The video start-up challenging the status quo

Itch Media’s Richard Noble is ready to disrupt the traditional role of the big ad agencies. Interview by Ellen Hammett.

Virtual reality is nascent but growing, 360 degree cameras have arrived on the market and drone use is now widespread. How is the arrival of these new technologies changing the video content game?

I think it’s incredible that we live in an age where new technologies like VR are being developed with the speed and frequency that they are. There seems to be a new bit of kit on the market every other month, which of course is great for filmmakers.

Over the last couple of decades, as technology has developed, filmmaking equipment has become cheaper and more available, which has opened up the industry to a whole new generation of filmmakers and creatives, which I think is great.

The potential problem with this is that they can be overused, which can make the effect rather gimmicky. I think it’s important that filmmaking techniques such as VR, aerial shots, time-lapse, slow motion and tracking shots, to name a few, are used sparingly and only if they add to the overall story.

If these techniques are over used, they tend to detract from the narrative of the film. At Itch, we embrace new technology and techniques, but build these into the storyboard only when they add value to the narrative.

Of course, these new technologies are potentially game-changing in some areas and they do provide us with a greater number of tools at our fingertips – it allows us to get creative in new and interesting ways – something that will always inspire and motivate creative filmmakers.

The important thing to remember here, is that it’s less about the kit and techniques being used and more about the skill and creativity of the person using them.

You’re a relatively small business. How does this pit you against much bigger outfits with established broadcast/TV links?

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Being a mid-sized creative film and animation studio allows us to be much more nimble than our larger counterparts. We work with many of our clients holistically across a lot of their overall content output. So they may have a ‘hero’ brand film that will sit pride of place on their website homepage, telling their story and engaging their customers.

This is likely to be where they will invest the bulk of their budget. However, they may also need to produce regular weekly or monthly content to keep their customer base informed. For these films, they don’t want to spend a fortune – so we spread the costs.

We also have a flat structure. This means that you no longer need the old ad agency model of having an account director, account manager, producer, director, cameraman, lighting, audio, etc. All these people add to the cost and to the logistics. Of course, we use specialists when we need to, but London has the best freelancers in the world, which makes the old model of working no longer relevant.

This approach means that we can invest our time efficiently and spread the costs for the client, which is much better way to work and is more cost effective for the client.

Also the broadcast landscape is changing all the time. On-demand viewing is becoming more and more the way we consume the majority of our media, with paid services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime making up an increasing percentage of that for most people. And now with the development of Facebook Live, I think we’ll start to see more and more live sites, allowing for broadcast studios to utilise this medium over traditional output methods.

I believe smaller fast moving companies such as ours, are better placed to adopt these developments more seamlessly than larger production houses, where the wheels turn much slower.

That’s interesting, do you have any longer-term views on how the broadcast market might evolve over the next 2-3 years?

I think we’ll see some game changing developments in the broadcast arena over the next couple of years.

Personally I’m interested to see how the live medium develops. I think there are huge opportunities for more accessible live channels, with potential outlets ranging from individual vlogging channels and local news outlets, right up to the blue chip financials with daily market updates. As we start to see more sites like Facebook Live evolve, we could potentially see this revolutionising the broadcast landscape completely.

I think we’ll also see significant developments in the way the industry operates. The vast majority of the big ad agencies continue to operate with the old model of having skilled individuals and teams fulfilling specific roles, a model which is quickly becoming less and less cost effective.

At Itch we operate with a flat structure, employing talented filmmakers all of whom are capable of producing great films. We collaborate with each other across every aspect of our productions, from idea conception right through all production stage to publication.

We have an enviable pool of resource and people who specialise in specific areas that can be pulled in across multiple projects. We find that this way of working inspires much more engagement and ownership from our people, but it also means that we can operate at much lower costs than a lot of our larger competitors.

As more studios like ours develop and take on similar working practices, the ad agencies will need to respond accordingly. It’s an interesting time for us all.

As more start-ups get into the video content space, is this likely to disrupt the traditional role of big ad agencies?

Yes absolutely. In the last five years the video content space has exploded. More and more brands and businesses are starting to see how vital video is to their overall digital strategy, and as a result we’ve seen many start-ups specialising in video.

I think for the time being it’s business as usual for the big ad agencies. The interesting time will come when the video start-ups grow and scale, as the natural space for them to scale up into is the space currently occupied by the big agencies. It’s a much more obvious route for us to scale up into the ad space than it is for ad agencies to scale down to the content space.

Added to this, advertising in general is continually changing. With significant developments in digital, and in particular mobile, the way brands communicate with their audiences is continually evolving, and the lines between a high end advertisement and high end content are becoming more blurred by the week.

We’ve already started to see this shift. As we develop our business and our client book continues to grow, we are seeing a significant increase in the amount of high profile brands that we’re working with. Traditionally we work with the marketing teams within these businesses, but more and more we’re having conversations with brand teams.

So we see our positioning as being a huge opportunity for us.

Some people seem to think that if we make better content we wouldn’t have issues like ad blocking. What’s your view?

I personally don’t believe that it’s the quality of the content or the advertising that’s the issue. Ad blocking is consumers communicating to advertisers that they just don’t want bombarding with advertising in this way. I think the advertising industry needs to listen to this.

Online and mobile are the fastest growing mediums for media consumption, so advertisers clearly want to take advantage of that, obviously. But they are the first and only mediums where the consumer has the final say over what they do and don’t see. And they are exercising that right by using ad blockers.

In 2015 AdBlock Plus claimed over 400 million users and Maxthon claimed 120 million users, with over 620 million ad block users globally. These are staggering figures that just can’t be ignored.

Plus, people are becoming wiser to the fact that whilst they’re consuming advertising, the advertisers are tracking their data, which some people see as a huge invasion of privacy. Advertisers will argue that this allows them to tailor better quality advertising for that individual.

There are many issues here, and multiple arguments for both sides. I personally believe that the advertising industry as a whole needs to find better, less intrusive ways to communicate with audiences and gather data.

It also underlines the fact that creativity is key when engaging with audiences. People will seek out creative content that appeals to them and share it with their friends. They don’t like to have ‘adverts’ continuously fed to them and this is where we, as an industry, need to constantly push boundaries and be our creative best.

Richard Noble is co-founder and director at Itch Media, a creative film and animation studio based in Clerkenwell. Founded three years ago by Richard Noble and George Owen, Itch creates video strategies for its clients and delivers great quality films that engage their audiences. Itch is focused on telling stories, with no fuss or big agency fees: itchmedia.co.uk