UGC Creative Strategies & What You Should Be Paying For Creative With Blake Driver
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Tristram Dyer and Edwin Hermawan meet with Blake Driver to discuss various topics related to creative strategies and production. They start with why it's important to be utilizing Meta's newest rollout in accounts: conversion lift studies and how they can help measure incrementality in your advertising campaigns. They explore the process of ideation and finding the biggest bang for your buck in creative along with the importance of building a creative department and the challenges and benefits of working with in-house creative teams versus agencies.
The conversation then moves into the secret sauce that is scripting and storytelling. Blake Driver also discusses various aspects of ad creation and the pricing range for UGC (user-generated content) and creative packages, emphasizing the flexibility and fluctuation in pricing. Blake explains the role of AI in creative production and how it fits into the market. He emphasizes the value of higher quality produced content, which offers brand consistency and control.
Key takeaways:
Why comparison and iteration are essential in ad creation to improve performance.
Why pricing for UGC and creative packages can vary greatly, with UGC platforms offering lower-cost options.
What the role of AI should be in creative production - How higher quality produced content offers brand consistency and control.
How combining UGC with higher production quality content can provide a balanced approach to creative strategy.
Why The Foxwell Founder community provides a valuable space for media buyers to exchange knowledge and solve problems.
If you'd like to connect with Blake Driver, you can email him at: blake@advisory.marketing
Full Transcript:
Tris Dyer (00:00.365)
Yeah, like some of the best stuff comes with just chatting. Like we're just chatting about like what's going on, what you're doing and the most fun that we've had in doing this. We've done this a year. You were the first to do as part of this like weekly that we're gonna start doing, which is really exciting. But like it'd be just, it's cool to just jam like, you know, two of us are agency owners. You know, we know what's up when it comes to all this stuff there, but we're trying to.
Blake Driver (00:15.297)
Nice.
Tris Dyer (00:25.841)
talking the level of people who are kind of thinking, oh, this is how I'm gonna create a creative department, this is how I'm gonna start doing creative, all that stuff. So it's really the aim of this is to be a lot more inquisitive and like hear more what you have to say, you know? I'm a bad person for butting in, I gotta stop doing it, so I'll try, you'll probably see me like trying to stop, but yeah, other than that, no, let's kick into it. I mean, like, is there anything that you want, you have any questions ahead of what we're, ahead of starting, Blake?
Edwin @ Snappic (00:48.969)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (00:54.803)
No, no, we can just get into it.
Tris Dyer (00:56.942)
Nice nice. What about you, Alan?
Edwin @ Snappic (00:58.423)
I do have a question though. Blake, tell me how do you want to be introduced? Cause like, I have like two different ways of introducing you. Like one was like, we're going to spill the tea with the man that makes like, we're going to spill the tea with the man that made his living in tea before he became the marketing guru he is today, Blake Driver. And that would go in. Or the second one was
Tris Dyer (01:17.061)
Ha ha ha.
Edwin @ Snappic (01:27.263)
This is the only man that Taco Bell hot sauce is afraid of. Blake Driver, the machine behind trough, the man, the legend. But I can understand if both of those are embarrassing or you would prefer not. So tell me like how.
Blake Driver (01:39.26)
Hahaha
Blake Driver (01:48.058)
If you want to do the T1, that's better. I don't want to take full credit for the trough stuff. But yeah, let's do the T1 because that was a G.
Edwin @ Snappic (01:54.128)
I'm sorry.
Tris Dyer (01:56.657)
Dodge the term dodge the term guru because in our industry, I think guru starts to get a bit, you know sketchy but I mean we can we can start introducing it but Andrew was I was talking with Andrew He's got he's recording and has recorded an intro already for like this is the Fox well founders podcast This is the weekly podcast where we talk about this that he's got a few intros. He's gonna potentially put with it so it's yeah, we're we'll just go straight into it as if we're just having a chat because
Blake Driver (01:59.734)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (02:02.395)
Okay, yeah.
Tris Dyer (02:27.053)
Something that we discussed initially was, you know, like, it's, he's going to record that. And he's like, he then intro, he kind of intros it in and it's like, we're in the middle of a chat. It's almost more engaging that way rather than, Hey, and welcome to, you know, and that's cool. I love that. But obviously you have to intro who Blake is. But the idea here is that, you know, it's going to be in the middle of a chat, say, this is Blake. We're talking about whatever it is.
Edwin @ Snappic (02:50.219)
Okay. Let's.
Tris Dyer (02:51.889)
But before you do, before you do, like what, what do, so the requests, I saw you, I know you put the numbers in, the questions in Edwin, thank you for that. We're going to, we go one four seven. So, okay, you go, you lead it, lead us off Edwin and then I'll jump in with like random questions like I do.
Edwin @ Snappic (03:02.835)
Yep, let's do it.
Edwin @ Snappic (03:12.247)
Okay, Alright Blake, so the first question, the first thing on my mind, tell me, there's always a little secret sauce, a little oh wow strategy. Tell me what is the oh wow strategy of the moment that maybe not everybody knows, but you look at it and the results you're like wow.
Blake Driver (03:29.534)
Yeah, so I would actually say what I'm liking right now, and it's not gonna improve you know on some of your ad performance, but just to give you more data is, no, I think it's even better, especially for everyone running accounts. So a place where a lot of people don't navigate to is the Experiments tab inside of Meta. And usually to run a conversion lift study,
Edwin @ Snappic (03:37.651)
No! Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (03:42.225)
Whoa.
Edwin @ Snappic (03:53.481)
Okay.
Blake Driver (03:58.006)
it's expensive, like it can be very expensive, but now you're able to run conversion lift studies for a lot less and they're all self-serve. So if you go to you know on some of your experiments inside Meta, conversion lift studies is going to be open to most people that have enough ad spend and if you're spending more than $50,000 a month, I've seen this be greenlit and you can get one set up for you know on some of your whole account and you can run it. It's just going to help you measure incrementality better.
Edwin @ Snappic (04:00.287)
Very.
Edwin @ Snappic (04:21.852)
Okay. Whoa.
Blake Driver (04:27.92)
So it's been something we've been setting up a lot the last few weeks.
Tris Dyer (04:30.421)
Yeah, go into that a bit more. What is when you say set up a measures incrementality, surely. So I'm here sitting as a kind of a junior media buyer going, but I'm just seeing ROAS. I'm seeing good CPA. I'm seeing good ROAS. Why would I need another measurement? Is that just confusing? Why am I using that? Because I've seen them before. I've seen them work. But what are we seeing in these new versions in the experiments?
Blake Driver (04:53.002)
Yeah, so basically with the conversion with study, there's a ton of stuff once it's unlocked that you can go in and measure. One of them is incremental ROAS. So it's like, if these ads weren't running, how many additional sales did they actually convert in? And so it's like the full picture and they do that using a whole holdout group in some of you know on some of you know on some of so on some of your ads.
Tris Dyer (05:05.063)
Yes.
Tris Dyer (05:17.874)
Hmm.
Blake Driver (05:22.194)
So it's been for larger accounts that have had access to it, it's been very insightful to see like this is where incremental ROAS is, this is how much we're our incremental cost for purchases, and it's helped justify increasing spend on the platform. And yeah, it's just it gives you a more whole list, not I wouldn't say holistic view, but it makes you have more confidence in the data as you continue to spend more and as you continue to scale.
Tris Dyer (05:37.574)
Mm-hmm.
Tris Dyer (05:49.773)
Absolutely. Yeah, that's I mean, I've seen them before. Brand lift study conversion studies. There's some there's some really cool stuff you can do in the back end. We've had some real close brushes with the measurement team in meta. And that's one of the big things that kind of the gold standard is now that they're making available to everyone. That's even better again. Yeah. I haven't done one since post iOS, so it's something to get back on the checklist for sure.
Edwin @ Snappic (06:11.423)
But so, so our listeners understand the brand they've studied, this, the question that is that in my head, whenever this gets brought up is sometimes we'll get a brand owner who is like, we would have made that money anyway, right? Like we've all gotten that, right? They're riding high, they had something go viral a couple of times and then you hit them with you know on some of your bill and they're like, why are we paying this? We would have made these sales anyway. You drop the test on them.
Tris Dyer (06:25.509)
Yeah, all the time. Hear that? All the time. Crazy.
Tris Dyer (06:37.426)
Hmm
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (06:40.599)
You dropped the mic. Ha ha ha!
Blake Driver (06:44.05)
Exactly. Yeah, it's great. I mean, that's what we can take. We try to run one like once a quarter, sometimes not run it during Q4, just because they do like a holdout. So yeah, it's great. I think like Meta's official verbiage, I'm just pulling it up here. Once it's live in you know on some of your ad account, you can run a conversion lift test on a campaign that's spent more than $5,000 in the last year.
Edwin @ Snappic (06:51.444)
Okay.
Blake Driver (07:14.587)
has to have a minimum of 500 conversions on a 7-day click basis.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:14.635)
No.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:20.763)
Okay, that's a very reasonable threshold.
Tris Dyer (07:20.949)
Okay, okay. So yeah.
Blake Driver (07:22.434)
So, and then...
Tris Dyer (07:25.477)
Depending on you know on some of your CPA, that's not too much money.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:28.126)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (07:30.143)
No, so I've been seeing these in a lot more accounts so far this year, and so as they just come in and pop up, we just turn them on and get them rolling.
Tris Dyer (07:38.565)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's that. And that makes sense.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:39.591)
And so what is you know on some of your, so you run these conversion lift studies. Tell me like, what are the positive experiences? And then have you ever had it backfire on you?
Blake Driver (07:51.402)
Yeah, that part's interesting. So overall, when I'm running them on the account level, it has been usually positive, right? We're seeing incremental ROAS. We're seeing the incremental ROAS we want to see. When we've ran some more complicated studies, I actually shouldn't even say complicated, but ran them on specific campaigns, like, hey, what does it look like when we're doing retargeting?
Edwin @ Snappic (08:01.768)
Okay.
Blake Driver (08:20.438)
like is retargeting incremental, right? And that's when we've started to find some more data where like, hey, advertising to our customer list isn't as incremental as we thought it would be. A lot of these purchases are happening anyway, so we shouldn't continue to invest a lot there. So those are areas where, on an individual campaign basis that we've seen.
Edwin @ Snappic (08:20.879)
Oh. Yeah.
Tris Dyer (08:43.169)
Mm hmm. And like this is exactly in the retargeting section is where people are always going to say they would have bought anyway. Well, here's you know on some of your proof. Here's you know on some of your direct proof and seeing that. I mean, that's a that's a massive one. So like this is this again, just again, how does that get served to you? Does it get sent to you in an email or does it get sent? Like how do how do we how do we get the results for that? Is it in that tab?
Blake Driver (09:05.122)
So it's in the tab, there's on the left hand side of the screen, create a test and then view results. You just thumb down to view results. And that's going to give you the results. But when you're creating the test, you can tell Meta you're testing audiences, budget and bidding, creative, test format, placements, different events, or just measure the total incremental impact of ads. And that's typically what we've been running.
because you can run it on the entire ad account, right? So if everything in you know on some of your ad account is live and going, then you're just like, yeah, I mean, you might as well just run it on the entire account. Once you know that there's incrementality on the entire account, that's when you can be like, all right, what's Retargeting doing for us? What's ASC doing for us, et cetera. And now that's rolled out to just a lot more advertisers. I think it's gonna continue to be a pretty effective tool.
Tris Dyer (10:00.501)
I really like that. That's going to be something I'm straight away going in there tomorrow morning and doing that straight off the bat. So Blake, I mean, you're obviously working a lot more in the creative space. You're doing you know, you're building some really cool teams that are doing that. You know, where do you start? Where do you get the biggest bang for you know on some of your buck when it comes to creative? When it comes to actually I'm a brand owner. I'm you know, I've got some creative in there. It's kind of working like.
Where do I start when it comes to ideation? What's the process I should be going through when I look at this? Because we've got some listeners here that are looking and hearing everyone saying, creative is the oil, creative is making things go, it's creative is the thing that's gonna work. Where do you start? Do you need to look at what's working or do you need to start ideating new ideas? What would you say?
Blake Driver (10:49.098)
Yeah, I think typically where we start is with static ads. Like productions are expensive, right? Hiring creators can be a pain. So we try to prove out different angles or just general themes, right? With creative tests, with static ads first. So run a bunch of statics with different headlines, find what's resonating with people. Like we have a client, for example, that sells pain creams and...
Edwin @ Snappic (10:55.763)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (11:09.012)
That a-
Blake Driver (11:18.926)
One of the places we start is like running a headline, talking about back pain, like elbow pain, hand pain, like what pain is resonating with people. So then we see like, hey, shoulder pain's getting the most engagement, click through, has the best conversion rate from those static ads. Then you can kind of take that information that you learned from the static, and now you can go do a production focused around shoulder pain, right?
you already have data showing that it works, then you can just take that and move it into a production or brief a creator on that angle. But typically we try to start with something cheap, which is testing a static level and take those learnings and then trying to apply it to a video ad if we're starting from scratch.
Tris Dyer (12:03.737)
Yeah, we're going even further. So what I'm hearing you saying is kind of before even making the ads, you've got to identify like, it's kind of a business case really. It's like, well, why am I, why would somebody buy this? What's the pain point? Pain creams are obviously massive one. It's easy enough, but it's like where, you know, what makes you different to every other pain cream? You know, why are people, people buying it and then testing those hooks and those, you're not really testing the hook. You're more testing an angle of those different creators, right?
Blake Driver (12:31.658)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, it's the overarching theme for a lot of it.
Tris Dyer (12:36.956)
Absolutely.
Edwin @ Snappic (12:37.767)
So when you go in and like, so you're, you're flushing out those angles initially, right? But then there are always key questions that you got to ask the client because if you just ask the client straight, like what are the pain points? They might tell you, you know, one or two, but you, so sometimes they need a little nudging, right? And so what are, what are the questions that you ask them? So of course you'll ask them, tell me about the pain points explicitly.
but what are some of the other questions that you'll ask a client to help sort of pull it out of them?
Blake Driver (13:14.454)
Typically, we get the, you're gonna not, I don't think necessarily, unless the team's very, very dialed, get the best answers from probably the brand owner. I think where we try to dig in is we get a lot of briefs from people and usually the briefs are great and that's fantastic. But I think where you pull out the key stuff is just going straight to the reviews.
Edwin @ Snappic (13:39.112)
Okay.
Blake Driver (13:44.894)
seeing like what people are saying. Cause a good example of this is, we were working with a brand and they gave us all their highlight points, which was awesome. But one of the things we found by going through their comments was that a lot of people were using their product as a replacement for gum. So people had like a gum addiction. And that was something, that's never brought up. It's not gonna be on the PDPs. It's not gonna be in anything, but it's like, okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (14:03.816)
Oh.
Blake Driver (14:11.958)
people are saying they have an addiction to gum and they're trying to wean themselves off of it with this product, we should explore that more. So I think there's really like gold mining just reading the comments and seeing what themes keep coming up again. So that's something that we've done a lot of and I think that's where you can find some golden nuggets to then bring into ads.
Tris Dyer (14:26.354)
Really.
Tris Dyer (14:35.513)
I mean, looking at the comments, looking at the reviews, these are some really good stuff and this is exactly where you should be looking. And then, I mean, a lot of the times, because we've come up with this all the time, say for example, with the replacement for gum, you come up with this and you say to the brand owner, hey, we've actually got a really good one here. A lot of people are saying this, here's all the screenshots, you make a wonderful fancy deck, and the brand owner goes, don't really wanna be known for that.
How do you get over that? That's that's crushing for a creative, right? They're like, we've come. We've got a great idea. And they say no.
Blake Driver (15:10.706)
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you can convince them otherwise, right? But other times it's just going to be as what it is. It all depends on how much the decision makers married to their brand and or the idea of being open to testing new things. A lot of people come to us for creative, so a lot of people are open to new things. As long as it visually looks on brand to them, that's, you know.
Tris Dyer (15:15.173)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (15:38.69)
For the people who are concerned on brand, having it visually meet those expectations is more important than I think the messaging overall.
Tris Dyer (15:46.649)
Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things I'd say is in answer to that as well, is something we do when we start to work with people on a creative basis. We have that discussion upfront. Hey, we're not going to like the look of a lot of ads. It's, you know, this is 2024 baby. We're going to find some really, really gnarly looking stuff and that's the stuff that works. And see, the thing is, right. Oh, yes. Yes. Well, this is the thing, right.
Edwin @ Snappic (16:06.934)
You're gonna make an ugly ad? Is it gonna work? An ugly ad is gonna work?
Tris Dyer (16:13.729)
It doesn't have to be perfect. People just get out of the way. I mean, you've seen these memes in LinkedIn and everything else of, you know, the surprise that you, the thing, the thing you think when you put it up is like 15% off. And it's like, the user is gonna be like, thank you, brand, I'm so happy. It's not, it's get out of the way, get out of the way. So like, we wanna make an ugly ad. We wanna catch people's attention. But again, a lot of times when you're telling the brand owner you're a replacement for gum, go with it.
use it, use that as an angle and get in there. And then people will be using you for the reason that you're there for the first place. So it's have a kind of have a full circle there for sure. In terms of like just looking at, you know, so static is one big major thing that you're saying you're getting you know on some of your biggest bang for you know on some of your buck because it's cheaper in terms of click through rate, you're getting obviously better conversion rates off it because people aren't sitting there and watching it. That's in platform. You know, when it comes to designing, would you say more images or would you go carousels? Because
I say carousels because you can test multiple images at once there. Is that kind of a misnomer?
Blake Driver (17:16.202)
I think it kind of just depends. I think for some products you're gonna have better success with statics or some other products you're gonna have really good success with carousels. I think you test them both. I think you can take a concept and have a static, a carousel on it and just see what performs better. I think it's really hard to tell. I mean in clothing carousels often win. I find sometimes with like technical products or products that
Blake Driver (17:45.846)
very art focused, you can have carousels when a lot of the time, but again, I've seen them underperform just as much. So I think it really just depends.
Tris Dyer (17:55.698)
Mm. Yeah, that makes sense.
Edwin @ Snappic (17:56.395)
So going back to originally you were talking about you know on some of your back, the back pain client. And so you're talking about focusing on the pain points to help figure out the image creative. What about brands that are more lifestyle? So you were talking, you talked about clothing, right? With clothing, there's not sort of like a before and after as there is with a performance or a technical product. So with that, what are the questions that you're asking, honing in on when you're doing that first
batch with them.
Blake Driver (18:29.206)
Yeah, clothing would probably be the most difficult and it's gonna depend on whether is it streetwear focused, right? Or is it going to be technical? Cause if it's technical, you can almost follow the exact same thing, right? You have that exact same pattern. When it's streetwear, honestly, you're more so going for just a vibe. Like, right? It's just, that's, I don't think there's a lot of like performance there in terms of what you're doing. It's like make-
Edwin @ Snappic (18:43.017)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (18:54.936)
Hahaha.
Blake Driver (18:57.422)
pretty ads that speak to the consumer. Like don't make ugly ads for that. Make like show that if you're going to do a shoot, you could show people in like realistic settings. Right. But a lot of time it's carousel and like pretty products for those drops. I mean, it's very stylized. I think it but it works, though. I mean, that's definitely that industry because it's hard to sell. You know, Ralph Lauren selling the brand, not like why this polo.
Edwin @ Snappic (19:02.724)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (19:09.244)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (19:26.654)
It's more functional than others, right?
Tris Dyer (19:26.747)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (19:29.319)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (19:29.381)
Well, this is the thing, right? So this is the question I'd ask. So with an apparel brand, so like, yeah, you can't go in and be like, talk about you know on some of your t-shirt there. You can't be like, it's super soft and it's gonna be easy to iron. Like, I don't care. That's not why I'm buying this. I'm buying this because it looks good. And like, how do you say, you know, because I've seen a lot of DTC brands in my ads at the moment with exactly that. They're going the whole, it's stretchy, it fits and everything else. I'm just going, I'm not interested.
because it's not a brand, like a well-known brand. So you're saying with apparel brands kind of trying to elevate that, it needs to be that elevated feeling.
Blake Driver (20:05.574)
I think if you're a non-technical apparel brand, yeah, you want to, you're kind of more selling you know on some of your lifestyle and what you're about more than the actual product itself. And I don't think it's very easy to do, but I do think you want to show the clothing in like realistic settings. Not all of it has to be stylized. Like we've seen a lot of, you see a lot more like editorial stuff or not edit.
not editorial stuff on luxury brands. People look like they're common moment, it's all fake. But I would say, I don't think their last round's that good, but a brand to always look at is Louis Vuitton. They make just very specific meta ads. They're very clearly made for a meta for social, and I would look at what they do, because I honestly think those are some of the best paid ads I've seen for fashion accessory brands.
that are elevated while still showing off the product that still grab you know on some of your attention. They're extremely good.
Tris Dyer (21:06.425)
And what are they doing differently? Because I love that. Like I love that we're able to specifically say, keep an eye on this brand. Like what is it? Like is it the angle, the lighting? Is there anything in particular like do more of this if you're trying to elevate you know on some of your brand?
Edwin @ Snappic (21:06.695)
sublake.
Blake Driver (21:19.562)
Yeah, it's like, so you don't want to have quick cuts, right? We know with like a lot of the stuff we're doing, like two second scenes, quick cuts, visually interesting, lots of motions, like that's what works. And Louis Vuitton really has doubled down on that when it comes to their creative. So we saw this a lot with their fall campaign, their new campaign that just dropped. I don't see it as much here, but that was also Pharrell's first campaign.
Tris Dyer (21:32.564)
Hmm.
Blake Driver (21:47.286)
So they're definitely going for a different unique feel. But a lot of the stuff over the holiday was like really weird, interesting intro, like visual to quick cuts while still showing the product. And it was just very engaging to the viewer. It was honestly some really great ads. Product was still the hero, but they just like had, they did everything right around the edit of it.
Tris Dyer (21:50.289)
Hmm.
Tris Dyer (22:00.765)
Mm.
Tris Dyer (22:13.933)
I like that. I like that. I remember seeing a Hugo Boss one very similar. I think they had, it wasn't Pharrell, but it was someone similar. I think it might've been Will.i.am that was doing it with Hugo Boss, and it was very similar. There was quick, short, sharp edits, but it was showing the quality, but it was also kind of having that, almost like, I think it was smoke coming across the screen. Again, it was something visually interesting and capturing, and it feels like it goes to that, I want this, the limbic system that they talk about, it really goes straight into that.
It's not a FOMO, but it's not a, you should have this by now, because we're immune to that, especially when scrolling on social, right? So it's trying to get that in there. I don't know, Edwin, you work with a lot of power brands. What kind of stuff is working from a creative standpoint there? Vibes.
Edwin @ Snappic (22:58.887)
vibes. It's all vibes. I was actually going to ask you, Blake, if you've managed yet to expense a trip to Ibiza so you get the proper vibe.
Tris Dyer (23:11.18)
Hahaha
Blake Driver (23:11.98)
No, no, definitely not yet. We tried to work one to Italy last year, but it didn't pan out.
Tris Dyer (23:17.809)
Ha ha ha.
Edwin @ Snappic (23:18.003)
Because we like, so you're saying I work, like I work with a lot of apparel brands. I remember we had literally multiple apparel brands who one time we were just, like she was showing me something on a screen and on the expense board was like a $30,000 bill for a villa in Ibiza. And I was like, what? And she's like, yeah, we shot. She's like, we shot our entire campaign. And then, you know.
Blake Driver (23:40.438)
Hehehe
Nice.
Edwin @ Snappic (23:47.699)
We finished early and I went down to the chinkito for a couple of days. She got it. She got the vibes. She got it all sorted. So I guess moving on, tell me, you have this wonderful creative department that is not, you know, you didn't start off like that, right? Now you're able to produce these really wild things.
Tris Dyer (23:53.241)
Nice.
Blake Driver (23:56.16)
Oh, that's so funny.
Edwin @ Snappic (24:18.123)
for agency owners that are looking to get more into creative and building out that side, what would you recommend and what mistakes did you make at the beginning?
Blake Driver (24:32.35)
Yeah, so I have the benefit of having a co-founder that comes from shooting large commercials. So his last job is shooting from like Honda, Patrone, like really large productions. So he brought like the large wealth of experience over to advisory to help build out this, the creative department into what it is today. I think some of there's.
Edwin @ Snappic (24:40.046)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (24:57.768)
Okay.
Blake Driver (25:01.698)
Behind me is a 5,000 square foot studio, right? So it's very big. We have a lot of equipment. We have a lot of lighting. Got like a very, very large scale kind of production studio where we can shoot a lot. And really one of the biggest things is if you're trying to get into creative and shoot like higher end productions, things that aren't necessarily like sparring out UGC to creators.
Edwin @ Snappic (25:06.355)
Whoa.
Edwin @ Snappic (25:19.219)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (25:31.454)
It really helps to have you know on some of your own space because you can, that's where you're able to shoot quickly and it's more efficient, right? A lot of times when people are starting out, you rent space and that's fine. But what it does is it really eats into you know on some of your margins, because renting spaces is very expensive. So the first thing I would try to do is to wherever you have
Edwin @ Snappic (25:47.626)
Okay.
Blake Driver (25:56.114)
an open spot is to even if it's small, like try to start building you know on some of your in-house studio to start getting used to shooting content wherever you are because it's always going to be more efficient and you are able to have more leeway if you make mistakes because sometimes things need to be reshot and you can't go and re-rent another studio again, right? Because it's going to kill you know on some of your margins.
So having an area and it doesn't have to be large where you can continuously shoot and have a setup is definitely ideal.
Tris Dyer (26:33.949)
good one. I like that.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:34.751)
So then going back, so then you mentioned, you know, forming out UGCs and then doing like very high, high performance, very polished shoots. Which one are you seeing perform better for you at the moment? Obviously you do very high end shoots, but like UGC stuff like, answer the question. Like the question we all wonder like, polish, not polish, tell me what are you seeing?
Blake Driver (26:58.344)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (27:04.062)
I think they both can work. I think you see Unpolished work better. I mean, it's just more native to the platform. Ultimately, at the end of the day though, I think it's kind of like a mute point because we're getting to the point now where UGC and Unpolished is looking very strong. Like some of these creators have studio setups or have setups that are very close to what you could potentially find in a production studio. I don't think the...
I think the delivery matters the most out of anything. I think it's how the ad is cut, how much like passion the actor is bringing, right? I really think that it's all, everything that goes into it is what makes a difference, not necessarily like UGC, like we call it Hi-Fi, Wofi, user generated content, actor generated content. I don't.
I think it's if you have a solid script or a solid story, that's what's ultimately going to hook people in, more so than anything else. And I think as we get into this year and next year, the biggest thing is audience liquidity. You want a lot of different types of styles of creative in you know on some of your ad account to appeal to different people. You keep putting out lo-fi content after lo-fi content after lo-fi content.
you're gonna keep hitting the same people, especially if it's the same script, same angle, same hooks. Like having a wide variety of different contents going to help you branch out to who you're getting in front of and who you're appealing to.
Tris Dyer (28:43.041)
And then you test them back on what you're saying, that you test them on the statics and see which ones are working. So are you taking statics while you're shooting video or are you taking the screenshots from the videos? How are you taking the statics?
Blake Driver (28:55.838)
Yeah, we don't take screenshots from the videos because everything's too, it's too complicated and you can't do it, like the video footage is clean. We don't often do it. Usually we're working with existing assets and or we do a lot of photo as well. So sometimes people book photo productions with us as well, photo shoots, so we'll take that. But we just try to, since the productions are expensive.
and or just time consuming to get creative. We do really try to prove out some rough form of a concept beforehand just with general static ads, with existing content, like, hey, this works. Now let's go script this out and let's see what type of style is going to work best.
Tris Dyer (29:44.177)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what you're doing with, you're scripting this out, you're finding out what works, you're doing a couple of things, and then you're going shooting those, testing those for almost like a shot list when you go and do the videos.
Blake Driver (29:57.63)
Yeah, so the biggest thing I think when also like shooting video, especially with a client, is we put together like a really extensive brief and shot list and we try to minimize almost every single variable. So all the props that are going to be used, like anything that's going to be in the video is approved beforehand. So by the time it's shot, like you literally know, client knows every single prop that's in the video.
They know every single scene. It's like all approved beforehand because a lot of times it's very difficult to go reshoot, especially with setting up lighting that takes extremely long time. So we try to just map everything out to the smallest detail and then we go for it. So we'll have a list of like, here are the weird intros that we wanna get, like that are visual intros, here are the hooks that are gonna go along with them. And then we go shoot what we call like the core, the core of the video.
And sometimes the core has, there's two different ones. Maybe there's one depending upon that. So you have the intros and you have the core and that's what we use to then go and start testing the video in market. Yep.
Tris Dyer (31:06.329)
Make magic. Yeah, make a magic, I'd say is probably where the, and so again, it's kind of creative iteration, creative iteration. Like this is the question we often have with a lot of the spend that we're putting behind it, because I love this idea of testing a little bit, finding what it is, getting the list, and going, before you start going and making that big commitment.
how far down the rabbit hole do you go? How, when you start seeing, you know, this creative is starting to work, do you start iterating again on that versus going in a whole new direction?
Blake Driver (31:40.246)
It just depends on how well it's potentially working. It really depends on the data. So we shoot a higher production piece, we see it's got low hook rates or something. We will go and take hooks from other videos, slice it, put it in front, mess with what we have just to get that up because hook rate can increase click-through rate and that can help performance. So we'll start there to see how we can.
Tris Dyer (31:55.409)
Thank you again.
Blake Driver (32:04.99)
make the most of it and get it to a place. I mean, and then we'll also swap out scenes. There's a lot of different, a lot of different cutting up of the videos we do to try to get them to a place once they work. But you do hit a certain point where it's like, all right, this is the best it's gonna be. After probably four rounds of iteration, you're probably pretty close to it. You maybe start testing copy on it at that point to how successfully.
we know that piece is gonna be. And then it's like, all right, what did we learn from this? What worked, what didn't? What do we go do next? And that's where we go and revisit like, hey, how did some of these other headlines do? I mean, we're kind of always testing stacks in the background with different angles. So we can then just pull from this library and do it. Or what didn't work about this ad? Was it the actor, was it the actress? Do we go and shoot with a different type of person? Do we switch the gender? Those are all things that...
Tris Dyer (32:36.55)
I love that.
Blake Driver (32:59.906)
that we pull in as well.
Tris Dyer (33:01.501)
That's super interesting.
Edwin @ Snappic (33:03.291)
So you mentioned the biggest driver, right? So you're able to do all this production, but you know on some of your biggest driver is still the scripting and the story, right? And so tell me you know on some of your process around that, because then, like, tell me the secret sauce around that.
Tris Dyer (33:08.605)
See what we do there.
Blake Driver (33:20.906)
Yeah, so this one's really collaborative. Like we will, a lot of times we write all of the scripts, but it also has to be buy-in from the client on what we're doing as well. So it's definitely like we're coming into it and we're gonna write a script that we think is, like speaks best to deliver the message that we want it to. And then the client usually comes in and tweaks that. But this is where we get back to reading reviews.
Because we try to put together like a holistic view of what this product is and what the company is before we write the script. So we're outlining key reviews. Words people say that might just be related to this industry that you don't find in any other industries like right. Like the way lifting community talks a certain way. Star Wars community talks a certain way. There's all, there's always buzzwords in every single different like.
community of people. So it's looking for those buzzwords and incorporating that into the script, finding phrases that's repeatedly used in reviews and incorporating those into the script as well. And then making sure you do touch upon the unique selling points of the product. Why is it so different than the others? Why should people try this? That's kind of the area where we start at. And then there's always going to be some emotional involvement.
when you're writing these scripts in terms of like what emotion is the person giving out? Is this person serious because they're authoritative or is this person more like the somewhat comical everyday guy, right? Or everyday woodsman or whatever. So you need to then incorporate the elements of the emotion you're trying to give off and the personality that person has into it because we work with a lot of actors.
And, you know, some actors, like we have one guy that he does a lot of our comical stuff, and we like working with him a lot. But you can also see him being really serious in pharmaceutical commercials on TV. So he's got a good range and it's, you know, finding people that can communicate and like match different styles is very important part of the process, right? The talent.
Edwin @ Snappic (35:31.391)
Hehehehe
Tris Dyer (35:32.409)
good range.
Blake Driver (35:46.05)
Bad talent can ruin a good script. And so that's something that I think we all probably know. And it's something to be aware of because on camera you've got to exaggerate, right? Everything needs to be bigger than life and you need to bring it in. While some people think they're good on camera, they're actually not. So it's making sure you can vet that out and all of that.
Tris Dyer (36:10.001)
Yeah, especially when you got rented space or if you're wasting time on it, you've got to make sure this person's pretty good on the other end. Just peeling it back a bit, I mean, we've got a lot of listeners who will be working with creative agencies. The age old question is, do I work with an agency? Do I have a creative department in-house? At what stage do you see that brands should probably have the creative in-house? Or even, like, how do they start getting creative so that they can get to a point they're like, okay, I need to pass this to an agency now?
So maybe to answer the first question, the first question is how do they go from like, okay, I'm doing a bit this myself, I need an agency involved.
Blake Driver (36:37.89)
I don't think it.
Blake Driver (36:45.07)
So our largest client does about a couple billion a year, right? And we have clients all the way down from that. I don't know anyone that fully does creative in-house. Like, creative is always something that multiple people are having inputs on. Like, we have this one client, they're about $60 million a year, and we do their media buying for them, and they have five different creatives.
partners, including us, right? And so they have an in-house team that's really good. In-house team shoots their product amazing and they have a really good style and they crush it. They've got a huge studio. It's actually, and like they do great, like extremely talented creative director over there, but they want other styles. They want other opinions. They want other things. So they all go and they all outsource it. I mean,
All these big companies outsource creative production at some level, like Louis Vuitton's hiring an agency, right? Like Louis Vuitton does stuff in-house, but they also hire agencies. Creative is often outsourced and it's often a mix. And like when we work with companies, we tell them like, you know, we'll do, we have monthly creative packages, creative retainers. We're also don't think we should be you know on some of your only content source, right? Like.
Edwin @ Snappic (37:48.724)
For sure.
Blake Driver (38:06.506)
you should have other sources of content coming in, even if it's just in-house. It's good to have a wide variety of different types of content.
Edwin @ Snappic (38:16.242)
So let's.
Tris Dyer (38:16.761)
And like that's really like I mean you say wide variety, they're testing those against each other, are they pitting you against other brands in terms of you know on some of your performance? Or them out their own?
Blake Driver (38:26.698)
Yeah, yeah, a lot of times like it kind of depends, but it's either we're getting pitted against each other to try to make better ads and or we're just shooting a very specific style, right? And it's like, even if yours fails, like they've come back, like we keep iterating, right? You don't win every, you don't hit a home run every time, but you keep iterating on it. And the other interesting thing is like, sometimes like we'll just shoot one style for some brands like
Edwin @ Snappic (38:35.859)
Who?
Blake Driver (38:54.326)
Brands know, hey, advisory does X-style extremely well for us. So we go to them to do that. Like we do a lot of brand stories. We're pretty good at it. We've done it for a lot of different brands. So we have a lot of brands that just come to us to do their brand story piece. So it kind of just depends. But.
Edwin @ Snappic (39:13.835)
So let's talk about, so you mentioned creative packages. So a lot of people, they have trouble around pricing, right? A lot of agency heads have trouble around pricing. So let's talk about on the higher end stuff to the moon, it can go, but let's talk about UGC stuff, more like stuff that gets turned out day to day. What is the general range that you're seeing with packages on that end? So our listeners can have sort of like a benchmark.
What's the range that you're in?
Blake Driver (39:43.71)
Yeah, so I think it's it we don't actually do like any type of UGC outsourcing, right? Everything for us is done in-house. So we write the script, hire the actor, bring them in or bring them to a location and shoot. So we're never like subbing it out to giving a creator a script and letting them shoot. So with our pricing, like depending upon what needs to be done, it's usually somewhere between like.
Edwin @ Snappic (39:58.321)
Okay.
Blake Driver (40:13.258)
5k starting, I would say, for a day of production. And the assets you get out of that can really range depending upon the concept, and talent fees and a lot of that. So it's kind of a mixed price. But what I've been seeing is really interesting pricing with brands I work with when they're sourcing UGC, like Mini Social, I'm not sure if you've heard of them, but they're kind of like a...
Edwin @ Snappic (40:15.307)
Okay.
Blake Driver (40:41.994)
you can get really good creative there for like 50 bucks for like a UGC creator, right? And it's kind of crazy. Like there's more and more systems that have a really, you're selling a commodity almost at that point, right? And they have a really good systemized process down and is, and you can get lucky and get really good content there. So like, I've seen pricing like just range. Like I paid one creator, seven 50 one time for a video to make.
To just help a client out. I knew her she's 750 for three videos great content I've also we've done the mini social route with people it was $200 We got like five videos or something and they were all really good and they did well so That that part of the market. I feel like prices really fluctuate and It's it's different. Um, yeah that pricing there is hard
Tris Dyer (41:36.588)
Yeah.
How does AI fit into all that? Because that, I mean, they're doing that, obviously paying people per like small video and it works, right? That model works. People, I was gonna ask, that was my next question, too, was, you know, how, like, volume, people wants to know. Like, if I'm gonna, I'm a brand, I'm spending 10 grand a month, I need some creative, that's really good. Like, if I'm gonna spend, I'm gonna pay you 5K, like, for a thing, like, how many videos do I get? And I get it, it's not like that, but like, you know, what do you get for 5K? Because, I mean.
Edwin @ Snappic (41:39.787)
Yeah.
Blake Driver (42:01.55)
Thanks for watching!
Tris Dyer (42:06.701)
it works, you've got plenty of clients, you're growing like mad, so it must be working. So what am I getting for 5k that I'm not getting, that Mini Social is not giving you?
Blake Driver (42:15.114)
Yeah, it does just depend. You're getting about like somewhere between 15 to 25 assets probably on average, so different videos. And it's just what you're getting is something that's higher quality produced, quality control, an approved script and everything that goes into it to seem on brand as possible, right? Nothing in there is gonna be off brand. It's going to represent you know on some of your brand in the best light possible. And it's gonna be something that
you've approved and had pretty much full control over. So, and it's made with data that we've been taking to make in a form shoe instead of kind of just shooting at the hip and hopefully it performs right? Like that's the ultimate goal and we'll edit it and cut it up and make adjustments to it to try to get to be the best place possible. And most of this stuff we strive for, it's like we want this to.
Tris Dyer (43:05.976)
sense.
Blake Driver (43:10.674)
Yeah, we want it to be an ad, but if you need to put it on you know on some of your website, if you want to have it on a landing page, there are pieces that can live in other situations as well. They can work on YouTube. They can work on connected TV.
Tris Dyer (43:21.542)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (43:26.677)
Nice, I like that. Yeah, I know that's exactly I mean, this is the thing so many people kind of look at it in Ignorant people like myself. I'll admit that I've looked at him pass gone. I can get the same thing from these guys Completely get it now completely get it makes a lot more sense. And this is the quest What the question I was having there with regard to?
You know, if I'm a brand and I'm spending 5K a month, like when do I need to start going to someone like mini social rather than shooting myself? Like what would be you know on some of your advice to get people kind of on that ladder to get moving and start finding the right creative?
Blake Driver (43:59.262)
Yeah, I think you need both, right? Like you need to do the mini social and source stuff from UGC creators. You wanna have higher production quality content. We've got brands that are just launching, have zero in revenue, are coming to us and getting shoots done, right? We've got brands that we've done shoots for brands that are doing like 20K a month in revenue, but they want the higher quality content because they're gonna use it other places.
Tris Dyer (44:05.842)
Hmm.
Blake Driver (44:25.398)
And they also are trying to convey a certain message and they can really only do that in a controlled environment, right? Like there's very few things that, there's some things you just can't recreate unless you're having a full blown production done for it. And we try to make those. And our whole thing is do things for as efficiently as possible. That's always what we want to start at. Don't have a...
Tris Dyer (44:40.913)
I hear that, yeah.
Blake Driver (44:52.738)
Don't do a shoot unless you absolutely have to. So that's why we start with static. So we start getting data. And once we have the data, then we feel comfortable, sorry, then we feel comfortable going to recommend a shoot. Like, hey, this is what we see working. We're seeing these different types. We think like, if we wanna go shoot something, this is like a style. For our media buying clients, we put out a bunch of different concepts. Like every other week, we come to them with a bunch of different concepts.
We pretty much say the same thing every time. You guys can go find someone that can make this or we can do it ourselves, whatever you want, right? And sometimes we know certain people on their team, they have other creative agencies like, yo, go tell X to make this because they're really good at this. Like they're better than us at this. Or it's like, hey, we wanna do this. We know we're good at it. We can do it if you want. And a lot of times, you know, we'll make it. So it's all about just putting out the creative ideas and...
Yeah, letting the client decide where they want to get made.
Tris Dyer (45:53.341)
I absolutely love that man. I love that. Look, I mean, whatever about this being a podcast, this is fucking deadly. Like, I love this. Like, I really, I'm really enjoying, like, hearing you just, I could talk to you for two or three hours. I don't know, Edwin, have you got more questions that you're specifically burning with? Because I am loving this. I realize we're close to the end of it, like, so I just wanna make sure I wanna be respectful of you know on some of your time.
Edwin @ Snappic (46:09.437)
No.
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (46:15.587)
I do actually. So I remember, so I did a little research before we jumped on and I was lurking on you know on some of your Twitter and I saw that you had a message one time that you were saying how you were thankful for the Foxwell Founder Group. And so you were feeling thankful for it. And so tell me like, you've been, like you have a lot of experience at this point. You work with a lot of big people.
And so what value has it been able to give you or like what comfort or like what has it been able to give you to make you feel thankful? Because that's a big thing to say in public, right? Like, it's a big thing.
Blake Driver (46:50.61)
Yeah, I think it's a space where you can, it's a safe space. I kind of hate to use that term. But it is actually like a space where you can go and ask questions and get feedback without like getting blasted by random people on Twitter who are going to take what you're saying out of context and stuff like you don't being a media buyer running an agency, all that can be lonely, especially if you don't have other people in the industry to connect with.
Edwin @ Snappic (46:59.903)
Hahaha
Blake Driver (47:20.274)
I can go connect in a private group with these people and like bounce ideas, talk about concerns, whatever. And everyone's nice, no one hates on each other. And if there's debates in there, they're always like healthy. Everyone's trying to help each other like improve because it's just us. No one's trying to sell anyone. And I feel like on other platforms, especially on Twitter, there's debates going on and everyone's trying to push a method or an ideology that's ultimately selling their services. And it's a...
Edwin @ Snappic (47:20.292)
percent.
Edwin @ Snappic (47:37.419)
Yeah. No.
Blake Driver (47:49.506)
That part's frustrating. So the Foxwell community is great to have because we don't have that just pure knowledge exchange. It's like what Twitter was in the early days and what Facebook groups were in the early days. And just now it's overrun and Foxwell has got a great place where we can just come together and actually learn.
Tris Dyer (48:09.169)
Yeah, and this is it, right? It's not just people, it's not people pushing their product, but it's also people trying to solve problems for each other as well. It's like, hey, I've got that problem, or I've seen this, or is Facebook a conversion down? It's amazing. There's been groups like this in the past, but nothing as quiet as, I suppose, engaging, I've found for sure. When you put a question in there, you're getting an answer within a couple of minutes. So it's really helpful like that for sure.
Super. So guys, just on the ending of this, I'm not too sure how Andrew wants to finish it. I know he wants the intro, but I don't know how he wants to finish it. So perhaps if we just, we can wrap it there. I can just say, look, we've been great chatting Blake, and next week, I'll just say, you know, I'll just say that thanks everyone for joining and we'll talk to you guys next week. I just want to do something like that in case Andrew hasn't got a close. So just to say, so we...
Again, a lot of this stuff gets cut out, so it's good to do. So smile. So that's all we had time for folks. Thanks so much for spending you know on some of your time with us. You know, thanks, Blake, for giving us so much fire. That is incredible. Some seriously good stuff there. And listen, talk to you guys next week. Thanks a mill for everything.
Edwin @ Snappic (49:23.647)
See you guys.
Blake Driver (49:24.43)
Thank you. See ya.