Platform

Next comes the preparation of distribution of the personalized videos with the creation of a message template (email, MMS, Viber etc) with a personalized thumbnail and an identifier so that the player knows which video it should be playing. 
Before a bulk batch of videos is sent out, testing is carried out to ensure everything is running smoothly.  
 
The video is now released into the world. Afterwards, analytical data is collected by both the Client and Motionlab and the campaign is evaluated to determine its effectiveness  
  
And that's it! Until the next campaign begins, and then the process starts all over again...  

Danny Holman, Motionlab