From Valentine’s Day to New Year’s Eve, the holidays are a perfect opportunity to market your products. Stunning photo and video assets play an essential role in telling your product’s story, so it’s important to take measure to ensure these assets are ready. Here are five ways that you can help your business have some very happy holidays.
Plan Your Photo or Video Project Early
When your project is tied to a holiday, you can’t push the deadline back. These dates are set in stone, so you’ll need to ensure you have plenty of time to get your assets in time.
The first step toward determining a solid timeline is to determine your expected launch date. In short, when do you want to release your assets ahead of the holiday? That date will likely be well before the actual holiday in question. For example, you may want to have Valentine’s Day assets ready in January. You’ll need to build those extra weeks into your timeline.
Once you have your expected launch date, the general rule of thumb is to start your photo or video project four to six months before that date. That amount of time should give you plenty of wiggle room to accommodate pre-production, the shoot, and post-production. The size and scope of your project may adjust these estimated timelines, but it’s good practice to start the process six months ahead of time to avoid any avoidable time crunches.
Plan Ahead for the Season
One challenge with holiday assets is that the weather doesn’t always cooperate. When your project is so dependent on a certain season, you’ll need to plan ahead for all the possibilities Mother Nature may (or may not) bring.
If you’re shooting outdoors for a wintery Christmas project, you may not have the snow it takes to create that magical setting. The solution for this challenge is to either have a backup idea or bake in enough time into your schedule for some scheduling flexibility. By addressing these potential options ahead of time, you’ll be able to keep your shoot on track without sacrificing your vision for the project.
On Location Challenges
Location shoots can create unexpected challenges for holiday projects, even if you are indoors. Whether you’re shooting in a restaurant, a grocery store, or some other business, you’ll have to deal with the décor on location. That décor can be an issue depending on the timing on your shoot. For example, cobwebs and skeletons don’t quite fit a Valentine’s Day scene, but that’s something you’ll see when you’re shooting your assets right before Halloween.
While some decorations are easy to clean up, others aren’t. Certain aspects of a location are fixed features that may clash with your preferred aesthetic. More benign details like artwork in the background would need to be cleared ahead of time. As such, you’ll want to consider these challenges ahead of time to make sure your location won’t pose problems in the future.
Another potential obstacle is that locations face other real-world challenges related to the ongoing health crisis. Your preferred location may end up closing before you can shoot there, especially in a tough industry like the restaurant business. There may also be some extra safety restrictions that may impact your shots – you can’t necessarily ask restaurant staff to be unmasked if they feel at risk.
Reserve Set Space in Advance
One of the best ways to avoid issues with shooting on location is to utilize stock or custom sets for your project. For example, TRG’s stock set collection offers a variety of adaptable pre-made sets and completely custom spaces that help you capture the exact look you need to match your vision. The only issue is that you need to book that space ahead of time.
There’s only so much space in any studio, unfortunately. If there’s a specific stock set that matches what you need, you’ll want to talk to your studio ahead of time to make sure that set is available for your holiday project. For example, there may only be a few available stock kitchens that meet your exact needs. If you wait, another company may snag that space and wreak havoc on your schedule.
Another consideration is to keep construction timelines in mind. A studio can certainly change paint colors, change out flooring, and customize sets in other ways, but you’ll need to keep the logistics of set construction in mind. These logistics include not only the time it takes to build or adapt sets, but also to source your preferred materials. If those exact materials are out of stock, you may need to compromise on some details to keep your shoot on schedule.
Make Sure Your Products are Ready for the Shoot
The holidays provide ample opportunities for your business. Whether you’re trying to position your products as the perfect gifts or a necessity for the season, stunning holiday assets can help your business build an emotional connection with your audience. Of course, it’s hard to make that connection if the products aren’t ready for the shoot.
There are a variety of potential inventory issues that range from branding changes that call for reshoots to a lack of a physical product altogether. These issues will undoubtedly create delays for you project, so it’s imperative that you have physical inventory by the time of your photo or video shoots. If not, you’ll need to discuss that likelihood with your studio ahead of time so that they can identify some potential solutions such as CGI or other create measures to work around the inventory issue.
Find the Perfect Studio for Holiday Video and Photo Projects
Sometimes the greatest gift of all is a multimedia studio that can efficiently deliver stunning assets for your holiday marketing needs. Our experts work with you to determine a creative, cost-effective way to bring your holiday assets to life. Contact TRG today to have us create stunning assets that support your marketing goals.
