Louise, Ludlow Gin's content lead, explains why the brand switched from high-production cocktail videos to phone-shot Instagram Reels. Behind-the-scenes reels shot vertically get 600 views in an hour versus a few hundred over months for polished videos. Fast, free content keeps users on the platform longer, though expensive campaign videos still work for big brand messages.
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Louise, hi. We're going to talk about how you use inline videos with Ludlow Gin. I know you've transitioned slightly to using reels, but let's look at how you used inline videos, what you used them for, why you still use them now. But why possibly reels are the way forward?
Well, I think when we started, we were working with video makers, Lush Films, and actually the original plan was to create a whole series of reels that could, sorry, in feed videos that would form part of a longer campaign. So we wanted to really tell the story of, you know, how much love goes into the process, make the making of the cocktails seem really aspirational, really great. And so what we did was we kind of came up with a concept with Lush Films to create a whole series of. I think probably the best examples are all the cocktail videos I can show you. And also, you know, having a look at the. Some of the product videos. This is one for Project X, which is a liqueur that was made in collaboration with Extract Coffee. So what we did was kind of. You'll see this looks much more kind of professionally made. If you remember when we were. If anyone's watched the video piece, we've spoken about the video format. This is a really good example of why formatting now matters so much. So the video is absolutely beautiful. It worked absolutely brilliantly two years ago when this is what we wanted to do. And this is the best way for the format to work. And the videos were going to, you know, had multiple ways in which they could work. They could work across Instagram, they could work across Facebook, they could work on the. On the website, all of which was really good. Let me show you another kind of cocktail. So, and this is another example of short but really beautifully made cocktail videos. Okay, now the thing is to look at.
Can I just stop there for two seconds? So what you're saying is this was two years ago, this was what good looked like, and now you'd shoot this as full screen, right?
Oh, absolutely. Shoot it vertically. No, no question asked. And you can just see. It speaks volumes, doesn't it? And this beautiful footage is lost in middle of this screen. So people are still digesting the content, they're still looking at it and still enjoying it, but in no way does it. It hasn't had a video, a beautiful kind of video like this has not had as many views as a reel that we did in 10 minutes. You know, looking at, you know, a reel that we did in 10 minutes that we did at an event that took us, no time at all.
So the whole business of spending lots of money creating great content still has a place.
It definitely still has a place. It definitely still has a place that's campaign led. You can really track kind of return on investment. But I think the message I would hammer home to businesses now is that you need to be doing this yourself and there's no reason not to because all of the creative assets exist within your phone. And actually, when we look at how social media kind of is being consumed then by Instagram users, it is kind of authentic, it's fun, it's behind the scenes, it puts the people first. If anyone's seen the reel that we just did that is all about kind of a day in the life of Jamie that doesn't have the same visual quality as something as beautiful as this at all. Yet it's probably had more, I would say it's had more views than some of these, than some of these beautifully made videos in Instagram because people are more interested in it. And it's only been live for an hour and a half.
So big, big messages, you know, high production video has a place.
Yes.
Fast and few. And you can run it for longer, can't you, louise? So it's 10 minutes, you can run it in free video.
Yeah, absolutely. And it has a place. If you're going to be able to use it across multiple channels as well, you know, if you are going to use it through website, if you've a campaign in mind and you really are, you've got a very clear kind of return on investment that you're looking to achieve. But actually day to day, as a content creator for your business, you should be on reels and you should be able to turn something really nice around that people like to look at in very short space of time.
And it's memorable, right? It's how people.
Memorable. Yeah, absolutely.
I think that number that sticks with me is I think we've just surveyed, I think 5,000 people and I think 30% now spend five hours a day on the phone. And if you are creating reels, you will guarantee to be much more guaranteed past that five hours.
Right, well, look, if you have a look at these top three videos, right, so 226views. 176views. 120views. They've been on there for a long time. If we just go to reels just to experiment. This reel, this, the coffee wheel here, that one there, I put up an hour ago just so that we could see what the reach would be for the, for the purposes of this video. And that's 600 views already.
So this is one you made earlier?
Yes, this is one we made earlier. I only put it up an hour ago, but it's already has 600 views in an hour.
There's no paid. That's all.
Zero. No. Absolutely no money has gone into the Ludlow Gin Instagram account at all.
And so. And so people might say, well, this isn't asking anybody to buy anything. But the answer is it wants me to do business with them.
Yeah, absolutely.
Big thing to really get your head around, which is that from a business perspective, somebody seeing you, meeting you, thinking, gosh, that looks nice, is how business is done. Yeah. Where somebody bumping into a tray at a trade stand. This is letting you let your trades take your trade stand everywhere, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
And Instagram is showing reels to everybody more than any other content. Simple as that. Because it makes people hang around longer.
It absolutely does. And you can just see the priority it's given. If you look to the bottom of the screen on your Instagram, it's got its own tab completely, so you don't have a choice now. But it's easy for you to do a really nice job with reels. And remember, there's a delete button if you don't like it.
Exactly. You can rub it out forever.
Yeah, exact.
So go have fun, people. Reel away. It's really important. Louise, thank you so much.
