How Strategy Can Hurt Video Production

Recently I’ve been thinking about the relationship between video strategy and video execution. Yes, strategy is imperative. You can’t produce a video that meets your marketing needs without proper planning, a strategy, or a well-written creative brief. But there can also be a downside to a strategy-first mindset and you have to be careful not to let it hinder content production. Bear in mind that the points that follow deal more with non-narrative (or documentary) content vs. scripted, commercial production.

An obsessive focus on strategy can lead to production paralysis where analysts don’t want to green light any video project, fearful that all the strategical check boxes aren’t marked. Notice I said obsessive focus. At some point the creatives on your team should be given the trust and the autonomy to go out and produce based on the information given. This is especially true if you work on an in-house creative team with an established brand voice.

Sometimes it’s important to create as much video content as you can, giving your in-house teams a library of assets they can choose from. It’s a Field of Dreams mentality: If you build it, they will come. In other words, when your in-house teams see the finished product, they will come up with ideas on how best to use it to meet their marketing needs. Providing a robust library will give them more choices, and it will give analysts more data to see what’s working and what isn’t.

So, what can we take away from this? Although strategy is important, it should never hinder your creative teams. In some situations, the strategy may actually come later, after people within your company have seen the final product. A video producer can storyboard and describe his/her vision all he/she wants, but sometimes those listening to the pitch might have a difficult time imagining the same end result. Only when they see it on the screen can they finally realize the video’s potential.