What to ask any street interview agency. Including us.
If you are comparing agencies for street interview creative, talk to all of them. Genuinely. Here are the six questions worth asking, and our answers, so you have something to measure the others against.
1. Show me the ad account, not the showreel.
A showreel is a selection. An account is everything, including what failed. That is why almost nobody shows one.
Ours: three client accounts published on our proof page, with spend, return and cost per result, taken from client reporting and published with permission.
See the three accounts on the proof page2. How many finished ads per filming day, and how many genuinely different concepts?
Hooks are cheap, they are re-cuts of existing footage. Concepts are the expensive part and the part that decides whether anything works. An agency quoting a big ad count off a small concept count is selling you the same video with a different first three seconds.
Ours: 3 concepts and 12 ads on Test, 8 concepts and 40 ads on Scale, 20 concepts and 100 ads on Premier. The concept count is the number that matters.
3. Do I get the raw footage?
Ask what happens to everything they did not use.
Ours: raw footage on Scale, full library and B roll on Premier.
4. What happens if the first batch underperforms? A reshoot, or another invoice?
Ours: we agree the testing period with you before launch. After the test you share the performance data. If you are unhappy, we film again free using the reshoot included in your package. One on Test and Scale, two on Premier.
5. How long from signed to first ad live?
Ours: 14 days from filming on Test and Scale. Premier delivers the first 50 in 14 days and all 100 by day 28.
6. What is the hit rate?
The question almost nobody asks and the one that decides everything. Every agency has a winning ad. Very few will tell you how many they filmed to get it.
Ours: on one shoot we filmed twelve ads in a single hour. Seven were switched off. Five survived and carried the campaign. That is the real shape of creative testing, and any agency showing you one winner without a denominator is showing you a coin flip.
If an agency cannot answer question one with a screenshot, the other five answers do not matter very much.
A written concept for your brand: the question we would ask on the street, four hooks, and the angle we would test first. Yours within two working days, free, whether we work together or not.
If you are unhappy after a fair test, we film again for free.