Crafting a Creative Reel
Hello and welcome to AAR Partners’ new biz quick tips shared exclusively with our AAR Agency Growth Program Partners.
Creative reels. We still use the term but you might call it retro for “Showcase video” in today’s world. Borrowing from the old way of storing film, a reel is an edited video highlighting the best examples of your work… as you know. But what is the best way to craft this reel or video? Start by thinking of the reel as a trailer for your team and agency’s work while keeping in mind that the power of the reel comes from the competency of creativity.
What do client’s want when hiring an agency? Resources, research, insights, plans but most of all they want salient creative ideas. As one past AAR client bluntly stated, “I don’t want referential ideas and I certainly don’t want vanilla creative.”
Some of the questions we typically get at AAR Partners from agencies crafting a creative reel are:
- What kinds of reels stand out from the pack?
- What is the ideal length of an agency creative video?
- How important is it to highlight a creative team’s energy/spirit in a creative video?
- What kind of content should be included?
There are typically three approaches to a creative reel:
- A true sizzle reel – which is typically a quick moving video through lots of work examples with no detail or context on the work with a great sound bed behind it.
- A series of video case studies – highlights fewer creative examples, but provides detail to set-up the work, and shows full spots. Puts VO behind the case study.
- A hybrid reel – which highlights some great breakthrough work while showcasing some of the agency’s spirit baked into the reel.
My ultimate concern with a sizzle reel is will clients know the work? If you’re going for a true sizzle reel, I believe the majority of what is being highlighted needs to be national brand work or brands that are recognizable and known for being creative leaders in their sector. Since its quick snippets of spots, it’s tough to do with local or regional brands that clients may not know.
The integrated reel or video case series reel allows your agency to show full work across media with voiceovers or supers highlighting the challenges and results. Again, it needs to have pep and a great sound track in the background will help accomplish that part but the VO must be engaging and clear.
And the overview reel or hybrid reel is a combo of culture and credentials that highlights some of the team members ultimately responsible for all client business. I’ve seen reels where we walk through the agency showcasing teams working together with cuts to quick cases and back again. The ideas behind the creative layout are endless.
There must be a balance of show and tell, particularly with the second and third options and the context needs to be quick and clear without being draining.
Of course for all options, the reel must be educational, as well as engaging or entertaining. It must show work that works. The work highlighted should be within the past few years and most crucial… the reel absolutely should not exceed 90 seconds. The best reels I’ve seen over the years hover around 60 seconds.
As a courtesy to all agencies, we do not share work. However, Kaplan Thaler is no longer in existence (since they were an incredible agency that eventually got acquired by Publicis), I will share their integrated reel that they produced as an excellent example of a sizzle reel with one critical comment – the reel is much too long at three minutes. But the work… well, I’ll let the reel speak for itself!
There you have it. That’s my counsel on this topic and I hope it helps. Look out for more of my new biz quick tips shared exclusively with AAR Agency Growth Program Partners…