The Tight Five: Origin Stories from The Second Row

In 2011, Tim Bradley and I launched the video business at Matter Communications, which over the last decade evolved into an award-winning machine that’s well-known for producing some of the best video content in the industry. From the beginning, Tim was at the center of it all, with a unique combination of creative vision and executional excellence.

A fellow music fanatic, check out one of our favorite performances M83 In Concert, he recently struck out on his own as the co-founder of Pennant Video, the video-first marketing agency dedicated to serving safe, secure and sustainably-minded brands. Our wide-ranging discussion touches on his take on the future of creative content, the powerful combination of audio and visual content and he recommends a trilogy of books by Austin Kleon that I’ve already purchased and loved. ENJOY!

The Tight Five: Origin Stories from The Second Row is a series of conversations with smart, thought-provoking folks who are doing great things in ‘The Front Row’ of work, mental health, marketing, service and technology and how they came to their personal and professional path in life. The series is named after the moniker of the combined Front Row (two props and the hooker in the middle) and the Second Row in the rugby scrum.

NOTE: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity

Matt Landry:

Welcome to the Tight Five. I appreciate you doing this.

Tim Bradley:

Thank you, sir. Appreciate you giving me that opportunity.

Matt:

What's your process for using creative to tell stories about you know that are sometimes complicated ideas or concepts and kind of a simple yet exciting way?

Tim:

Video period. I’m just joking, but I've been a video producer for about 20 years now. I started as a camera guy shooting action sports, skiing, snowboarding and things like that. But then I moved back here from the west coast and after a 12 year agency career, I’ve experienced a lot!

What's the old adage… one year at an agency is like 3 years.

Matt:

Yeah, it's not dog years, but it's pretty close.

Tim:

So, the power of video is that it is not just qualitative, but quantitative. It is the best medium to show and tell complicated ideas. Hubspot recently released their annual state of marketing report, and while its data was up and down about video performance, the key takeaway was that it's the number one medium for marketers, for the fourth year in a row. It is just so powerful because you can coalesce the message, the aesthetic, the tone of voice, with the visuals, especially from a brand’s point of view. And to synergize all of that, compounded with voice over text and the right music and then just it's a great experience at the end of that process.

Matt:

Is it as simple as it's easier to show something than tell it?

Tim:

Yeah, I mean, you know a picture is worth a thousand words and multiply that with video.

Matt:

And all those cliches that we could wrap around it.

Tim:

Yeah, exactly. We're talking about multiple frames.

Matt:

But I think when I look at using the word creative, I asked you that question specifically, it is because you don't just do video. You have more talent than just shooting stuff, it's when you combine all those different elements into creative that you shine.

Tim:

Well, it all comes from a place of why, which is a really important perspective. What makes this thing awesome is that we’re creating unique and impactful is that it hits the goal at the end of the day. It involves a lot of creativity from an ideation standpoint and of course writing is really at the root of this story we're intending to tell. We’re always asking ourselves, ‘how do we make this story impactful?’ And then comes the execution, which is where people mostly think of video, right? You're moving keyframes in a motion design project or you're pointing at a camera and pressing a record button, but what most people don’t know is that there's so much. intention prior to that moment. It’s more like all the dominoes have been stacked up and now you're just flipping them down. Then of course the editing is where the magic happens and it all comes together to make the collective creative vision tangible in a way, right?

Matt:

You said this word a little bit ago, impactful and it's one I use a lot… how do you define impactful?

Tim:

Good question. From a business point of view, ROI and video have always been sort of mushy. You can certainly do it if you have the right sort of CRM and your funnel and your process is really tight, so you can see the sequence of things. So, when it comes to the word impactful, you need to look beyond views, beyond your normal KPIs, likes and things like that. Those are certainly important. But video is also an incredible one on one medium.

Matt:

Yeah, it's felt. It's the wow. It's emotion.

Tim:

Bingo. Yeah. In my world there are things like awards and it’s always nice when you get that sort of recognition for creativity and the work. But I find that a lot of our clients, while they certainly like getting millions of views, that’s amazing, but understanding how it's impacted people, that’s hitting both the bottom line and top line goals, right? That's the name of the game.

Matt:

Right. And there's that simple thing, people getting excited. It's people saying, ‘OH, THAT WAS GREAT!’ You almost hear a change in their voice. Which is kind of cool.

Tim:

Yeah, you just see that it's hitting and a lot of the work that we're trying to do is reflect and represent the audience on behalf of the brand, correct? It's hard to see that impact over the Internet or on a mobile device. But when you get that feedback, it’s phenomenal. During my career at Matter, there were so many times when a new candidate said that the videos on the website were a big driver for them to apply, that's rewarding. Those individual kinds of qualitative moments should not go unnoticed.

Matt:

When you combine the quantitative and the qualitative, that's when you're doing good stuff.

Tim:

Correct. Correct. Yep.

Matt:

So how do you think storytelling is going to change over the next 5 years?

Tim:

Yeah. It’s wild out there right now. A combination of artificial intelligence, the writer’s strike as well as the actors’ strike and then there’s TikTok and all the social channels, it's just incredible. What’s great is that almost everybody is fortunate enough to have the tools to create content. But to do it right, I think that challenge is going to return us to two words, intension and impact. People can just create stuff, ad nauseum, but is it moving? Is it impactful and is it worth people's time?

So, I think that's the thing that I'm always saying is… ‘What's the worth of creating whatever it is we're going to create?’ If it's your own self-fulfillment, that's one thing, but when you're basically imposing your content on other people's time it should be worthwhile. So, you have to think it through. Is this valuable? Is this educational? Is there something that is inherently important to the person that you're sharing this with?

Matt:

The barriers to entry are just gone.

Tim:

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, I think this is going to be a lot of interesting new approaches, we’re going to see an evolution, I think it will be focused on combating the robot, aka AI as well. For me, I see AI as something that is more as a collaborator than then a full doer, if that makes sense.

Matt:

I mean, one thing we've talked about over the years is, you know, the importance of artistry but also authenticity.

Tim:

Yes.

Matt:

You mentioned the word content fatigue a little bit ago, sometimes that (artistry and authenticity) is the secret for breaking through that deluge of content that we're all getting through our phones, our TVs from everywhere.

Tim:

Yes, and it’s coming at a constant tremendous pace too. There's a writer, speaker, podcaster named Jay Acunzo, I really enjoy his perspective, and his mantra right now is ‘don't be the best, be their favorite.’ That is the embodiment of authenticity, not just being so driven by things like algorithms and SEO, which are obviously important, but when you’re coming from a creative place it should be as authentic as possible, because then you'll attract the right audiences, versus just blanketing the world.

Matt:

Yeah, real always works.

Tim:

Totally.

Matt:

We're both huge fans of music. Do you think music enhances video or undermines it as an art form? What do you think?

Tim:

I think it’s funny because I see music as so subjective. I actually just experienced this last week with a client and we're at the finish line with this project. We’re almost there and they tell me, ‘We love it, but we want to change the music…” and you're like, okay… but at the end of the day we are just the vehicle to produce their vision, so we're always willing and able to do it. But music is always the touchiest part because the owner of the piece wants it to resonate with them, but it should resonate with your audience first and foremost and make them happy as well. So, it's always a tough one.

They're both like inherently artistic right you're creating music, you're creating visuals. There's audio and there’s visual. It’s a term for a reason, it goes together.

Matt:

Yeah. I know when you're using music… is it chicken or the egg thing, which one leads?

Tim:

Yeah, it’s funny because as I was saying before, early in my career when I did a lot of action sports, specific to music, you are just looking for a specific energy. So, you pick the music before you start stringing out the visuals, because you know the energy that you’re going for, you select the music track, and you add it to the content.

But I’ve found with interview driven pieces, a lot of the tone that you're going for reveals itself through the different phases of production. You already know the mood and feel that you're striving for, but you don't necessarily know, if it's an interview driven piece, the sort of cadence and energy of the people that will come through the person that you're interviewing. So, I actually reverse that, and I lay out the whole messaging cut, the audio for the piece, the target length we're striving for and then I pick the music that matches the messaging cadence of the piece.

But I always love that moment of when you know the tone you're striving for, the messaging is tight, the sort of beats towards whether you change the music or the cadence of the track and then while the mining of that music track is can be exhausting, but it's always really cool when you’re editing and you have one window on your workstation is playing the music and the other window is playing your video and you're saying to yourself, “okay, this is going to line up nicely!”

Matt:

So, 3 years after the world shut down because of COVID, what are some of the impacts you've seen? On the work you've done?

Tim:

I mean, everyone was just forced to go on Zoom. You got familiar with the little green dot on their computer and sort of performing in that way. So that enabled a lot of our clients, certainly in the BtoB space, have more of an aptitude to jump on camera and speak their mind and be authentic, which as we’ve discussed makes for incredibly rich owned content and that's the point right, to differentiate from the competition and have a point of view. So, podcasts were part of the explosion of that medium and I think again, how do you do it? Not only authentically, but in a way that's valuable to the people you're talking to.

Matt:

Alright, last but not least. What book, author or thinker has been, you know, important or touched on for you in your career?

Tim:

I always Go back to Austin Kleon's books. He has written three that are primarily written for creators, but I think anybody can embrace what he's saying. The trilogy is ‘Steal like an Artist,’ ‘Show Your Work’ and ‘Keep Going.’ It is a trilogy on the creative process. The first one, ‘Steal Like an Artist,’ has some great tips and strategies about like nurturing creativity and where to find inspiration and how to embrace that inspiration and draw from various sources to find your own artistic voice and that's sort of the nature of the world, right? ‘Show Your Work’ is more about process than end result, so people can understand the why and the purpose of things and your own creative evolution. They're all short reads and there's a lot of illustrations and I highly recommend them for anyone who's just like needs that push creatively, to find the words and pictures and we need to figure out. I think you and I need to collaborate on a soundtrack for it.

Matt:

I appreciate you joining us. I enjoyed it. It was fun and, thank you very much.

Tim:

Thank you. Thank you.