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- Vlog exercises, peak creative director & excellent partnerships
Vlog exercises, peak creative director & excellent partnerships
+ an interview with Andrew Lamsback, Head of Creative at ASRV
Hyper
May 31, 2024
To kick off.. here’s why we’re hitting peak creative director, a look at the packaging strategy of Clase Azul and a deep dive on luxury branding on Youtube.
Some opening thoughts… I’ve been talking to a lot of brands and agencies recently who are trying to understand modern brand content, and what surprises a lot of them is the SCALE of some of many successful content operations. If it seems like a lot of our HYPER editions come back to content nowadays, it’s because its becoming one of the only things companies can differentiate on. But… back to scale.
Brands are having a field day on TikTok Shop if they can keep up with the hurdles of performing on the platform - you need to be laser focused on dealing with issues, escalating, workshopping with peer brands dealing with the same things and then hammering on scale. If you want to learn more, my friend Brian talked a bit about what big successful brands are doing right on this thread here. My (slightly unhinged on Twitter) friend Luca is tweeting day by day scaling TikTok shop, and Zain is one of the best follows in the space.
I bring this up because one common denominator is the sheer amount of content happening. These brands are using multiple consistent creators, then armies of affiliate creators. The same thing is happening with Meta ads—you can escape the platform slump by sheer scale of good creative, Taylor has a great example here.
Nothing kills an account faster than LACK OF CREATIVE.
You need to generate a lot more ads than you think to hit your spend targets.
This is the number of Bambu Earth ads that have actually performed above the mean since 2020:
— Taylor Holiday (@TaylorHoliday)
10:12 PM • May 28, 2024
Then you look at organic social — every brand should feel the pressure of not trying enough, testing enough, running a new burner account to hit ideas, moving every member of their content team into a position that also involves creation… If you look at this from a legacy brand or agency perspective, there are established opinions about what content should cost, or the size of a team needed to execute a post a day, and it is radically putting brands behind versus scale and nimbleness.
All this to say - reframe how much you think you and your team can and should be looking at doing, because the teams that are winning tend not to have any excuses around content scale.
Oren
If you’re looking for our recent collections (or in case you missed them):
Let’s get into it!
Here’s a problem:
You don’t want to pay for overpriced influencers, and finding great UGC by yourself sucks.
Sourcing the right people manually is tedious. You reach out, send them briefs, handle back-and-forth, contracts, feedback, you name it.
But you don’t have to do that.
Work with minisocial instead ⚡️
In partnership with minisocial
They have a database with thousands of top-tier creators who have worked with the brands like MeUndies, Billie, DoorDash, Banza, Love Wellness, and Olipop.
And the numbers speak for themselves:
TikTok ads performing in the top 1% of CVR,
50% decrease in costs per add-to-cart,
92% increase in organic video views
30%+ increase in ROAS
“Ok, I’m in. How’s it work?”
Go to their website
Submit a creative brief (takes less than 10 minutes)
They'll handle the back-and-forth of booking your project with hand-selected creators to get the right content for your brand.
They handle the boring stuff; you get the bread 🍞
Pricing starts at $2,000 in exchange for 25 fully-edited videos. No contracts, no commitments.
All HYPER readers get their first 25 UGC videos for $1,700!
A vlogging exercise for you to try out
We get a lot of inquiries about starting to make content for your brand, versus just as a creator. It doesn’t start with the perfect script or shoot, it starts with picking up the phone, going out and creating.
Here’s an exercise and simple content type anyone can do I’d recommend starting with… the 15-second vlog. I just shot one yesterday and edited it in less than an hour.
Here’s a playbook you can follow to make your own:
Head to a location (I chose the Stussy archive store)
Film shots around the area, entering the location, and at the location — bonus if you have someone to grab shots of you browsing, or use a mirror to show yourself (or stay faceless).
Your goal is to walk out with 30 1s clips.
Film literally anything interesting. Your shoes, your car, wall art, your iced coffee etc.
Open Capcut and drop in the content. Pick the most interesting shot and place that one first for 1s (cut the rest to .5s to 1s each).
Add a voiceover that makes a point about your niche or expertise; you can do this after recording. If you don’t have a good mic, use Canva's voice improvement tool.
This allows you to keep it simple, still have a narrative worth watching that moves fast, and capture content in your daily life.
If you cut five of these, you'll understand a lot about how to capture content for yourself or your brand.
If you want to learn more with an accountable group, the next Cut30 starts first week of July.
How to execute a partnership with a creator
Marcus Milione’s shoe collaboration with Saucony for his brand, Minted New York, is the textbook example of what we mean when we say “document the process.”
Marcus used to work in banking and quit his job while focusing on making content full-time, which later led to him launching his own brand, Minted. Marcus is the master of documenting personal taste and style, and he’s quickly built a following around himself and his brand.
A few years back, he started chatting with Saucony about a running shoe partnership for Minted. He executed every part of it flawlessly.
From video teasers to a well-produced day in the life around the popup itself, you’re invited into the story, and it builds up anticipation around the launch to a different level.
Even the packaging was fire. Look at that shoe box!
Ultimately, in a world where we’re constantly bombarded with shit products and poorly executed campaigns and collabs, it’s refreshing to watch a brand and creator be so aligned on working together that they spent multiple years planning out a drop to make sure they get everything just right.
More creative projects like this, please.
Interview - Andrew Lamsback
Head of Creative, ASRV
Tell us about your background and how you ended up in your role.
As a fan of ASRV from its early days, I had the opportunity to connect with some of the team through Instagram.
I was really drawn to the brand's nuanced perspective in the space and would often post pictures of myself wearing the products.
I was flown out to their HQ to model for the brand around 2017. However, during that visit, I had some really deep conversations about the brand’s positioning and potential with the team. We all shared a strong vision.
Because of these interactions, I was offered a position to join the team. Despite just graduating from law school in Pennsylvania at the time, I decided to take a leap of faith to move across the country to California and work for the brand, despite having no formal background or experience.
My journey with ASRV has been about learning on the job, trusting my intuition and taste, and embracing what I believe is right and innovative.
What’s the most exciting project you’ve worked on lately?
It has to be ASRV’s Spring ‘23 Campaign. The guiding theme for the campaign was “Adaptation,” so we decided to shoot it docu-style to present a more authentic touchpoint narrative—to tell real stories of real athletes and real people and how they have had to adapt and overcome struggles or obstacles in their lives.
Documentary-style content has never really been in our content strategy, so it was exciting to make the call to try our hand at it. What made this especially fun was that one of the athletes we shot for the feature was pro boxer Caleb Plant.
We had to jump through many hoops to make it happen, but ultimately we worked it out.
Our production took place mid-camp, 2 weeks out one of the most hyped up fights for the year vs David Benavidez. It was such a unique experience to be in that environment and to capture someone in such a rare mindset.
What's your current toolkit for creative work? Project planning, moodboarding, presentation etc.
For most new projects, I generally begin with creating a Pinterest board to curate images, palettes, and aesthetics that outline the intention for the creative mood.
I will also likely pull up Instagram and go to my saved folder gallery. While scrolling the feed, I habitually save anything that stands out to me or catches my attention and put them in designated folders. I have folders for lookbook concepts, ad concepts, product images, etc.
Once I have images, and references, I'll pull that into the Milanote App and organize the board according to the needs of the project. Integrating Milanote has been a game changer for optimizing the collaborative work flow in the dept.
Once the Milanote is complete, sometimes, in order to organize the information into a digestible Creative Brief, I bring it into Canva and use their platform to build out branded presentations.
Where do you find yourself turning for inspiration?
I've had some of my best ideas while on a morning run with no music or a late-night walk around the neighborhood. It’s important to consume and stay tapped in, but if you never allow time to clear the airways, you may never make room for the next big idea.
If you really want to make something people connect with, something that has weight and depth, I think it is important that it is inspired from somewhere inside of you, instead of somewhere online.
Hyper Reports
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Oren & Clayton ❤️ you