Meet Your Audience to Their Channel

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Business podcast. My name is Charles Mackay. Today I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Renee Brewster, the CEO and co founder of Visual Domain. Visual Domain we'll get into throughout this episode, but Renee shares her story around video and how that rapid evolution of video has happened, you know, since when YouTube started in 2008 and some of the milestones along the way and how video has been treated today. Renae has so much information and knowledge and wealth around video and to be able to navigate a business through the current environment with over 100 people in it, providing a service that, you know, is. Which they're trying to make accessible to just about any business out there is an absolute, you know, feet in its own right. So today's a really interesting conversation with Renise. There's lots of little nuggets in it once you unpack it that she shares without going into the detail. And I think you'll find it a really interesting one with some, a few nice takeaways of how to start thinking about video within your business and how that power of segmentation is just so important for and how Renice is trying to, you know, empower her team and businesses to get what they're trying to, you know, get what they want out of video. But without further ado, I'm going to hand over to Renice and myself. Enjoy. Renice Brewster, what an absolute pleasure it is to have you on this fine, slightly chilly. I don't know what it's like down in Melbourne. It's slightly chilly morning.

Oh, it's chilly.

Where are you located and tell us where you would normally be in these current environments.

Well, I actually am working from our office in Abbotsford at the moment. There's four of us who have worked here when we can. Just a little bit more productive when I'm in this space than at home. But we've each taken separate corners of our quite large office so despite all of that, we're not seeing each other.

That's cool, I'm sure for you. Like obviously lots of businesses have had skeleton staff in offices and stuff like that and it would be nice to get that bit of you time on the way to the office and listen to something that's awesome. So before we, I suppose as we get started on this, I want to rewind and talk about where you got started within your, in your business career before, I suppose where we're at today. So tell us what got you into business and what your early passions were when you got into it.

Yeah, Cool. So Visual Domain is Australia's largest video production company. So we work with lots of brands creating video content and it really all started back in 2008 during the GFC of all time. So sometimes these, these times are good times to start businesses. But then it was like, I think we'd sort of identified the power of video and my business partner who was working in television at the time, you know, this opportunity to bring a TV quality video production to brands that otherwise just, it was completely out of reach at the time, you know, to spend 20, 50k to get a video, we knew it could be different. And I think driven by that opportunity and amongst the gfs, recognized that the real estate industry would be a great place for us to focus our energy and started creating property videos way back when. And you know, unbeknownst to us, it was just a beautiful training ground on how we had to create a high quality production. And we did at the time because back then it wasn't, you know, we were recording on tape, it was professional production equipment we were using. You needed. It wasn't just anyone with a camera, I guess, who could record a video without the iPhone. Yeah, exactly. So it was a professional production, it was turned around quickly. You know, a marketing budget, marketing kind of cycle for a property is about four weeks. So we had to turn it around fast and in order to get the scale we had to make it affordable. So it was kind of this training ground I guess that really seems set up all of our systems and all of our processes and the goal was always to, I guess move beyond real estate. And now we work with some of Australia's leading brands like Kmart, jetstar, Seek, nab, Westpac and really those principles of just making high quality video production accessible is still at the core of what we do and a big part of it has been doing it in house. So we actually have an in house team that work with, with all the brands and really get to know them and understand, you know, what they like, what they don't like, how we can assist them in the best way possible just with that, you know, real principle of just showing people the power of video. And you know, today we work with over 600 brands, we've got, you know, over 70 full time employees, over 100 all up and yeah, loving it. Till Covid. Loving it.

It's really cool. I want to unpack a little bit of even pre 2008, what that landscape of video looked like because especially today, like a lot of things in the spaces we work in have been commoditized or people have disrupted it. But tell us what it was like to do a video in 2008, what was actually involved?

I think it's just even looking at the channels that it went on. Like, you know, TV was still probably the mainstream. YouTube launched in about 2008, but it was just at its infancy. It wasn't, you know, you would not compare it to today. It was, you know, the few that actually were jumping on and looking at it for most brands, you know, dial up was even still a thing like in regional areas of Australia. So we were, you know, trying to figure out that and how they could even just store a video. It was truly like you needed to have. Unless you were in those kind of top tier businesses that had the marketing budgets to engage with an agency to come up with a production and it was usually reserved for a television commercial. You really weren't including video marketing as part of your communication mix mainly because it was just too hard and too expensive. And I think that's what we really recognized. And like, prior to starting Visual Domain like my background's always been in kind of emerging digital technologies as basic as they are. I was selling websites before people knew they needed websites, which is really showing my age. And when we started Visual Domain like it was actually selling mobile sites, it was kind of almost like an app, but it was pre iPhone so it was pretty ahead of its time. So I think I've always loved just showing people what's possible online and what they can do with it. And video just felt like this next best thing. And I think what I really gravitated to as well is just the emotional connection people have with video production. And there's this kind of thrill of, you know, back then especially the only videos you'd be seeing were on tv. So to see your business a video, it was. People were so proud of it, they loved it. It's really rewarding from that sense to be able to hand them something they were just showing to everyone. And yeah, to see the landscape change and the way that it has from clients creating one video for their website to now, you know, that would never happen. We create one for the website, a different one for LinkedIn, different one for Instagram. Like the channels and understanding each of the audience is now the next kind of evolution of what we find ourselves having lots of conversations about with clients. But it's still that education piece which is really fun.

So yeah, yeah, it makes sense that it's fascinating and it sort of leads into our next point of you know, the problem you were trying to solve was to make it accessible to people initially. And I think you did that extremely well. And you know, obviously the, you know, the YouTubes of the world and all of these platforms that took off, it's crazy how that's, you know, you've aligned with that. But if you start looking at like today, if, if you were to break it down into 2008 to then probably that 2015, there was another shift to then today. What would those key shifts be that you've seen within video and your business with video marketing?

I think the biggest shift, like about that time, I think 4G was released and we felt the impact of that almost instantly. Like, you know, we're quality checking each video now, not just for audio and making sure it all looked great. But does it make sense without sound? Because we know that's how half the people will be watching it. Is it going to be able to be. Can you read the text once it's on a mobile screen? Like it. It just was a real shift towards mobile around that time and I think that's even when we started to think about the different audiences a lot more than what we did prior. At the start, it was almost just, here's video marketing, how exciting, let's get on board. And it was quite broad as we've kind of gone on. You've got to get almost narrow and cleverer in directing the message to a real single audience and understand that incredibly well. So yeah, definitely the shift towards mobile, I think multiple channels and also just what's possible as well. Back in 2015, I think, yeah, it was then that we actually launched our personalized video platform. So I think just trying to again just show the power of video and connecting a video template to a client's database to create personalized content and again being able to make that accessible and bring it to our clients and see the types of results that we were getting was really exciting. And it was some of the tech, the speed that we could create these videos in real time. So a data call would go to a video template, video would be created and less than 10 seconds, that wasn't possible back in 2008. So the speed of things that we could do, it just opened up different opportunities.

Yeah, that makes lots of sense. And pre what's going on in the current environment? Where were things heading?

Oh, we were doing so well. We're having a bloody record year.

What was going on like, you know, the end of 2019, where was video going? What was happening with it I think.

It was just becoming this real norm. Like we were finding, you know, the. For our main kind of enterprise, I guess, sort of level clients, we're creating on average about 300 videos a year for them, one a day. Like, the normality and the kind of volume of. And just the way to communicate in video was just getting this mass adoption. And now I think, you know, it's just a different look and feel to that that we've shifted to with COVID So look, from I guess a business perspective we were really scaling up with in the last two years, we went from myself and my co founder being the main salespeople to now having a team of eight who are. Who are out there, you know, showing video off to everyone. We've built a team of producers that can then help, you know, really ensure that we understand the brands and can bring their messages to life. Like, it was a humongous injection of scale that we had just gone through and it was really just meeting the demand and need that was out there and just kind of felt like a bit of a secret. Like we were working with a lot of people, but we'd never had any marketing ourselves. So just being able to get our service out there, we were definitely feeling it was going well.

And what's that? Obviously, you know, what the requirements from clients pre Covid to now. What has that shifted a lot? Like what's happening?

Yeah, it has. Like, I think there was a bit more of a relaxed. I think just everyone's stressed and under pressure. Like post Covid, you know, we see our clients who are just really struggling for budget themselves to be able to create some content. And if they do get the green light to get a budget and albeit often a small, unapproved, you know, they've got to turn around the content quicker than ever because the message is irrelevant two days on. So there's a lot more, I think, kind of pressure on each project that's going ahead at the moment, both for, you know, internal stakeholders trying to say, hey, this was worth the investment. Here's what we're able to do with it. We've got to get this message out quickly to our people or it's just going to fall flat. So I think there's definitely been a higher scrutiny of what's happening and a greater pressure to get it out quickly. But at the same time, we've seen a lot of innovation too. Like, it's funny, I would have never let us record an iPhone video ever, like, or edit an iPhone video, like, just wouldn't allow it. And now it's just like the norm. Clients will send us through footage and we can, you know, we can edit it and just elevate it as much as we can. And you know, some of them are really, really good. I hate to say it. And so too like so many of so much of our work pre Covid was in the event obviously that really impacted. So we've really seen our livestream platform play a really critical part in not just communicating to using it to communicate to teams, but almost to turn what was a virtual event into a digital one. So it's been kind of cool to see tools that we had get these new uses that they didn't have previously. And we know each video that we are doing like it has, has a lot of meaning for our clients. Like it's actually, you know, there's a real purpose behind it. I don't think we take that lightly by any stretch of the imagination. So we're just trying to deliver as high quality as we can in the time we can under, you know, different types of conditions than normal.

Yeah. So on that expectation side of things, I think, you know, especially the way digital and video especially has just changed so quickly in the iPhones and you know, it's reality is it's the race with the googles and the apples of the world to make these cameras insane. How viewers of business manage that expectation that it has gone to the ceiling, I expect, you know, literally cinema grade film work for, you know, iPhone grade budget. How have you managed that?

I know it sounds, but I think it's like always what we've done, like it was, yeah, 100%. So it was always like how can we create? You know, at the end of the day we've got to justify why they come to us and not just create it on their iframes. It's pretty easy to do. Right. So we've got to make sure that we can show the value of, you know, coming to us as experts who can really help, you know, either elevate their footage or capture it themselves. And I think that really boils down to understanding the purpose and ensuring that we can even just, just help and support like a lot of it's even just empathy driven to be really honest. These guys are stretched so thin. We can just get this done for them. But no, the quality of what people can actually produce themselves is pretty exciting and pretty insane because for us, I think it just pushes us to be better and to, you know, ensure that we can show our value and our Worth by, you know, increasing what we do in some respects. So.

Yeah, I think too it's going to be interesting how the businesses go from building internal empires to proper partnerships. Again, you know, a lot of businesses we've worked with have built these internal empires but then it's not their core business. So you know, if I'm a bank, my business is to do banking. I would bring in partners to do that core work. So you know, I think and the ways even the freelance economy, all of these things are gonna. There's so much talent out there and they don't want to work for the business that doesn't live and breathe that particular task. So I think it's gonna be fascinating, right?

And it's even just having the right type of creative for the communication. Like sometimes you need animation and sometimes, you know, it is quite an emotive story and having a cinematographer actually take the footage can just create an emotional connection that you just can't do on your own. So having that kind of wide range of skills and that's pretty much exactly why we have chosen to, you know, have an in house team because they do have all their different passions and disciplines. You know, some of them are just, you know, crazy about audio. So when a client needs a podcast, we can really kind of match the, you know, the podcast quality alongside the video and you know, stuff that you just can't. You. It's very hard to find those unicorns that have got all those disciplines and passions inside them 100%.

And I've talked about this on a previous podcast actually around, you know, the unicorn, they don't exist. It's so much better to get a group of people with a like minded vision and passion and values together to create that unicorn product and you know, in house. You know, I've worked in house in my previous life and it's cushy, you try and do it and reality is if you're good at in house, you outsource everything and just sit there and sort of twiddle your thumbs. So, you know, reflecting on the last, you know, 10 years or a bit longer and it's obviously hard in these current environments, but what that journey been like and I'm sure it's been a roller coaster, but I'd love you to share some of the highs and lows and you know, exciting things that have happened through that period.

Yeah, Plenty of highs, plenty of lows. I think the highs for me has been not just bringing video to our clients and seeing the impact, but it's Also been within the team and building a culture and seeing what we can create through our growth as far as opportunities for our people. Like that really drives me a lot. Like we've got a few individuals, you know, they've all. Actually there's three in particular I can think of and they've all started in a media coordinator position at Visual Domain, which to be perfectly frank is kind of an entry point. It's highly admin. You're really just digesting the footage as it comes back and making sure our server doesn't explode at any given time. And we've got three people who started in that role. One now leads our entire tech. So we've got a platform that runs all of Visual Domain and everything you see inside of that is a direct result of him. And he oversees six full time developers. One is our operations manager of Melbourne, So she's got 60 direct reports that she oversees and make sure that they're driving their own careers and feel really happy coming to Visual Domain to work every day. And the other is our creative director and literally sets the benchmark of the quality of the type of work that we do. And I look at the three of them in particular just because they all started in that same spot and I love the fact that we've kind of been on this journey with them as they've grown their families and done all of that, but they've also been able to grow their careers. And I think from a highest point of view, in addition to just the kind of overall business success that's the stuff that I find really rewarding. The lows are always. You just wish you'd learn a heck of a lot quicker than you do, don't you? And it's each year, it's funny, we're 12 years on. I think one of the things that's actually helped us through Covid is we've got such a startup mentality like it's nothing's in your control. You've got to react, you've got to. The market's never the same. You've got to find new solutions that meet their needs and you've got to constantly evaluate the way that you do things. And you know, that way that we operate has probably been the biggest thing that's helped us through Covid. But it also means that we're constantly taking on new challenges that sometimes we don't always know what we're getting ourselves in for, but we figure it out. Albeit I wish sometimes we did it a little bit smarter. But it's Part of the journey, it's part of the fun.

Yeah, like reality is too, you know, I'm not the guy to come up with any of these things, but is when the challenges comes in is actually when the growth comes. And I'm sure for any old people out there that have service based businesses and a hybrid business like Visual Domain with the technology and the services on top, it's tough. Services businesses are tough and to scale it the way you have is pretty phenomenal. So full credit kudos to you guys, 100%. So one of the sort of themes and topics of this podcast is around making the world a better place. Now I'm a big fan of removing wastage from these departments, sales, marketing, even technology and just making things easier as well so that people's business lives are better, the home lives are better, all that sort of stuff. But what are you and Visual Domain doing that you didn't realize you were doing? Or maybe you are really conscious that you are doing it to make the world a better place. And you know, I think Covid's a really interesting time to think about these things as businesses, what you really stand for. So yeah, what are you guys doing?

Well, I guess that product is by nature like we cut out, excuse my language, but we just cut out all the bullshit that was involved in video production prior like and there's a lot like you know, you don't need often if it's a video that's an internal comm piece, you don't need an audio guy or makeup or you know, the 10 people that would show up on set, you just need one and you can turn this content around quite quickly. So I think just our core business, it's very essence, it's just how can we just make this as easy as possible looking, I guess bigger picture, I think, you know, we've really wanted to give back. We started our one day foundation last year which back then was we wanted to give a video per month to a charity or cause. We've seen the power of video and how much it can really help. And a lot of these not for profits don't still get access to professional content. And that was formed by a committee internally within Visual Domain who have spearheaded that. So that was really awesome. But to see it actually evolve like through the bushfires, the guys were all sticking up their hands to do stuff like we were quite happy to do it within Visual Domain hours. But they just dug deep and they could recognize the impact they could make by helping these businesses and communities communicate what was Going on through video. So that was really brilliant. And, you know, now even through Covid, it's looking at small businesses that have been impacted and what we can do. During COVID as much as we were hurting and you know, those initial weeks, we were hurting like we were getting cancellations quicker than we could keep up with. But amongst all of that, I look at the work we'd even completed and there was just some clients who just couldn't pay. There were a few clients who the difference between us refunding and not even would make all the difference. So I think it just really highlighted the human side of business and even just the human side within our team and seeing what everyone was going through and their own personal situations and just knowing that, you know, as much as the business does totally take over my life. Not at the end of the day, we're all here to just be happy, as corny and as stupid as it sounds. So how can we make sure that people feel supported enough that they can, you know, they can just be happy and not stress about stuff? So, you know, throughout Covid, I think, you know, my management style has definitely been to over communicate. Only. Only thought being that I think what stresses people out sometimes is not knowing and that lack of control. So even if I don't know something, I'll say, hey, I don't know where this is at. But just acknowledging that makes a huge difference to people, 100%. I committed to daily emails to the team to give them an update. There is literally nothing that my executive team is working on that the whole team don't know about. So just being as transparent as I could possibly be. And, you know, it's trying to make sure I convey the message without sugarcoating it because, you know, even over the last few months, it's been pretty dicey at times and a bit scary. But, you know, also just knowing that I actually do believe we will get through it and just making sure that they can sort of see that calm and that we will be. We will be all right. So it's been a very human experience, I think, over the last few months is the best way to describe it, of just. Yeah, just trying to understand where everyone's at mentally in the roller coaster and we're all having our reactions at different times and just being incredibly empathetic to each person and what they're going through because we're all going to have our moment.

Yeah, I think that's amazing that you've done all of those things and then just true to the you know, with Australia especially, we've had fires, the floods, Covid, all of these things happen. But you know, I think cultures are. It's a big word but the real cultures come out in these times and the human element to it, thinking about.

It, service business too, I think, you know, like if your people are stressed, they're not going to be productive, so.

You'Ve got to take care of them 100%. I couldn't agree with you more. So thinking around, you know, and we're still in the middle of all of this, but if you were to pre Covid and now the current environment to coming out of COVID what's two things that you're just not going to do as a business where you're like, that was not the right thing or we've learned this lesson, it's not going to happen again.

I think more the things we've learned through Covid is we've got two offices, Melbourne and Sydney and you know, they operated fairly independently, whereas now we really are one team. And the benefit of having those really open conversations with everyone has been so beneficial to the whole. So moving forward, I think we'll definitely take on board that kind of more one team approach. The other has been, I think even just the. It's funny like one of the logistical nightmares has been the fact that we don't have an office with a server for videographers to come back once they're done from a shoot and upload their footage to, which is what they used to do. Now they actually have to pop it on a hard drive and physically go to the editor's house to drop it off. Now an outcome of that has been they stand there and they have a conversation while they're handing over the hard drive about what happened at the shoot, what went on and something so simple, but the difference and impact it's made on that connection, the quality of the product. So even just trying to bring some of those communication elements back when we come back will be the other one. And then I think it's just being. We were always very flexible with working hours. We've got a lot of young parents with little ones. So, you know, we had working from home for a few roles. Probably our post production team, we didn't see it as an option because of this, the server and whereas now I think, you know, as hard as it is, it is an option. So just working out what that will look like ongoing and what that means for the team is quite meaningful. So just even working out an ongoing, working from Home plan will be what we take out of this too.

I think they're really great lessons and this is one that I've been passionate about and I've talked about this on previous podcasts actually is the time of work. Whoever came up with nine to five, I don't get it. Like some people like working from Binduot till 4am so let them work then. Yeah, especially creatives, like they don't follow the general rule of thumb, so let them work when they want.

100%. I think so. And look, it's even just going to be like so many on public transport and feeling a bit at different times. So yeah, no, I couldn't agree more with that.

Yeah. So the journey that you've been on with video and your business and you know, I suppose there's nearly two tips that you could give here to the audience. One to the, you know, the marketers and the sales guys out there that are thinking about video or doing video or you know, what would that tip be in the current environment to focus your energy and then the other one to a business owner, you know, that's trying to scale, what would that tip be? I'd love you to share your thoughts.

I reckon I'll start with the easy one, but I reckon for brands looking to get into video at the moment, I think being very aware of your audience and the channel in which you're sharing your content because they are so they are more different now than what they ever were. Like Same company, Facebook, LinkedIn, website, internal, completely different messaging, the same communication, you know, so if you're going to start, I think get very focused on what audience you want to talk to first for it to have impact because people are also just overwhelmed by the volume of content they're having to consume each day that if you're going to cut through, I think you've got to be really laser focused on who you're talking to. Business perspective, I can only reflect on what we're doing and it's about this time each year we start planning for the new financial year and we'll map out a 12 month budget and to be fair, we've done all of that, but I'm really not focused on more than three months at the moment. That's the world I'm living in and we normally take this time and look at longer term strategies that we're looking to implement over a 12 month or 6 month period. And I'm kind of at the view of the moment. If it doesn't have an impact on the business, within three months, it needs to go on hold. Like we need to really stay, I think, very nimble, very agile because we just don't know where we're going to be in six months time. And even just our world. It's been interesting because so many of our clients have had their teams completely shut down, which in some time means more work for us and other times it means a lot less because alongside it they're, their budgets have been cut and they haven't, they haven't got those marketing dollars to create additional content. So I think we just need to stay really open so that we can react to the needs of the market because I think they're going to change a lot. So it's more than 90 days. I wouldn't put too much energy into it, but stick to small term goals at the moment.

Yeah, I agree with you there. As long as you've got that bigger arching vision, the ways you're going to get there is absolutely going to change. And I think the people that are agile are open if the ones head in the sand are really going to struggle. So something I want you to boast about. Tell us about your biggest success story, like something that you're most proud of since you've been working with Digital Main, whether it be a client or a staff member. I know you've shared a couple of things already.

That's the hardest question of them all. I think my proudest moment was we won the Mumbrella Award a few years back and going for number three this year, fingers crossed. But it wasn't winning the award that I think was, you know, like what I got from it, albeit it was great, it was the team's reaction and just seeing what it meant to them and how just invested they were in the brand success and this kind of acknowledgement that, you know, this video production company that does stuff so differently from the norm, like it's, we work on them but it's uncommon. We've got a 50k budget that we're working on, like we're doing hundreds of small productions every day. We are not your typical video production company and so I think that that award just really validated the type of content that we're creating. And to see the team, like all their social posts about how proud they were to work here and be part of was just the bestest. Hopefully we can do it for a third time.

It's probably that belief piece too. Now you see it more talked about in sport than business. I think the belief. But when you really, truly believe that you're on purpose and doing something that you're good at too, and that it gets results then that buy in, especially that external. You know, that's I suppose, where awards can be quite good. But just I can see how it would bring everyone together and they would love it. So that's awesome.

Yeah, I think the way like typical kind of found a mentality probably, but like, I just live in a world of we are nowhere near where we want to be. Like, so frustrated. We should be here by now. It's just you don't see the success and once you kind of get there, you're so, you know, focused on what's three steps ahead of you. You never really take that moment to celebrate. So it was almost like this first time. Literally we kind of just stopped and thought, oh shit, we've actually really created something here. This is. How cool is this?

I think that's a. It's a really important thing. I heard another mate of mine shared a story around, you know, if you're on the train and you're going to the destination and call that your business is on that journey of going wherever it's going. But if you don't get off at any stops and just have a look at what's going on and recognize how you're going or you're going to get there and then be like, what just happened?

Yeah, yeah. It's so true. And this is again where I just think that human side of things that, you know, Covid I think has just pushed to the top of the critical list for us has just been so important and the human that you're doing it with and their journey on the ride as well. And again, services, business. But I think any business, the kind of responsibility we take on to really make it a meaningful journey for everyone is my take of the world. Anyway.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. So Renace, we better start bringing this to the ground. But I've really appreciated you coming on the show, but it's time to. So how do people get in touch with you or Visual Domain? What's the best channels?

Our website for sure. So visualdomain.com or any of our social channels to LinkedIn or Instagram, Facebook.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much. This has been great.

Thank you. Heaps.