TwentyThree Summit Interview - Jens Kemper, Make/c

You are the managing partner of Make/c, a media production company that handles everything from internal communication to e-commerce video solutions. I'd like to hear a bit more about your journey. I'm a video guy. I started as a TV journalist with RTL, which is a major private network in Germany, and was able to do some fancy stuff there. And afterwards, I set up a local TV station in Cologne and ran it for a couple of years. And during this time, about 2010, 2011, I realized that many clients were asking for video production because out of a sudden, things like YouTube and Facebook just came up. I developed a business plan and thought I might go into video production. And we just focused on corporates. And the assumption was that they're going to need more videos during the next years. And good. Yeah. Yes. And in your work with clients, how often do they come with a clear, overarching video strategy? Is it something that actually happens often? Or do they have just a, we have this project specifically, help me produce this, and it's done? Yeah. Well, honestly speaking, I don't really see a strategy anywhere. It's more just on the point, we need production for this campaign, for this product, for this event. I think one of the reasons is that video production in companies is often set on many shoulders. People are involved within the company from different departments. There's nobody really guiding this video part. I just see a strategy on a campaign or on something you launch, but not throughout the year or something like that. So you see that they are mostly lacking this integrated approach to video. It's more ad hoc. Like, we need this, so we produce this now. Boom, it's out of the door. Pretty much. Then actually trying to get the most value out of the medium. Yes, pretty much. And maybe the, the agencies that are in charge for the strategy, the lead agencies or something, something like that, they don't come out of the video business. So they, they have a different approach to strategy. From your experience, what are the common challenges that your clients face with digital video communication? And how do you help them overcome these challenges? Common problem for most clients is that they don't really have an organization. To handle the video stuff they produce. They produce a lot of video with maybe a lot of freelancers or internal or with agencies. But the video is not located somewhere. It's just, it's on this desktop and on that desktop. And if somebody's leaving the company, maybe, maybe it's gone. That's one of the reasons why I am a big fan of TwentyThree, because that's what you also offer. Besides the other things, that companies can have a place to collect the video for themselves. Since you mentioned that, what do you think that are some of the advantages that companies can, can get out of TwentyThree? You mentioned having this videos hosting, right? Yeah. Having a place where the video can live forever. And it's not lost if someone leaves the company and they miss the workspace. Do you have any other points of view? I also like the feature where you can produce a video of yourself, of a presentation. Yeah, the personal video. A personal video. Everybody can do it and it looks afterwards. It has a professional setting. Yes. So that makes it easy for people to explain products. Maybe just for one person. You have an appointment with someone and you want to explain something and you produce a video. Yes. That's something you would never have thought of in former times. But now it's possible through an asset like TwentyThree. Yes. At TwentyThree, we often say that video is the second best thing as to being there in person. Yeah. So, and when it's not possible, it's definitely a good tool. This year's topic of the TwentyThree Summit is the human side of digital. What does that mean to you? Visual storytelling is in our genes. Like the ancient painters, what they did, was visual storytelling. What builders of churches, artists in churches did, was visual storytelling. And today, video is just what we can do these days to do visual storytelling. And people love that and it gets emotional. You can bond to, especially to persons, to other persons. You can see them. You can relate. So, I like how you express it. It's the human side of digital because it's as close as it gets. Thank you so much for taking the time. You're welcome.