Lessons from Freddie Mercury: Why length isn’t always a turn-off for social video
Denis Crushell, MD international of social video intelligence company Tubular Labs, explains why creators need to be brave and steadfast in their convictions – just like Freddie.
Creativity is undoubtedly subjective. Creators and their process are open to perception and critics who will take a swipe no matter the scale of your success.
Take Bohemian Rhapsody. Not the recent Remi Malik reimagining of Freddie Mercury and Queen, but the song from which the movie takes its name. Today it’s considered one of the greatest of all time. Yet music execs and fellow artists thought Queen and Mercury crazy for wanting it as the first single released from their A Night at the Opera album. Elton John, a friend, said: “You must be mad”.
Its structure was unusual. So many sections. So many key changes. But it was the length, that was considered the biggest barrier. Pop songs on the radio rarely ventured over four minutes in 1975, let alone approached six. There were exceptions, Hey Jude’s full length was over seven and Led Zeppelin’s 1971 Stairway to Heaven clocked in over eight, although it was never released as a single.
Super-short form video is something social platforms (cough* facebook *cough cough) have been pushing so hard primarily because it makes their metrics look better. 90% watched of a 10 second video looks a lot better than 10% watched of a 90 second video (or whatever the math actually equals out to – you get the point).
The truth is the creative is what really matters, not the length of the video. Ask anyone who’s binged shows back to back on their phone or tablet – you don’t let screen size or video length stop you if the content is something you actually enjoy.
Now, let me repeat that – the creative is what really matters. 99% of branded content is utter garbage and will always remain that way. So if you’re not confident in your idea, your budget or your creative capabilities, 5 – 15 seconds is definitely the way to go. But we shouldn’t get hung up on the idea there’s no place for longer-form content just because that’s what Facebook says.
Issue is, 90% of video content online is garbage. Sad times.