With Streaming Forum fast approaching—on 18-19 June at Park Plaza Victoria in London, we’ll be taking the opportunity to introduce you to some of our speakers here on the Streaming Media Europe blog. First up is Simon Crofts, Creative Director at ST16.
Tell us a little about you, your background and your current role.
I’ve worked on cross platform projects for an impressive list of B2B and B2C clients all over the world, including global change comms projects, TV/cinema commercials, promo films and viral/social media projects. I even had afternoon tea with Prince Edward before directing a project for him.
I started in corporate communications at EDS.
Over the last 12 years I have helped build one of the most successful production companies in the UK (Televisual Corporate Top 50 No. 23, 2013).
In my current role as Creative Director at ST16, I pride myself in developing strategy and creative that as well as achieving millions of views, goes beyond that. Understanding the audience and objectives, cleverly targeting and engaging them and then embedding key messages into the content, creating measurable ROI, like more web traffic or increased sales. The results I have achieved for clients shows that the approach works, with hugely successful, measurable returns on campaigns.
I’ve won a number of awards for my work, conceiving, writing and directing the Royal Television Society Award winning ‘Speed Dating’ (with over 16 millions views online) and IVCA/New York Festivals Gold winning ‘Steamed Up’ social media campaigns.
I am a Governor (and have guest lectured) at Staffordshire University and judge for the New York Film & Television Festival.
What will you be talking about at Streaming Media Europe? Why have you chosen this subject?
I will be talking about social/viral video—about how to mitigate the risk associated with the approach and achieve measurable results beyond views or ‘likes’. I will use the NHS Dentist campaign we worked on as a case study to demonstrate the process and incredible results to can achieve if you execute a campaign properly.
Name some key challenges faced by your clients, and tell us how you are overcoming them?
How do you make new, interesting and successful content? How do you make it stand out from the massive amount of video being added on an hourly basis?
Our research, creative process and seeding strategies generate ideas that work incredibly well with the target audience and spread very quickly. Making sure the client understands how important each of these stages are and not just going with their ‘great idea’ is the first step toward success.
What do you see as major trends in streaming media?
It’s ever growing. Social video is still in its infancy. We will continue to strive for exciting and engaging content but the technology will continue to develop and offer us new ways to deliver that creative.
What do you enjoy the most about your job in this industry?
Every day is different. I’ve had the opportunity to work all over the world across most sectors, learning new things about hundreds of different types of business.
I love the fact that all our projects present new challenges… How do you make going to the dentist sexy? Can you use viral for internal communication? Can we save people’s lives with social video? Can you sell a product with viral? Those are the kind of questions we love to get asked.
Wednesday 19 June 2013 11.45am-12.30pm: B202: Case Study: Viral Video – Myth or Magic?