Not like physical protection, although if they’re good looking you may want to consider it…

By protection, I mean someone in charge and delegating. This again, may seem obvious, but it’s really often overlooked. You have this tool-and I’d like to think of myself and profession as- a Swiss army knife. Video and media creation are a sort of variable and interchangeable as codecs, formats, media types and shooting can vary. Or a Leatherman, if you’re anti-Swiss, those are cool too. But you have the ability to ingest and spit out all sorts of media, formats, products, assets and more. You can have one-man bands, or full professional teams. But you still need to give direction. And you still need that approval process.

This means: when a project comes in and goes out, it’s given a direction that the team can track from inception to execution, and keeps it on track. You may think it’s the video guy’s job to do this, but it’s really the director of marketing, media, sales, whatever you want to call it. Because just as you can have a Swiss army knife do 50 different things, sometimes you don’t need all of those tools, or sometimes you have a better tool for the job. Having that approval process makes it easier on everybody to contribute to projects.

Let’s go with more examples because I enjoy them. Say you have an internal project; Joe from IT wants a video to teach new employees how to login to the computer system. That’s pretty easy and something you can create in a few days to a week with the team. Joe writes a script or gets a script approved, the video guy makes the video and then hands it over to Joe. Problem solved, right?

Except- say hypothetically Joe doesn’t like the color scheme. Or Joe wants the video to look more dramatic with a chase scene. Everybody wants to be Spielberg. There needs to be someone taking responsibility for this process. And hint-it should NOT be the video guy. There needs to be that buffer level between the creative and the department and client. Setting standards and media ideas are up to the person in charge of the department. This makes it easier if Joe wants something that will cost 3x the budget it truly should, to tell him no in the beginning and not put the blame on the media guy. It also helps it fall in line with the standards of the company-the color scheme, makeup, tone and more. If Joe gets a crazy video that takes 4 weeks to make, then Karen in accounting can or will want something just like it and before you know it, that media guy is booked trying to accommodate all of those people and ideas. It’s his job to create, but it’s not always the creative’s job to make everyone happy and that can cause stress. The creative will look for the direction and approval and if Joe approves and the VP vetos, you’ll have an awkward situation that the media guy is only in the middle of.

The creatives need to report to the director of marketing-or whomever the company has in charge of that department. And the department head needs the power to veto those ideas that don’t fit within the company aesthetic without making those other departments mad at the individual creative. It’s much easier to tell them no upfront, or temper ideas as well. Having a stunt through a burning ring of fire will not help the HR department relate to employees better. The department head can veto that one right away.

Sometimes you’ll find that the creative is very busy. If you have a good marketing plan, they will be kept busy. Help protect them by keeping that director of marketing in charge of that pipeline and approving the videos and projects that come in. It makes things less awkward. Now, we can look FORWARD!