Cosmonavt Studio's Creative Partnership with Mediapool.bg

Introduction

Established in 2000, Mediapool.bg is the first Bulgarian digital news agency that focuses on investigative journalism and current-day events. They came to us with the desire to expand their reach online and engage a younger audience (18-35 years old).

Context

2023 was a tough year for political stories - the majority of the public had voting fatigue after having 4 parliament elections in just 2 years. The older citizens were discouraged, and the majority of the younger population had no interest in politics, political news, and current events altogether and would learn about news from social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Approach

Together we sat down and devised a plan to engage more viewers with their video content and reach younger audiences with animated explainer videos and video montages.

Together with Stoyana Georgieva, Editor-in-Chief, and the entire Mediapool.bg team of passionate journalists, we embarked on a transformative journey of collaboration and storytelling. 

Challenge

Mediapool.bg faced a challenge common in the digital age: capturing and retaining the increasingly divided attention of online audiences and reaching a younger spectrum of viewers. Despite having compelling and thorough news content and doing crucial journalistic investigations for Bulgarian society, Mediapool.bg’s digital metrics showed a need for a consistent and more engaging visual approach to storytelling that could attract, inform, and retain a younger audience. Younger viewers require a more consistent and engaging visual approach to storytelling

Objectives

After diving deep into Mediapool.bg’s existing video content the objectives became clear: 

1. Mediapool.bg needed a consistent and recognizable visual style for their videos that would fit perfectly into their existing brand - a style that’s expressive, to the point, and in tune with the best practices for YouTube.

2. They needed to tell their investigative stories in a more visual and attention-grabbing way that would speak to a younger audience.

Project Scope

Over four months, from August to November 2023, Cosmonavt Studio was entrusted with a significant creative task. Our team was responsible for the creative direction, visual styling, and production of 4 medium-length animated explainer videos and 16 short video montages. The videos would be posted primarily on their website and YouTube channel, but Stoyana wanted to test the waters with other social media channels, too - Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Deliverables

• Visual style for Mediapool.bg’s video content

• Guidelines for future video production

• Communication & feedback process between both parties

• 4 animated explainer videos

• 16 video montages

Solution Strategy

Our approach had to combine artistic ingenuity with strategic thinking. While Mediapool.bg had written thousands of attention-grabbing news stories, writing a video script was a completely different cup of tea (or in our case - coffee). At the start of the project, we set up 2 workshops:

• A Discovery session where we aligned with Mediapool.bg’s values, ambitions, and target audiences;

• An introduction to Visual Storytelling for digital media;

Process

We established guidelines for scriptwriting and the visual style to ensure both teams were on the same page. While Mediapool.bg’s team was tasked with writing the scripts and collecting the materials - video footage, news reports, documents, and photos, the Cosmonavt team was tasked with designing and producing the final videos. 

Introduction to Visual Storytelling Workshop

The video production process was introduced in the second workshop - from scriptwriting and storyboarding to editing, animation, and post-production, where we outlined each step with limits on changes and a clear timeline for each milestone.

The animated explainer videos were designed to tell a complex investigative story on pain points for the public that haven’t been resolved in years and would have value long after the video is released. On the other hand, the video montages needed to turn the public eye to the highlight of the week, while suffering a shorter shelf life.

The process required both teams to be agile and effective in their communication and processes to ensure the project’s success.

A clear line of communication and feedback was crucial, so we introduced Frame.io to the Mediapool.bg team. It took very little to get them on board after seeing that it greatly reduced the time needed for feedback and applying corrections on a tight schedule.

Impact and Results

During these four months, we made it our life’s mission to record the performance of each piece of content. We saw what worked, and what didn’t work so well. At the end of the project, the time for reckoning was nigh. After carefully reviewing the results we saw a whopping shift in Mediapool.bg’s audience on YouTube:

A remarkable

11.8% of the audience shifted from the 55-65+ age group in favor of a younger audience (18-44).

This established a small but significant increase of 0.8% in the 18-24 age group, a 3.9% increase in the 25-34 age group, a 6.9% increase in the 35-44 age group, and a 3.5% increase in the 45-54 age group.

• Total Views: Skyrocketed from 46K to 184K, a staggering 300% increase.

• Watch Time: Jumped from 1,577 hours to 5,352 hours, over 3 times the original figure.

• Subscribers: Grew from 46 to 414 in four months, marking an almost 9-fold increase.

• Impressions: Soared from 137K to 726K, more than 5 times higher.

• Impression Click-Through Rate: Improved from 7.4% to 11.9%.

These metrics unequivocally indicate a significant boost in viewer engagement and brand visibility for Mediapool.bg.

Hear it from Mediapool.bg

Todor and Ivena responded surprisingly quickly and adequately, exceeding our expectations.

“Working with Cosmonavt Studio was a rewarding and exciting experience for the Mediapool.bg team. Our decision to choose this company for our project was made after a preliminary conversation and an offer, which clearly and comprehensively outlined the activities, the stages of their implementation, and the respective commitments of both parties. During the first live meeting with the Mediapool.bg team, Todor and Ivena demonstrated their professionalism and experience in working with clients, asking questions to better orientate themselves on what the media profile is and what goals we are setting with this particular project. Subsequently, with a collaborative effort and guidance from Cosmonavt Studio, we developed a roadmap for the project, refined the stylistics, and got to work.

On each video, Todor and Ivena had to communicate with different journalists from Mediapool.bg. They were able to adapt to each of them, taking into account the thematic and content specificity of each video. The communication was remote, written, in a common messenger chat. In most cases, this was not a problem and things went relatively smoothly, in other cases this strained communication and slowed down the work. But our general assessment is that this is perfectly fine when it comes to working to tight deadlines and the media is trying to produce a video on a breaking news story as quickly as possible. In some cases, Todor and Ivena responded surprisingly quickly and adequately, exceeding our expectations.

Besides their professional qualities, Todor and Ivena are wonderful young people, with a social position and versatile activities. It is worth knowing them!”

Stoyana Georgieva

Editor-in-Chief, Mediapool.bg

Conclusion

This collaboration between Cosmonavt Studio and Mediapool.bg demonstrates the power of creative storytelling in digital media. The dramatic improvement in engagement metrics is a testament to our studio’s ability to understand and effectively cater to the evolving needs of digital audiences. Our journey with Mediapool.bg has been a resounding success, marking a milestone in both entities' pursuit of excellence in digital media.

Additional Resources

Motion Design & Editing

Editing and short form videos

Credits

Cosmonavt team

Motion Design, Animation & Editing

Todor Hlebarov

Brand Strategist & Designer

Ivena Hlebarova

Video Editor, who prefers to remain nameless

Mediapool.bg team

Editor-in-Chief

Stoyana Georgieva

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Vladislava Peeva

Managing Editor

Yassen Boyadzhiev 

Office Manager

Tanya Nikolova

Journalists

Dragomir Nikolov

Krassen Nikolov

Lilli Granitzka

Martina Bozukova

Nikola Lalov

Radoslav Aleksandrov

Samuil Dimitrov

Simona Kostadinova-Marcheva

Tsvetelina Sokolova

Zornitsa Lateva

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