Think Outside the Quota

Creating a New Form of Content

I led and worked closely with my copy and content team to create a concept around the problem at hand: Creating a short form film series devoted to reminding business leaders that hard times, humble beginnings, and personal stories are what create success.

I developed the art direction based on the Sales Cloud product, along with my own personal touch of illustration and animation that brought the hand made brand illustration styles more to life. Then we jumped head first into production, editing and adjusting on the fly as new objectives and motives would come flooding in from up on high. It was fast, chaos, and it was also fun with a great team that we set up on the ground, including myself.

This is one of those projects where I was up against a fast approaching timeline with a manager that was a little too “micro-managey” and wanted to remove the animation styles altogether. My role was not only to make sure the show gets made, on-time, and on-brief but also to become a protector. Protector of my team, the brand, the work, and myself. It is still a widely talked about project within Salesforce, even though I no longer work there, because it was so much fun and did something that ushered in a new way to create content by mixing live-action with animation on screen at the same time in a corporate setting.

Watch the show on Salesforce+

THE PROBLEM

Quickly approaching deadlines, an ever-changing brief, and limited super stars available on short notice. We needed to create an 8 episode, easily digestible, and quick watch show that identifies what building success looks like from humble beginnings.

THE BRIEF

Targeting the CRO and C-Suite level execs, identify topics that are relevant and meaningful through times where the world is changing faster than most businesses can keep up with. Helping people remember that success can be built from being resourceful and having focused goals and objectives.

INSIGHTS & LEARNINGS

Flexibility is key across the board. When moving fast, your first idea is usually the best way forward. Overstaffing, does not mean a quicker production. Clear communication is key when it’s all changing at a moments notice. Outline clear roles and expectations to team members working on the project and those that are keeping everything else moving. This will always set me and my team up for success in the long run.

RESULTS

Pushed the internal capabilities of the Salesforce film and motion teams to include frame animation.
Highest viewing ratings in the shortest amount of time. Over 300K engaged viewers (745K to be more exact) with longer than 1 minute of watch time within 3 months of launch and they watched more than one episode.
50% of engaged viewers became engaged leads
Millions in revenue generated

The Polished Strategy Deck

View the Actual Strategy Deck

My team and I moved at a blistering pace. Starting with scripts based on initial interviews and recorded calls with each episode’s star. I also began ideating and sketching to show how we can bring the episodes to life by highlighting topics and moments with animation.

A woman with braided hair wearing a yellow top and gold necklace sits in a living room with yellow and black pillows, with a large overlay text that says 'Six figure family' in blue outlined script with a star detail.

Aside from multiple episodes, 8 in total, we created a full funnel marketing campaign that spanned print, social, digital, YouTube, direct mail, the Salesforce+ streaming site and services, and event pop-ups.

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As my team and I wrote, ideated, filmed, animated, directed, and created marketing assets we also were deep in the creation of Salesforce+ hand in hand with the web team. I had one designer that I fed all of the content to that we had created while on set along with the animations I was creating live during each shoot. I was managing the production side of the show on set, the design on the web remotely, and the creation of additional marketing assets remotely all while animating and meeting with sales executives, content directors, and additional creative leads daily in order to set up each team’s film series that would follow “Think Outside the Quota.”

PROCESS & OUTCOME

For the first two episodes I and my content director scheduled calls with the first two stars, Cynthia Barnes and John Barrows, with a mediator that ran the call who was briefed on their career journeys and background. We used the discussions in these calls to write scripts and create rough storyboards for each episode, setting up the template for the show.

I also used the recordings from the calls to draw over top of in order to create solid art direction for the film crew. This created the understanding that we will need to have space around the speakers in order to highlight topics and moments with animations.

The first two episodes were critical in that each one needed to be finalized 3 weeks after filming. In order to meet these deadlines I brought in two additional animators. I was able to quickly animate moments while on set with footage that was fed directly into my laptop. These quick animations set the remote animation team up to quickly refine and adjust as needed when we received the close to final, edited, and color graded footage one week after each shoot.

Photos from on set along with rough animations and doodles were also sent to my key designer on this project who was able to put together ads, show promo key visuals, and marketing presentations that we worked together on in between shoots.

As our presentations and style guides were sent out to content teams, creative leads, and sales leads; this level of transparency and communication helped to create templates for every cloud product film series that followed by listing out detailed needs, budget requirements, and project specs.

ADDITIONAL ASSETS – POST LAUNCH

Even after the launch and hype died down, “Think Outside the Quota” became even more of a Salesforce+ lead series with executive speakers hosting webinars and digital events. A transitional visual theme was derived from the Salesforce+ look and feel while keeping the Sales Cloud colors as a prominent topical identifier.