Sophos Marketing, a Frisco-based advertising and marketing agency, has launched its latest product: the Virtual Production Shoot. The agency says its mission is to make awareness affordable. Through this product, it can help businesses reach customers on streaming services at a fraction of traditional costs.
Earlier in 2020, the agency launched a program through which brands can advertise to highly-directed audiences starting at $999 per month. Many potential advertisers, however, did not initially have broadcast-quality commercials or the budget to produce them using traditional methods.
Functioning as a necessary sequel to the agency’s original product, the Virtual Production Shoot allows businesses that do not have abundant funds to create advertisements.
Advertisers can create broadcast-quality, high-definition commercials for streaming services at a flat fee under $1,000 by using the product. Clients use an iPhone enhanced with a special, premium quality lens to shoot footage while working with the Sophos Marketing team along the way.
“We had created an affordable way to run highly targeted TV commercials on popular streaming services, but we were missing a key element—the commercial,” Sophos Marketing Founder and CEO Aditya Varanasi said in a statement. “With The Virtual Production Shoot, anyone can create high-definition commercials virtually, for a flat fee of under $1,000, without sacrificing any quality in production.”
Varanasi, who welcomes the opportunity to speak on entrepreneurship, enjoys sharing his passion with the next generation of entrepreneurs.
“Who would have thought the kid who started in chemistry, would graduate in chemical engineering, marry his college sweetheart, and start a marketing business someday. It’s hard to imagine but I wouldn’t trade the journey for anything,” Varanasi said on LinkedIn last year after speaking at Purdue.
How it works
Operation-wise, the customized footage for the Virtual Production Shoot is shot on location by the client using an iPhone provided by the agency. Then, the team creates the script, provides B-roll footage and graphics, edits the commercial, provides voice-over narration and music, and delivers the final product within one to three weeks.
After all this labor is poured into the advertisements, Sophos Marketing uses relevant data to reach targeted consumers. The ads are aired on streaming services in a non-skippable format to audiences based on custom geofencing within cities, states, regions, and zip codes.
Audience segments can also be broken down by specifics that include age and household income.
“Connected TV is completely disrupting traditional advertising,” Varanasi said. “Like the evolution of magazines from print to digital formats, modern consumers are now moving from traditional broadcast TV to streaming services. We want to make sure that everyone has access to this dynamic new way of reaching consumers.”
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