Posts categorised: Video Production

Advertising, Featured, Video Production /

Advertising on YouTube in the UK

In the UK digital advertising landscape, YouTube has emerged as a dominant digital platform for advertisers to reach targeted audiences. Youtube has a vast user base and targeted adverting options. Businesses can use the potential of YouTube advertising in the UK to grow market share.

The popularity of Youtube in the UK is a critical factor influencing a company’s marketing strategy. We’ll look in detail at Advertising on Youtube in the UK. We’ll explore the factors that impact budgets and provide data for you to make decisions.

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Featured, Video Production /

Using the Power of Video to Promote Company Culture

Businesses worldwide recognise the paramount importance of fostering a positive company culture. A strong company culture enhances employee engagement and productivity. Equally, company culture plays a significant role in attracting potential customers. And a well-documented company mission is now essential when hiring new employees.

One powerful tool that has emerged as a game-changer in encouraging employees and promoting company culture is video.

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Is Outsourcing Advertising the best way?

Brands are looking for more control over their advertising output. Is bringing creative in-house better than outsourcing advertising? Or is there a third way?

In-house Advertising Team

We all still remember the PR car-crash, which piled up around the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad. The campaign was supposed to be an example of edgy advertising crafted by an in-house team.

In the driving seat that fateful day was Kristin Patrick, senior VP-global brand development. Mr Jakeman, President of PepsiCo Global Beverage Group, praised the ad on Twitter shortly after it was released. Saying he was “super proud of the @PepsiCo #CreatorsLeague for producing this.” The tweet got deleted swiftly afterwards.

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Featured, News, Video Production /

4 Ways to Make Your Video Budget Go Further

Video production is complicated by nature.

You’ve got pre-production, shooting, and post-production — each stage with its interlocking series of tasks that need to be planned and executed.

So when you’re embarking on a new video shoot, it’s easy, perhaps even natural, to feel overwhelmed and get anxious about the video budget.

video budget

Fear not, because there are tried and true ways to ensure your video budget goes the distance. Here’s a list of four really good ones:

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Animation Styles and Animation Process

With live-action production all but impossible in these tumultuous times, we here at Toast thought it might be useful to talk about other options for promoting your product, brand or company.

Animation for advertising

We turn our attention to animation. Some dos and don’ts, the process, the cost, the advantages and the disadvantages. And finally, some animation packages that we can offer here at Toast should you be interested in going down this route.

The crucial moment during the process of developing an animation is in the initial stages where you’re considering what animation styles you’re going to adopt. Budget can be a deciding factor; character and 3D animation cost more than say 2D animation.

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Clutch Identifies Toast as a Leading Advertising & Video Production Agency in the UK

Toast is a talented team of video production and advertising specialists, dedicated to helping your business creatively stand out from your competitors. We specialise in branded content, television commercial production, television media buying, and motion graphics. We know what works to elevate your brand, and we’re not afraid to scare you a little if it will help your business succeed.

These are the reasons we decided to join Clutch, an online platform whose mission is to identify the best B2B agencies and help them to be seen by buyers who need their services. Clutch publishes validated reviews from clients who have worked with the agencies listed on their site. The reviews, along with an internal evaluation of each company’s market presence, are what form their rankings and enable some companies to be listed above others.

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Featured, News, Video Production /

Video Production – State of the Art 2018

Toast is a branded content agency based in London, we’ve put together this infographic that looks at the cameras, computers, drones and storage all used in the production of video and animations. We’ve compared some of the gear used now to the kit used way back.

video production infographic preview

The GoPro is a staple of any video kit bag and with its quality-improving every year GoPro footage can be seamlessly edited into any production. Cameras have also got smaller and lighter, using a DigiBeta Cam years ago would give you toned arms and a strong back, now a DSLR can be thrown about all day.

Drones have also been a great leap in video production values, if you need a quick aerial shot just throw up a drone, no more waiting around for an expensive helicopter to turn up. Computers have probably changed the most with a desktop computer able to edit 4K footage and render stunning 3D visuals, the technology really is empowering the creatives.

The advances in production gear is also having great benefits in filming. DRTV adverts with smaller budgets than traditional brand adverts can now leverage some of the best new lightweight cameras to increase production values.

The infographic covers many other bits of Video Production tech, take a look.

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News, Video Production /

Mayon Volcano – Video Fact File

We’re starting a new initiative at Toast. Video Fact Files, these are short video clips which give the viewer all the headline information they about a news event in a quick and mobile friendly clip. Our first clip is about the recent eruption of the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines. We believe animation is the perfect medium to deliver quick information bursts. We’ve used an explainer video style which allows us to pepper the videos with stats and headlines. These videos are well suited to social media where the viewer is scrolling and has limited time to view each clip.

The Mayon volcano threatens to cause massive damage to the Philippines, the volcano is spewing rocks, smoke and ash over a large area. Ash when mixed with rain water has the ability to cause dangerous mud slides. Mayon has also had a serious affect on global transport with planes having to be rerouted around the ash clouds. If planes fly through an ash cloud the ash can fuse together inside their jet engines making a dangerous glass coating on engine parts.


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Brand Safety – Is your brand safe?

The Brand Safety issue is a big subject in the media right now and doesn’t look like it’s going away soon. For brands and organisations, it’s a reputational nightmare. You make some entertaining and informative video content and suddenly you get calls asking why your video is linked to or surrounded by other content that is extremist, offensive, pornographic, or at its simplest just contrary to your own brand’s ethics and values. For example, you are a family brand selling healthy cereal and you find yourself linked with a very explicit lyrics and imagery from the band Cradle Of Filth, famous for their songs that are violent, sexist, and overtly sexual. That’s a PR disaster that is none of your doing but the problem is you are now in damage limitation mode.

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Drone Delivery the Future of Toast

London is bewildering in its levels of culinary creativity. A gourmet crisp shack, pop up potato joint and grilled cheese sandwich shop all exist within the media haven of Soho.

A new hire at Toast, Harry Harryman was quick to point this out. He jumped to work immediately, capitalising on this booming trend. Partly transforming our video production shop into a street food business with a difference – a drone delivery food service. Toast introduced the next step in “snack UX” – drone food delivery Toast.

The next unicorn?

Once rumours of the project leaked out we came under intense interest from various parties in venture capital land. Quotes about the project are too numerous to mention. It reminded all at Toast of the now-famous “project ginger” from a few years back. We were about the change the food delivery landscape forever, our drone delivery idea was to be revolutionary.

Toast invited investors to London for secret demos a few months after starting up. Then the service ran in stealth mode for about 6 months. We experienced problems in secretly beta testing the service in a built-up area. We found a new location, Frenchman Flat Nevada after initial scouting. It seemed a good location given its secret nature and numerous abandoned building structures. We later ruled out ex-nuclear testing site Frenchman Flat as the drone rotors had a tendency to stir up ground dust which would be a health risk.

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