Video is a big thing nowadays. BIG. The new generation consumes petabytes of video content. If you would take a look at your social media feed right now, you will most likely see an almost even split between status updates and shared video content.
Facebook also enables users to create their own video content and stream live in great quality. Oh, and ‘Youtubers’ is a thing.
It’s safe to that video is here to stay. But, producing high-quality video content and video commercials can be both costly and time-consuming.
So how can a small company or a startup with a small marketing budget get in on this and market themselves with video ads?
We found an alternative: Fiverr. Well, kind of. Israel based The 13th Way specializes in funny, ready-made low-cost video commercials that you can order on Fiverr and the messaging and some of the branding will be customized for your brand.
We caught up with Amnon Picker and Hadar Madmoni, co-founders and video producers at The 13th Way to find out what this is all about.
Hi Amnon and Hadar!
Your company produces what you call ‘Funny pre-made video ads and affordable brand awareness videos’. Tell us, how did this all start?
Amnon: “After years of working in the traditional video advertising industry, creating funny video ads for businesses, the kind that cost over 10K and takes about 6 weeks to produce, we realized we have a problem.
We were constantly approached by SMB’s that loved our style and wanted us to produce a video ad for them - until they heard the cost and ran away screaming.”
Hadar: “We realized that there are three problems that prevent SMB’s from getting high-quality video ads. First of all: It’s sooo expensive. Secondly: it takes sooo much time and effort from the business owner. Last but oh so important: Cat in a sack - you have no idea how the actual final video will turn out.”
Amnon: “We decided to pursue this and enable those companies to advertise their businesses with their own high-end video ads. Quickly, affordably and without compromising quality.
It took our creativity to a fresh new place, we invented a new video ad format and created a content library that offers easily customizable, pre-made, funny video ads to businesses of any size and any budget.”
How does it work and what’s the cost?
Hadar: “It’s pretty straight forward actually. You browse our catalog and choose the video ad you would like to produce. Once you’ve found your favorite, you fill out your instructions in our requirements form. Once you’ve done that, our studio editors will take it from there and get to work on customizing the video per your instructions and send you your video file. One click, a few minutes of filling your instructions, and you’re done.”
Amnon and Hadar explain how it works in 71 seconds:
Amnon: “Our pricing ranges between $85 USD for our Basic package to $195 USD for our Premium package that includes upgrades like Full HD, extra branding, and a social media kit with extra social platform optimized files GIF animations and more. The process takes up to 5 days.”
What would the cost be to produce the same video ad from scratch for just one brand?
Amnon: “I encourage all of your readers to take any of our videos and ask any video production company to reproduce it. I would estimate that the quoted price to produce our kind of videos without compromising quality would be at least ten fold. At least.”
“Big firms that are a house hold name will never use our product.”
What about brand integrity? How will using pre-made videos that many other brands could be using at the same time, impact a company’s brand uniqueness?
Hadar: “We worried about this quite a bit when were getting started. But now, after more than a thousand customers worldwide, we understand that it’s not an actual problem, only an emotional one.”
Amnon: “Big firms that are a house hold name will never use our product. Their unique brand identity is crucial to them, and they have the massive budgets to back that up.
But local businesses do not have that problem, they have a much more limited reach and exposure. We find that it’s more of an emotional problem.”
Hadar: “When you consider the benefits of adding some ‘Cool’ to your brand, affordable and in one click, against the off chance that someone, somewhere will see some other business advertising with a similar ad and be infuriated? And then what? Send you an angry email?”
Amnon: “And most importantly, the real estate agent in New York is not sending his Facebook ads (or whatever) to people that live in Manchester. He is actually going to great lengths to make sure that only the most relevant people for him will be exposed to his ads. At the end of the day, it’s a big world out there.”
You kindly whipped up this beautiful video ad for us at Digital Mic Drop. Can you tell us a little bit about how it’s made?
Hadar: “We’d love to! 🙂 Once a client places their order in our Fiverr store and sends us their instructions, one of our video editors will pick it up. He or she will get to work and manually customizes the video you’ve chosen with your text, logo and graphics and sends you the video file.
As a part of the service, the editor will, of course, be available to answer questions from the client and make any adjustments to the video after the client has reviewed the first version of their shiny new customized video.”
“Make them laugh and they will love you.”
What would your recommendations be for companies who want to get started with video ads?
Hadar: “Our slogan is: ‘Make your audience laugh and they will love you’. We, humans, are constantly hammered with marketing content, sales calls, special offers and free webinars that promise to change their lives, immediately! This has desensitized us to the impact of ads.”
Amnon: “For this reason, if you can be the opposite, the brand that doesn’t try to push people to buy something, but rather give them a free grin in the middle of their day, surely they will remember and like you when the time comes when they actually need your type of service/product. Make them laugh and they will love you. Simple as that.”
Last question: What’s the funniest commercial you have ever seen and why was it so funny/memorable?
Amnon: “Funniest is a big word, but I love this old Pepsi job interview commercial. I love it for a few reasons…
- It’s completely unpredictable and keeps you actively trying to understand what the heck is going on, which keeps the viewer highly engaged.
- The product (a Pepsi can) is completely irrelevant to everything that just happened, his friend could be throwing him a candy bar just as easily.
- It’s complete mayhem. Referencing a well-known piece of culture (Fight Club) takes (some of) the viewers deeper into the video and makes it truly memorable.”
Thank you, Amnon and Hadar for inspiring us and for our shiny new video ad!
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