Our clients tell us they value our creativity and professionalism and turning it into valuable video content that inspires, entertains and educates.

But how do you quantify something as abstract as creativity? How do you know if your content got to the right place and the right people? In this article, we will explore the numbers and online engagement of some of our biggest projects from 2019 to 2021, and showcase how these videos impacted their target audiences. Note, all the numbers of views, likes, comments were taken from 15th of April 2021.

Give and Take

Exploring the complex nature of gift giving in humans and their close animal relatives, Give and Take is a documentary we produced in 2019 in collaboration with the faculty of Divinity, university of Cambridge. Dr Alexander Massmann produced this film alongside Colin Ramsay, the director of the film.

As the editor, I can say it was an amazing, yet challenging project, due to the film’s diversity of subjects. Gift-giving is viewed from a biological, psychological, philosophical and theological perspective. That’s a lot for a 12-minute film! Nonetheless, it was rewarding to edit and to see it slowly come to life right before my eyes.

Give and Take was screened at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas in 2019, giving it the opportunity to thrive in an academic environment, and discussed with a live audience and panel of experts at the event. It was published on Cambridge University’s YouTube channel the same year on the 14th of November.

Now it’s time for us to run the numbers!

Film	Views	Likes	Comments	Engagement
Give and Take	3,562	164	7	4.80%

Note, for YouTube videos, we don’t have access to the number of shares. Those are only only visible to the account owner and not publicly displayed. Therefore, the engagement rate is potentially higher on all the YouTube videos statistics displayed in this article.

If you want to know how we calculated the engagement percentage, check out Colin’s article on How To Use Video Analytics: (Likes + Comments + Shares) / Views * 100 = Engagement Score (%).

Basically, if the engagement is over 2%, you are doing pretty good!

CGC - Climate Change Series

Between the latter half of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, we worked on a series of videos about climate change for Cambridge Global Conversations. It was a truly inspiring project, as climate change is an important subject to discuss in today’s society in order to create a better future for our planet.

The videos were created from hours of footage, with around a dozen global experts and authors interviewed at a climate ethics event held in Cambridge. While long and full of transcriptions, notes and structuring, the process was very satisfying - resulting in three headline 5 minute videos, and eight short 1 minute videos for social media.

The main three videos were presented at a Cambridge Global Conversations event about Ethics of Climate Change. The 8 shorts were shared on the Cambridge Global Conversations’ Twitter, accumulating tens of thousands of views per video. Below you will find a breakdown of each film:

Film	Views	Likes	Comments	Retweets	Engagement
Climate Justice and Injustice	39,700	1,060	3	84	2.89%
Values to Tackle Climate Change	31,700	16	2	13	0.10%
Polarisation and Denial	31,000	1,184	9	77	4.10%
Money and Our Planet	25,900	1,345	9	89	5.57%
Lifestyle Actions	19,200	1,105	8	96	6.30%
The Climate Test	28,100	705	10	66	2.78%
Economists and Climate Storytelling	47,800	714	7	40	1.59%
Ethics and The Climate Crisis	23,900	1,077	9	82	4.89%

CommunityMasks4NHS Crowdfunding Campaign

At the uncertain beginning of the pandemic, Colin volunteered to make a video for a fundraising campaign for the NHS, organised by CommunityMasks4NHS (now called the Sew Positive Charity).

The campaign raised £40,073 exceeding their goal and raising 8014% over their initial target. Below you can see the engagement rate of the YouTube video.

Film	Views	Likes	Comments	Engagement
CommunityMasks4NHS	645	13	1	2.17%

Royal Society of Chemistry - GCSE Chemistry Videos

In late 2020 we collaborated with the Royal Society of Chemistry to create 6 videos on different chemistry topics for GCSE students. It was important to be as accurate as possible and stay true to the science behind the experiments. It was a unique experience and we are looking forward to creating a new round of A Level chemistry videos.

Now, let’s run the numbers! Below is the breakdown of each video and their engagement rate.

Film	Views	Likes	Comments	Engagement
Conservation of Mass	2,995	34	3	1.24%
Electrolysis of Aqueous Solutions	2,822	51	3	1.91%
Identifying Ions	3,098	53	13	2.13%
Halogen Displacement Reactions	3,632	48	4	1.43%
Reactivity Series of Metals	2,874	58	0	2.02%
Preparing A Soluble Salt	2,423	53	11	2.64%

From The Ground Up

During the winter of 2020, Colin was commissioned by Carbon Neutral Cambridge to produce a film about sustainable farming. He interviewed 5 farmers from all around Cambridgeshire at their farms about their nature friendly practices for regenerating the land. It was supported by South Cambridgeshire District Council, The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate Change and Cumberlows.

The film premiered at a live webinar hosted by CNC in Feb 2021, where 417 people signed on from all over the world. The film was then shared publicly on the 25th of February 2021 via YouTube. Below you can see the engagement rate.

Film	Views	Likes	Comments	Engagement
From The Ground Up	1,354	29	N/A (disabled)	2.14%

The film had an overwhelming response of positive feedback, with people expressing that it was “inspiring”, “brilliant” and “very informative.”

Conclusion

A great looking video is a missed opportunity if no one sees it. That’s why keeping track of engagement and what effect it’s having on your goals is key to generating value for your audience. Also it informs you how to tailor your approach to future content in order to achieve better results.

Despite the tough year that has passed, restrictions on filming and many zooms later we’ve still managed to deliver for our client’s audiences. As society opens up again we look forward to filming and collaborating face to face and delivering even greater value.

We’d love to hear from you to help bring your next film project to life.

Delivering audience impact through our films