Saxo’s Video Strategy Journey

Well, hello everyone and welcome back to VideoDays 2025. This is the annual event for everyone doing video. I'm so excited to be back with you all. I hope you enjoyed the first session, which was a very special keynote from TwentyThree's CEO and co-founder. We are now going to dive back into some of the amazing content that we have lined up for you today. But before we do so, I just want to give a little attention to this mystery box that I have sitting next to me. For anyone who was not part of the first session, don't worry, you can catch the session on demand. However, we did a little introduction of a special holiday gift that we have planned for all of you. As a big thank you for contributing to our video community throughout the year. And you'll have to stay tuned until the end of today. To be part of the big reveal to see what the special gift actually is. So very excited for this. I'm going to keep it on my desk so that you guys won't forget about it and you won't leave me before the end of the event. If it's your first time at VideoDays, welcome so much. My name is Emilia and I'm so excited to be your host. If you've been with us for the last six years, then welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you with us. We have a super exciting session. We have a session lined up for you today where Dan Duffet interviews Benjamin Haltz. He is the head of video animation for content and inspiration at Saxo. And that's quite a hefty title and that is quite a hefty responsibility. And Benjamin is actually going to dive into Saxo's evolution from early stage video efforts to a unified, scalable video strategy. You are going to discover how they got there, what is next, and maybe Benjamin will be frank and share some key lessons and learnings that he picked up along the way. Who knows? But I figured before I hand over to Dan and Benjamin, I wanted to give you guys a little introduction to Saxo. And who better to do that than Saxo themselves? So I wanted to show you a little video clip and all you need to do is lean back and listen. Learn a little bit about Saxo together with me. Hi, I'm Benjamin, head of video and animation content here at Saxo. We are an investment bank with 14 offices across the world and with more than 1.5 million clients, we serve everything from beginners who just started investing to experts that have been investing for decades. Some clients trade multiple times a day and some only invest once a month. That also means that we need to have content that caters for a wide range of clients. Anything from daily market updates and part-time jobs to online marketing. And obviously, that's where video becomes extremely important. I'm so excited. The office looks absolutely beautiful. The studio, I'm so envious. I really want to be able to dive into their studio and see behind the scenes and some of their gear, but also some of their ways of working and their different processes. So I think I'm going to be taking notes for this session. Definitely. Now, Dan Duffett, you might have recognized him from a previous event because he works at 23 as part of our video accelerator team. And a big part of Dan's responsibilities is to help organizations become fully video enabled. So I'm going to hand it over to Dan to further introduce you to Benjamin and dive into the story of Saxo's video strategy journey. Hello! guys hear us? Absolutely, we can. We can hear you. Lovely. How are you today? Good, definitely. Very, very good. One of the few sunny days we have during winter, so it's nice. But we are inside the studio though. So, can't help to experience that. But we're live absolutely from the Saxo Bank studio right now. Very exciting. I'm so curious to hear what you guys have in store for this session. So, I'm just going to give you guys the screen and the microphone. So, please take it away. Thank you very much indeed. Well, Benjamin, firstly, thank you very much for having me indeed. And as I think we saw from that brief video, it's an amazing office that you've got. And as I think both of me have mentioned, we are in the studio. So, thank you for having us here. And I think we might talk about that a little bit later as part of the journey that you've taken. Saxo one in your capacity. But of course, I could introduce you, but I don't think that's the best thing to do. Because you are so fundamental, I believe, to the way Saxo's video journey has emerged. I think it'd be a great place to start with you just talking through, not quite necessarily from the very day you walk through those doors, but to the degree, that very first kind of couple of years that you started here. And now you've been here for these five years and things have clearly changed quite dramatically. So, can you talk us through a little bit about that journey and some kind of key points in all of that? Yeah. So, I still remember I had my job interview out here five years ago. And that was for the role as a video producer. At that time, mainly focusing on marketing. And I still remember to this day, my previous boss during the interview asked me how I felt about going into a role knowing that there was no real career possibilities. It was very much a static role that was just a video producer and nothing else. Can I just very quickly on that? I mean, that's quite an extraordinary thing to hear in an interview. But I guess I see on that is that five years later, it's very different. But that's a real kind of test of, I believe in something. I believe something can happen here. Yeah. And I remember I basically told him that my vision was that I wanted to grow into the role and the role had to grow with me basically. I had a lot of ideas on, especially optimizing processes to begin with, because that was still a very much old school way of doing a lot of things in here. And it was maybe not really, yeah, you would say, relevant to the time that we were living in at that time. Yeah, I mean, it was right after COVID really, right, dispersed like big wave where a lot of places were locked were locked down, the TV stations were locked down so there was kind of rethinking of a lot of things how it should be done and I think that's that was where I could easily pick up a lot of stuff that could be optimized and so that clearly seems like in some ways a very good start and there was that opportunity and then as things evolved were there any kind of any further conversations where things kind of pivoted, did some new people come into the business that kind of you felt you could kind of work with strategically and things like that yeah so I think the big turning point really was we had a new head of marketing who came from Arla amongst others he was probably closer to being one of those like agency guys compared to what we previously had which was a little bit more of a corporate way of thinking so it allowed me to pitch different ideas and you know have a little bit deeper conversations on what is especially content production in a bank like ours and how could we basically take advantage of all the extremely intelligent and capable people we have in Saxo and I think that's where we really we kind of hit off really well and we started talking a little bit about we spent a lot of money at that time on freelancers coming in helping with video productions and at the end of the day I mean it's a numbers game so and you're a bank yeah exactly right so we should know by if any of us then we do right and I had to build a business case saying okay we spend this amount of money on freelancers every single week what if we could have someone in here instead on full time and actually still save money right that means that you would always have the same person and I think that alone having someone who knows the brand who knows the organization know the people they're working with it's always gonna be better than having a freelancer that may not be able to be here all the time because they're already here and they have a lot of other tasks as well right so we had to switch between maybe eight or ten different freelancers and we could have one specific person who knows the business already and yeah maybe we could bring someone in who didn't have financial markets insights and knowledge but that's something you can always learn at least a little bit about right indeed and it sounds like through that process you went from a situation of kind of reactivity to you know okay a brief comes in we need a freelancer let's go and find a freelancer to a place where you effectively it seems like you positioned yourself okay I'm that resource you can now be much more or the business can be much more proactive about doing content and creating video and that's therefore how you could then you know just start to move the video around a little bit more yeah I mean when I started I was alone with video production which also means I had to produce everything right so whenever someone in the bank wanted to have a video on any kind of thing it could be e-learning it could be internal communication it could be marketing and yeah we have offices around the world and I I had to you know serve all those offices at the same time as also you know taking care of all the global needs for the bank and I think that didn't leave much space for development from me personally no it was more a matter of sitting at my desk yeah waiting for tasks to come in and then complete that task not that I was doing much waiting there was yeah there was a backlog there was a backlog constantly so I mean there was obviously also a part of the whole business case built yeah saying we're always behind yeah even though we're spending a lot of money on freelance resources yeah I have to say I also spend a lot of my spare time coming up with different concepts yeah content ideas larger series one-offs all different kind of things and pitching them in once in a while to different people just to you know get their thoughts and then and start thoughts in their heads right so almost like an inception kind of approach to it planting a seed here and yeah yeah and the idea has to grow within you as well yeah so you buy into that idea right well I've got to say I mean it sounds a very very good approach doing it and it feels that you know you're very kind of strategic in that approach and kind of just thinking about that that piece then I get this instinct that you had a quite a clear eye quite a clear ambition for video access so or or at least you wanted to create a you know a video ambition for the for the bank can you kind of talk a little bit about about that and whether there was was one and what you might have had in your head yeah so I mean most of my career has been on unlike content production basically with different kind of brands but I felt that there was compared to the the potential that was in in a company of yeah and and and the whole idea of financial markets basically you know they're covering everything in the world right yeah everything in the world is related to the financial markets one way or another so there's plenty of things to talk about there's plenty of interesting topics every day something moves fast and you know yeah there's a lot of I think especially after covid a lot of people started investing yeah and the one thing I realized really really fast was that there are so many people who just you know they put their money in whatever they heard about in Facebook yeah or Reddit or something like that right they just buy into all kind of yeah weird stuff because someone told them that this is you know the next rocket to the moon yeah and so I think there was a lot of combination of inspiration and education at the same time that was lagging that we definitely needed that's interesting yeah to educate the clients and make sure that they don't just you know lose their money yeah within a month and then you will never see them again and they will think that investing is a scam yeah because it definitely isn't but yeah if you invest the wrong way then you can still lose your money that's fascinating because what you can allude to there is this this affects effectively it kind of influences on TikTok on X as you say Facebook IG I mean Instagram rather yeah and they have been using video to get followers not financial advice but by this by this yeah and so actually therefore you as a bank are saying we need to use video to educate effectively yeah and make sure that we are keeping up to date as possible and actually as a bank your the Sacktree Bank The Heritage is actually incredibly pioneering isn't it so to be leveraging that is effectively what what Sacktree should be doing I suppose yeah I mean as a company in general we have always been the ones that try to stay ahead of the curve and nobody like be first movers and pioneers in whatever we do right yeah back in 1992 when the bank started the whole foundation of the bank was basically that we they had to do something that the others were too afraid to go into right and and kind of that you know disruption of yeah the industry and yeah that's yeah that's probably also my luck that I came into a business like that where yeah yeah it's always been okay we we have to take chances you know and then yeah sometimes we fail yeah and that's also okay but yeah if you fail you also need to remember you need to learn from those mistakes absolutely you made yeah I mean sometimes you just fail and that's just life yeah and there's no learnings to take from it but but in general I think yeah for most times there's there's something you can always bring along and exactly I mean with my five years here yeah we did something that definitely didn't work but that's also what led us to yeah what actually works yeah at the same time yeah and having that space yeah I think that's important also to you have that conversation before you start up with yeah with something as big as this that you need to you need to you know align on okay what are the actual goals here and then yeah how much time do we have yeah to yeah try this out right yeah and what would we do if it doesn't succeed absolutely yeah and did did you get to an expression of what you wanted to do a kind of video ambition at that point or was it a kind of a more a case of there was a shared understanding that wasn't necessarily articulated but you you and the the market director felt you this is the direction we need to go yeah I think historically there's always been the willingness to try things out right and then it's a matter of saying okay did we do it the right way yeah yeah probably not yeah especially in the past yeah but I think yeah I had a pretty good vision on what I wanted to do yeah and I'm very much of a data nerd and numbers guy yeah and so a lot of my ideas was always backed up by some kind of data right yeah so when I told people okay well you know there's such a big audience yeah on YouTube for example right yeah why are we not present yeah on something like that yeah I mean that's it's an easy place to yeah you know get people's attention the first time yeah I think one of the struggles I had was there was always the saying of if it's not in the platform it doesn't exist so in our own platform yeah that is yeah yeah I think the biggest has always been very much on in platform yeah content rather than interesting yeah more of a social media approach yeah and I mean yeah the thing is with I think with a bank yeah it's kind of like insurance companies yeah and a lot of other things in life you tend to go wherever your parents are because it's the easiest choice right yeah so if your parents have this bank yeah it's just easy to stay there right yeah and I think it's the same goes with investment banks once you start somewhere you pick yeah whatever provider you your family's use you pick them yeah that's just it's the easiest way to stay there right yeah and it's always a hassle and it's it's very annoying and complicated yeah also cost and time consuming to change yeah and move that right yeah so it I think it's it's yeah it's been important for me to stress out to the organization yeah in general that the clients who are 18 19 20 21 yeah you know yeah beginning of their grown years yeah they don't have a lot of money necessarily no but they are the ones who will build wealth over time every time yeah so we need to also cater for those kind of people yeah even though they are not like yeah the perfect client at the moment yeah right because when they're 45 and they have a house and kids yeah and a good job you know that's absolutely where they also start to make a lot of money yeah yeah they will invest more yeah and over time they will become a valuable client yeah yeah so digging into to that area of platforms a little bit more I mean you you you mentioned that yeah you realize there are a lot of your audience were you know I guess on you know following YouTube and things like that and that therefore they needed some form of presence there you also mentioned if it's not if it's not none of the platform doesn't exist so what have you you have you you have you put video on and and have there been any changes in in the effective in the infrastructure that you've used here in in in the bank in order to make make sure video gets out to the right people in the right way yeah I think we have our investment strategists yes who are really experts on yeah the phone specific yeah right I started using them a lot yeah create the content yeah one thing that was hard was definitely to have them talk in a way that you know normal people without a financial degree and yeah and all that could actually understand it yeah yeah but I think we pretty quickly found a right way to do that it was a bit different tone of voice approach compared to what they would normally have yeah but by by starting to create those videos they were based off usually from articles they were already writing about you know different interesting stories out there and that gave me some data which essentially you know proved that video was a powerful tool in selling these things and educating clients inspiration to the clients right yeah and I think that's really important to have that kind of a yeah and I think that's that's the data that that I could then you know bring along and say okay we have some developers who work at the platform yeah we need to test out other features right yeah so we did a little bit of a re-ramp of the whole platform yeah and actually managed to have welcome screens okay integrated with video yeah which was normally just like a pop-up message you got when you log into the platform yeah and then you have text and then that's it right yeah and then we tried integrating the videos and so to focus to this platform that's literally you log in it's behind the behind the login yeah and then you kind of get your your your profile up and what you might hold and things like that yeah so usually we go into your portfolio yeah but when you have a welcome screen yeah we can push that out to certain yeah people so it doesn't have to go out globally it could be that we have something that is maybe only interesting for Danish clients yeah it's very country specific yeah and then we will push that welcome screen yeah in Danish to the Danish clients but then we can also have a video within that yeah so it would usually be like 8, 10, 12 seconds video yeah just briefly yeah you know basically inspiring people to click a link yeah and then come into a page yeah that's a lot more information right got it so so a really like short yeah simple message on the video which basically said the same as the text right yeah okay yeah but we could just see that there was a whole other click through rate on those absolutely welcome screens when they had a video yeah compared to when it was just like a text brilliant and I mean those those numbers yeah just proved that that video was an important feature absolutely for you know leading the clients yeah and yeah essentially you know at the end of the day yeah making people more active yeah inside the platform and then and I'd love to get into that we will definitely get into those numbers I want to drill into those but but so effectively within the platform then you can you can then search for all video content that can help you guide you through investment advice what's happening on a day-to-day basis and and I guess through that you can be incredibly react reactive to what's happening in the market definitely yeah it is who come in yeah who already know what they are going to buy yeah and then you know they come in they buy whatever they want to buy yeah they sell whatever they want to sell yeah and they log out yeah that's it okay yeah yeah and it's kind of the same as you have in the supermarket right you have some people who know okay I only need a yeah box of milk yeah and I'm out again yeah I have to get home and you know yeah force into those content pieces. But there's a lot of people who come there who might not know what to buy, how to do it. There's a big potential here, right? That you can educate those people so they actually know before they start buying more complex products. Obviously, they have to do like a product appropriateness test to make sure that they understand the basics. But, I mean, there's a difference between understanding the basics and also know how to apply it in real life, right? And a lot of the content has to be there for them to basically educate themselves essentially, right? Yeah. And you could say that speaking of the numbers game, there's a lot of customer calls every day. Yeah. I think on average, customer call costs, a little more than 10 euros, right? Yeah. If you're producing a video that can answer that question for the customer without them having to call you and actually get something explained. I mean, for every view that video has, that's basically that 10 euros. Brilliant. You can save the company then, right? That's a very interesting way of just actually seeing how the data cuts in a different way. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Often it's like, okay, what's our return on investment? But here you're just thinking, well, this is what we're saying. We're saving, which again, in a place like this must actually be very compelling. It definitely helps explaining to non -creative and non-video people. Yeah. This is what we do. This is actually like a number that you can't argue with. I mean, we already know exactly how much it costs when a client calls us and asks for something, right? Yeah. And if we can avoid that, that's money saved, right? Absolutely. And you picked up. You pointed out there about the different people within the bank. To lean into that a little bit and think about organizational change and on your journey here, how's that evolved? And where do you sit? And is there a specific video team? And is it growing? How does that look from an organizational perspective? So I started in what was... I think it was a brand content and design. Yeah. And yeah, like things are in these organizations, it moves fast. Yeah. So I think less than six months after I started, the content part was moved away from my team. So it was only brand and design. Yeah. And then we kind of just served the entire business basically with me alone and video to begin with. Yeah. And then, yeah, like I said, I made the business case for having an extra video producer. Yeah. So we were double the hands, but still keeping the cost lower than we used to do. Got it. And then one and a half years ago, I moved from brand and design into the same team as all our investment strategists, basically. Very interesting. Okay. I mean, they are very much... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, them together with some people working on the more educational kind of content is essentially the team that I'm sitting in. But then I still have the guy that was hired in brand and design as a video producer. He's still sitting there. So we kind of split a little bit the tasks between us. So he's very much taking care of like internal comms and marketing. And I'm focusing more on platform, both educational and inspirational content, but the gated community content more than, you know, the broader marketing. But that's interesting that you've effectively, you've got your feet in two different areas. One, I guess, is still a bit brand, but also it's all the kind of strategic content that needs to be produced. So you kind of actually have an oversight of pretty much most video that happens in the building. Yeah. And as things evolved and, you know, when people start to see results from the video, it's also been a bigger priority from the company now that we have local offices who have maybe, some have full-time video users, some are part-time, and some have more of like the broader marketing. So it's a big tier kind of profiles who can also do videos, at least to some extent. So, for example, I went to Paris during the summer, building an entire new studio, which is not like here, but it's a closed studio, but actually it's just like the hallway between the meeting room and some desks, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the small lounge kind of area with some nice chairs and sofas. Yeah. I thought, okay, well, that's it. Just, you know, build something here. Yeah. That's fascinating. So, and was that inspired from this space here, the studio that we're in, that leadership kind of saw, okay, video is important. We need to lean into this and we want to bring this kind of, this skill set out in different offices around the world? Yeah, I think so. And I think the local marketing departments, they realized that there was actually, you know, there was a case here for actually building something that could generate a lot of value for the company. Yeah. Yeah. With the Paris example, it's very much focused on webinars. Yeah. They also realized that they have people who do like local market updates in French, for example, right? Yeah. Why not do that as a short, you know, one minute video? Yeah. Just a brief morning, what's going on in the markets. Yeah. One minute video. Yeah. You can put that out in front of the clients. Yeah. That actually turned out to, I think it proved that it worked. It was effective. And a lot of people tend to think of videos, you know, as something we can just do and it doesn't take that much time. Obviously it takes a little longer, but I think creating a space where people can basically just walk in front of the camera, hit the record button, say what they want to say. And I mean, it's people who work with that. Yeah. Yeah. They know exactly what they're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the biggest task for them to be in front of the camera and just, you know, say whatever they were going to write and make. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm delighted you said that. I mean, it's something that we talk about a lot and I can agree more. I mean, I think it's that familiarity with getting in front of a camera and a bit of decent lighting. It doesn't have to be perfectly polished. As long as it's, you know, the authenticity and the perfect. And when I mean authenticity, I mean this idea that that person knows what they're talking about. Yeah. If that comes across, then I believe you've done the job. And just thinking a little bit about that and building on that a bit more. One trend we kind of see increasingly is CEOs kind of getting their phone and doing this. Yeah. And sending out a personal video to the whole organization. Yeah. How has leadership been here with respect to video and that part of the journey? It's actually, it's been a strong prioritization, at least from when I started. Yeah. There was already this, we call it CEO pit stop once a month. Nice. Very appropriate with the cars in reception. Oh, yeah. That's right. You have the Formula One cars. Yeah. But yeah, once a month, basically. Yeah. Video. Yeah. Five to 10 minutes. Yeah. An interview, much like when we are sitting here and talking. Yeah. And it will be someone from internal communications that, you know, sit down with the CEO, have a nice talk about what's going on in the company. You know, there could be like rumors of a sale that needs to be addressed. There could be something about the upcoming Christmas party. Yeah. It could be anything from just smaller things. It's that variety, I think, that highlights obviously the versatility of video, but actually, you know, it can be for all these things. It's so versatile. And actually, that's how people want to consume it, I think. They want that. Yeah. Unless it's in person, right? Yeah. But then a place like this, you probably haven't got the room to get like how many people. Yeah. I mean, the thing might be that you have businesses in all over the world, right? Yeah. From London all the way to not in Australia anymore. But you used to have in Australia, right? Yeah. So, even the time difference alone makes it extremely hard to just keep up with everything, right? Yeah. And we can't fly everybody in here every time the CEO wants to say something, I think. No. And so, you know, putting him in front of the camera and having him address different kinds of both good and bad things that are happening in the company and as a general. And also, I think it's a greater way to... Yeah. You know, appreciate your employees and really, you know... Yeah. Send a heartful thank you to them at the end of the year and say, okay, I really appreciate what you guys did. Yeah. You know, all the amazing results. Yeah. We know we should celebrate this together. Yeah. Putting that on a video compared to just, you know, with an email, I think... Yeah. The message is so much stronger, right? Absolutely. Because there's a person behind it. Yeah. Yeah. And on an email, it will... Even the same message would just not... It doesn't add. No. Absolutely. Yeah. You can almost get like the eye contact. Yeah. You know. Absolutely right. Yeah. And the appreciation just goes out so much stronger, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it's a great way to... Yeah. ...to do things and prioritizing that. Indeed. And I mean, and so, just thinking a little bit more about the kind of things, the kind of video you do make. And then we touched on some of those, you know, CEO-led messages. And you mentioned webinars in France. But what kind of films and videos are you making here? And then I think maybe... And perhaps then maybe we can talk a little bit about some of the data that that's doing. But we're kind of interested to know, you know, what array of different video you do make here. Yeah. So, one of the main focus for me is taking the stretch content and turning that into... Yeah. ...video, basically. Got it. Yeah. And I think we proved a lot... Yeah. ...with the numbers that there's an idea behind it. Yeah. Even though, I mean, obviously, it's still... It's more work... Yeah. ...to do it like that... Yeah. ...instead of just having a written article. Yeah. But that's really my main focus here at the moment. Yeah. And just very quickly, how are the strats with that? Because they... Obviously, they do a lot of the thinking. They do the research. They've got the knowledge. Are they presenting the... Are they then doing webinars and then saying, this is what we know? This is about these commodities or these equities or this is a trend and... Yeah. ...and it's them sharing the information? Yeah. Yeah. So, it's usually the strats and then... Yeah. ...sometimes there's a host who might not be a strat... ...but someone... Yeah. Okay. ...who's related to that subject in some way. And I think... ...you know, having them as hosts for those videos... Yeah. ...is definitely also helpful... Yeah. ...for the... Yeah. ...for the whole production... Yeah. ...because they know everything about what they're talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm definitely a little bit spoiled, you know, having access to those people and, I mean, they also... ...they're live on TV... Yeah. ...on a regular basis... Yeah. ...most of them. Yeah. Yeah. Right here where we are sitting. Yeah. Yeah. And... So, I guess... ...they're used to the camera... Yeah. ...and, I mean, a big part of the job is to basically get media coverage, right? Right. Okay. So, being in front of the camera... Yeah. ...if that helps... That's what we'll do. ...you know, making the article reach more clients... Yeah. ...or give the article just... Yeah. ...more substance and then... Yeah. ...and value, then, I mean, that... That's what... ...they also have... They also have to do that. ...at least... Yeah. And so, let's dig into maybe some of this... ...this data and I wonder if there's anything that you can allude to. I mean, one thing that we... I think Thomas talked about a little bit earlier was we know that you can get, you know, quite significant dwell time with good webinars and perhaps over and above the written word. Yeah. But what does your data... What story does your data tell? Yeah. So, as I put on the screen here... Yeah. ...I took a bit of numbers. Yeah. Which comes directly from our platform. Yeah. So, keep in mind this is only for... Yeah. ...inside the platform, right? Yeah. Yeah. But that's where I get to track a lot of... Yeah. ...people's data... Yeah. ...I mean, content consumption, really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one especially interesting thing is that if you look at the average time spent per article, the video articles are 8.6 minutes compared to the regular articles... Yeah. ...which is just a written article without any... Yeah. ...video. Yeah. Yeah. It might still have images... Yeah. ...graphs, et cetera, but no video inside it. So, 8.6... ...that means... So, 1.8 versus... Yeah. Wow. Okay. And, yeah, it kind of goes into the second... Yeah. ...graph here that I have with... Yeah. ...the average duration per session, which is the log-in time basically... Yeah. ...of the clients, right? Yeah. 38.3 minutes if they're watching a video... Yeah. ...inside the platform... Yeah. ...a video article. Yeah. ...compared to 15.7 minutes, which is only like written content articles... Yeah. ...and the generic sessions where they don't consume any kind of content... Yeah. ...it's 11.2 minutes. So, there's definitely something about the retention of the clients... Yeah. ...when we produce videos compared to just the written... Yeah. ...articles. Yeah. Yeah. And, again, if you go to the supermarket logic, I mean, the longer people stay in your store, the more likely they are to buy something, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So... Yeah. ...there's some... Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to track that much on what the clients buy compared to what they have watched. Yeah. So, there's some limitations there. Yeah. But... The logic would suggest, yeah. ...with that said, I mean, there's definitely a correlation. We can see that in general that the longer people are... Yeah. ...locked in, the more trades they... Yeah. ...tend to make. And, obviously, that's, you know, essentially the only thing we can make money from, right? True. Yeah. If they stay locked in for four hours... ...and never buy anything... Yeah. ...that's... Yeah. ...a bad business for us, but... Bad business. But I suppose there's the other always kind of arguably some would say kind of woolly or fluffy, but there's the brand side too... Yeah. ...which is, you know, you're delivering quality content which is engaging them for like 40 minutes. And that's brand building. And brand building is obviously notoriously difficult to quantify. But that within this market, I imagine, is equally important to ensure that you just keep, you know, the lifetime value... Definitely. ...of your customers is as long as humanly possible. Yeah. And I mean, when you present them with a platform where there's interesting content inside the platform, they would also tend to log in more often... Yeah. ...compared to if there was nothing in there, right? Yeah. If it was just an empty shell and then you go in there, you buy something, and you log out... Yeah. ...it would be easier to forget. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, during a stressful day... Yeah. ...that's probably not what you would prioritize just to go in there... Yeah. ...and not do anything, right? Yeah. But with the right content... Mm-hmm. ...served at the right time... Yeah. ...definitely... Yeah. ...it becomes extremely valuable. Yeah. And I mean, that's also what we can see in the numbers. Yeah. I think one thing is... Yeah. ...is important as well. Yeah. The videos we create... ...are usually between 90 seconds and 3 to 4 minutes. Yeah. So... Yeah. ...even if you, like, deduct those 4 minutes... ...from the video articles... Mm-hmm. ...it's still... Yeah. ...2 1⁄2 times... Yeah. ...that people actually spend... Yeah. ...on reading the article afterwards... Yeah. ...because the videos always come with an article... Yeah. ...basically. So... Yeah. ...normally, the video would be another way of telling the same story... Yeah. ...but obviously, there's some things that you can dig a little bit more into with having a lot of... Yeah. ...graphs inside the article, stuff like that. Yeah. So... Yeah. ...I mean, it also... It... Yeah. ...it projects on how long that they actually... Yeah. ...work within the... Yeah. ...the written article. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, you talked a little bit about... Yeah. Okay, so you can't track necessarily what they then buy, and I totally understand that. Tricky question. Yeah. But... How much do you spend, though, on video? And maybe you can't answer that, but... Or maybe there's... For lots of reasons, but... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you could say there's a lot of costs. Yeah. Yeah. And some of them are obviously very obvious. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you have a production budget of... Yeah, yeah. ...100,000... Yeah, yeah. ...and... Yeah. ...you know, you have that number, right? Yeah, yeah. And then you put that into the regular studio somewhere... Yeah. ...or pay max or whatever it is. Yeah. That's tangible, right? Yeah. Yeah. But there's a lot of things that doesn't go into those numbers, obviously. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you would say, you can take my salary... Yeah. ...and say, okay, that's a video cost, right? Yeah. But then again, I also do different things than just video. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Not everything is producing video for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you also have people... Yeah. ...you know, contributing to the videos... Yeah. ...either as a host or... Yeah. ...writing the scripts... Rehearsing. ...rehearsing. Yeah. And the same goes for the webinars, you know? Absolutely. I mean, if you're on for an hour... Yeah. ...on a webinar, chances are that you probably spend a day or a day and a half preparing all those things, right? Exactly, yeah. You need to prepare a lot of slides. You need to rehearse. Yeah. You need to do research. Absolutely, yeah. And there's a lot of time going into it, so I think... And that's very quantified, is it? It's like, very time-coded. I've done... I spent this on producing this webinar. Yeah. And I mean... Yeah. ...if you go to an agency, they are clogging a lot of the projects... Yeah. ...almost to the second, right? Yeah. But that's also a little bit different, you know, because essentially they need to send that bill out to the client, right? Yeah, absolutely. And... Yeah. ...in here, it's like, okay, we all work the same hours. Yeah. So if we do one or the other thing, in the end, it might not matter that much... Yeah. ...as long as, you know, we can see a return on investment that makes sense for us, right? Yeah, exactly. And... Yeah. ...that's also where... Yeah. ...it gets extremely complicated... Yeah. ...to talk about video... Yeah. ...and what's the cost, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also, what do you gain at the end, right? Yeah, yeah. Because you can't measure everything... No. ...basically. No. You can get a good idea, and that's why I use a lot of time, you know, analyzing the data... Yeah. ...that I have available because it gives me an idea of if we're doing something right. Exactly. It tells you those stories that, I guess, turn heads in leadership, effectively. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, like, you can say, what's the cost for one view? Well... Yeah. ...you can't really tell. Yeah. But also, I mean, what's the income you get from one view, right? Yeah. It's a hard question to answer, right? 10,000 views on TikTok might not be worth anything at all. Totally. Yeah. 100 people watching a webinar can be extremely valuable, right? Exactly. If those 100 people turn into leads that you can then, you know, convert, some of them might be, you know, very good clients for you. Absolutely. Make a lot of money for the business. Yeah. Then those 100 people watching that webinar was way more valuable than those 10,000 views that you would get on another platform, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it's hard to put numbers on it. Yeah. But the only thing we can see is that not doing it can be extremely expensive, actually. That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah. It's very good. So, you've taken us on this very interesting journey where you've kind of, you talked about the ambition. You've talked about the platforms. You've talked about some of the kind of video formats, organizationally how it's been done. You've talked about the budget and some metrics. I guess, you know, just kind of start to wrap up a little bit. What more do you want to do? I mean, you've had this ambition from the start and you've affected so much change and you've seen that journey really take shape here. Yeah. What more is there? I mean, I'm sure there's loads more to do. But what do you want to do? I think one of the main things is definitely to scale our content more efficiently. Yeah. Being able to present it to people across different markets. Yeah. We have a lot of markets where English is not the first, even the second language. Yeah. And obviously, that's an obstacle when we are producing, I mean, primarily our content in English. Yeah. So, being able to scale that to a French audience. Yeah. For example, who doesn't want English content? Yeah. Japanese content has to be Japanese, right? Yeah. English is just not sufficient for them. So, it's a long process. Yeah. But that's definitely a long-term goal that we need to improve that on the video side of things. Yeah. And do you feel you've kind of hit the right cadence of amount of content and the regularity of… Yeah. …that market-ready content and that informative, those informative webinars? Or is there more kind of, I guess, I know there's always more, but, you know… I would always love to do more. …for you people. Yeah. I guess it's, you know… More resources for also… …more content. Yeah. But I mean, I think from the resources we have, we definitely produce a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I could easily see it be twice or maybe even more. Yeah. Yeah. But we will do what we have to do with now. Yeah. I mean, we optimized a lot on a lot of the things, which also essentially made it easier… Yeah. …to go out with a lot of different things. Yeah. Yeah. When the strats go live on TV… Yeah. …they do it themselves. I'm not even there anymore. Amazing. Wow. I mean, that's a huge piece for it, isn't it, actually? You know, because I can imagine five years ago when the studio was built, you were in here doing it with them, and that was a big thing. And… Yeah. It was a satellite connection and it cost a fortune. I mean, it was more than 100,000 euros a month. Yeah. Basically, sorry, 100,000 euros a year… Yeah. …to basically spend on this. Yeah. And it was extremely complex solution, right? Yeah. So it also meant that every time, you know, something went wrong, it was very hard to, you know, seek for whatever kind of error there was. Yeah. We spent so much money on it. Yeah. And I made a case again saying, okay, the cost will be around 12,000 euros to rebuild the studio… Yeah. …to build a simpler solution… Yeah. …where basically you don't need that satellite. Yeah. I mean, again, with COVID really changing things… Yeah. …all the TV channels, they became used to having people logging in from Teams, Zoom, or whatever… Yeah. …kind of platform they were using, right, to have a video call… …and then they would grab that signal, put it out live, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think it changed… Yeah. …people's idea of… Yeah. …of how video content should be. It would be okay for someone… Yeah. …to just sit at home… Yeah. …on the laptop in the living room or even in the bedroom… Yeah. …and be on live television. And destigmatize it and… Yeah. Yeah. So we took that approach and put that into a little bit more professional… Yeah. …surrounding… Yeah. …with some, you know… …lighting and a good camera… Yeah. …a clip-on mic like we have here… Yeah. …but then, you know, the strats could essentially just do it themselves… Just do it themselves. …logging into the computer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They had a link from the host… Yeah. …click that link, everything is already set up… Yeah. …we installed the camera… Yeah. …on one of those desk legs… …where you can move it up and down. Up and down, yeah. So they can move it up and down… Yeah. …the way they want on… Yeah, this one right here actually. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's… Yeah. …that's very easy, right? And that was good. So it doesn't matter if you're 160 or 180… Yeah, yeah. …you know, you can always just adjust the camera for yourself… Yeah. …and they will just stand here… Yeah. …with the usual background they always had but the cost was zero, right? Zero, yeah. It doesn't cost anything to run. No. It was a one-off with those 12,000 euros you spend on building it. Yeah. Obviously, there's a little bit of power in the internet connection… …but that's… …much, much simpler. …but instead of… Yeah. And that simplicity just increases the desire and the comfort in doing it as well. Yeah. And then you just… Yeah. …you kind of feed the wheel… Yeah. …effectively and keep it going. Yeah. And I mean, if it's running… Yeah. …and like everything is running smooth, then I mean, the TV stations are also more likely to call us… Yeah. …because they know that… They will. …things just work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not always the case everywhere, so… Yeah. …I mean, it helps them a lot and it made… Yeah. …their life a lot easier… I bet. …and a lot less stressful. Yeah. …we don't have to spend, you know, half an hour, an hour testing the connection… No. …before they go live. Exactly. They can just go in and do it themselves and they know… …how it works, right? Yeah. So, I'm going to… I'm going to probably just stop you there… Yeah. …with one final thing because then I'd like to… …a couple of questions from the floor, but, you know, taking the… …your experience here, what… …if you could kind of land three things, three kind of learnings you've had… …through this process, through what you've done… …to give to any organization wanting to kind of really move forward with video… …what kind of three things have you learned that you think… …these are important things I've learned on my journey and if you're looking to… …drive video forward, what would they be? I think the most important thing is really to… …get a good feeling of… …what resources do we already have inside the company, right? Yeah. Because even smaller companies… …usually have something. And I mean, it doesn't have to be a studio like this… …necessarily, right? Yeah. You can get a long way with just having your phone and a rather cheap microphone for that… …starting to produce videos on that. I mean, that's a starting point, right? Yeah. And especially in a smaller company, it's very hard to build that case that you should spend a lot of money on… …and very expensive equipment because cameras can be very expensive. But technology just moves so fast that you can do so much things with your phone and the decent light. Yeah. And essentially, that's all you need to start. Yeah. So I think it's important to remember that you don't have to start big. You can always start small and scale it up. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. That's something where a lot of people just tend to back off because video production is expensive. It can be extremely complicated, but only if you want it to be, right? Yeah. And it's a matter of saying, okay, what are the ambitions? Yeah. What do we have as a budget? And then make that work. Make that work. Okay. Good. And having the ability to say sometimes it's okay that we only get 80% or 90% of the way that we should… Yeah. …or we wanted to… Yeah. …if we only spend maybe 50% of the time or budget on doing that, right? Yeah. So making… So don't try for perfection kind of. Yeah. I mean, you should always, you know… Yes. …try to improve whatever you're doing, right? Yeah. But be reasonable and… Yeah. …get started. …really get started and learn along the way. Yeah. I mean, that's an important thing to remember that we all started one place or the other. Absolutely. And most of us from real basics, right? Yeah. Yeah. So building up a brand with… Yeah. …you know, with video as an essential part of the brand… Yeah. …that takes time. Yeah. And then… Yeah. …it doesn't come overnight. Yeah. No. But effectively, I mean, like, brands should be doing this. I mean, it's like… I mean, like, video is… You've seen that what it's done here. I mean, it's… It almost sounds like you're saying, well, get going. Start. Yeah. You know? Your video journey's got to happen. Yeah. Don't go for perfection. You can't… You can't condense it. I mean, close to saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 80%, 90% get there and use what you've got. Use the resources and just go. Yeah. Yeah. And really be, you know, curious to see what… Yeah. …what different formats can do for you and… Yeah. …how you can develop with different ideas. Yeah. And try things out. And try out. Yeah. Try things out and… Yeah. …and test it, see how it goes. That's it. Yeah. But always remember… Yeah. …to also spend the time and… Yeah. …resources on analyzing… Yeah. …what went wrong, what went right, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that also means that you should never be afraid to fail. I mean, that's… Yeah. …that's totally fine. Yeah. Just learn from your mistakes. Yeah. Move on. And when you see something that works… Yeah. …you know, put your love and effort into that… Yeah. …instead of, you know, a lot of things tends to just be moved aside and then say, okay, this is just, you know, it's running by itself. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to put any more… Yeah. …into that, right? Yeah. Put your time… Yeah. …and money into those things that already work… Yeah. …instead of constantly trying to find new things that are better than necessarily, right? Yeah. You can always test those out. Yeah. But, you know… Yeah. …it's important to prioritize… Yeah. …the best parts. Well, on that, because it's slightly conscious time and want to take a couple of questions, I think that's a very good kind of final point there regarding, you know, don't be afraid to fail. Understand what does work, what doesn't, and then just keep building. Yeah. Fantastic. We could talk about this for… …a lot longer. Probably could. …I mean, we could, but we have… We generally haven't got the time. And I don't know if you can see if there's any… There are a lot. Correctly. Okay. Well, maybe let's just take from the top. Do you want to read? What have we got there? What's the next strategic move for video inside Saxo? Personalization, automation, AI, or something else? And that's a tricky question already, I think. But, I mean, AI in general is… Yeah. …something that is both, I think, exciting and scary at the same time. Yeah. You can definitely do a lot. Yeah. You can also trick people into thinking a lot with AI. Yeah. So, I think it's still kind of an area where we are experimenting with different solutions. Yeah. We definitely didn't find the right answer yet. Yeah. But, obviously, AI is a big part of the whole… It is. …possimization and especially the localization of the different… Absolutely. …content pieces into many different languages, especially being something where time is extremely important, right? Yeah. So, our time to market has to be as short as possible. Yeah. But you can't shoot a video in 15 different languages and start editing one by one, right? No. No. It becomes obsolete before you even export it. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's something we're looking at definitely. Yeah. I can't give an answer to exactly. No. What would happen, but yeah. But that's… I think that makes total sense. I think you use AI in the right way and in its kind of simplest terms now, which is, yeah, localization, localization, localization. Yeah. Makes a tremendous amount of sense. Okay. Maybe we've got time for one more. Yeah. Should we get it? Is that Maria there? What's that saying there? This one or this one? Was there a moment when the understanding of video across the business movement was a strategic tool? Yeah. Yeah. I think there was. Yeah. And I think a lot of it had to do with that switch, like change in marketing role. Yeah. Especially the head of marketing. Yeah. I think that definitely, that gave me someone with a little bit more stars on the shoulder than I had to help me build up that case on a higher level of the business. So it was my access to people sitting basically on top and essentially making the decisions at the end. So I couldn't have driven it to what it is now just by myself. You need some allies along the way that understand your vision and build it. Yeah. And I think that's- And it sounds as though there was this quite pivotal moment early on when the new marketer came in and together you realized you had a similar vision and you could collectively say, right, this is what our vision is and this is the data that supports it. And the journey sounds like started there. I think so. Yeah. That's at least where it really took off. I mean, my vision was the same before. Yeah. It was just a lot easier to convince people- We had an ally. Yeah. Once we had someone that was sitting a little bit higher than me in the whole system and basically saying what I was saying, right? Yeah. And again, I just fed him with all the numbers and all that and said, okay, we already know it's working in a small scale now. If you scale it up, it's working even better, right? Yeah. Well, now that I think is a perfect point to finish. You said numbers and what I would say here is what's clear is that video will give you the numbers and it will show you how effective it is and it can be. And once you see that, there's almost no turning back. I haven't seen anyone who scaled that kind of video up and said, okay, it's not working for us and then they just scrapped it, right? It's almost like people always want more as soon as they start to see the results and I think the results are there. Superb. Well, on that, Benjamin, thank you so much. It's been a fascinating conversation. It's generally could go for another half hour, could go for another hour, but I think we probably got to leave it there. So a huge thank you from 23 and it's been an absolute pleasure. Likewise. And back over to you, Amelia. Thank you so much, Dan and Benjamin. Wow. What a session you guys had. I mean, I'm completely emerged in everything Saxo and their video journey. So thank you, Dan, for asking the right questions. And thank you so much, Benjamin, for sharing so much insightful knowledge and really being super transparent about everything that you guys have considered and learned. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are very excited to follow the journey and see what comes next. So thank you so much for participating in Video Days 2025.