After arranging the meeting with the manager of the salon, we decided to meet at the salon itself at:
Burlington’s Hair Salon,
18 Burlington St,
Chesterfield, S40 1RR
Before the initial meeting I decided to do some research into videos already out there for salons. Whilst looking on YouTube I found a number of videos which fitted a certain style which Burlington’s would also fit into. At this stage I decided that one video in particular would be a good central idea to make the video around. However, I wanted to approach the meeting with an open mind, incase the client had any ideas also.
With that in mind, I arrived at the salon and we began the meeting. I started off asking the client if they had any previous videos made for them before, which would help in terms of understanding where the best places are to film and how their stylists work around a camera. The client replied with “we once had a video done with a Wella representative when we first launched our Wella range”. As the conversation grew I found that it was more of an interview type of video, which only meant they had talking heads and didn’t really help in terms of the information I was after. I later moved onto the questions I preplanned before the meeting:
- How would you describe your company’s brand image?
- Upon completion of the video, where would you be putting the video (social media and website)?
- What age demographic would you say your clients sit into, and would you say both male and female?
- What key aspects of the salon would you like me to focus the video around?
- How long would you like the video to be? (60-90 seconds usual)
- How would you like the video to be sent to? (Dropbox / in person)
After a half an hour discussion, I found out the following information.
The company wants to be perceived as a high-end salon. They are a very modern salon yet comfortable which you could see with their furnishings as well as the stylist’s uniforms. The clients which walk through their doors range from young people to OAP’s but if they were to address a particular demographic with their video, they would like to hit the 25-55 year old age range. They have a mixed male and female clientele but mostly females as they offer more female services such as makeup and nail services, this is what they wanted to aim their video on (the services they provide). They are also great partners with big brands such as Wella, GHD and System Professional, the client wanted to hint at this within their video also.
In terms of more information about the video, they were unsure about the length as they hadn’t had anything like this done for themselves before, as the ‘professional’ I advised a 60 – 90 second video as it would be short enough to put on social media without losing audience attention. The last question was distribution and the arrangements were to be decided closer to the completion, however I did advice either a Dropbox link or to be delivered in person via memory stick.
After the meeting I went away and tried to develop more ideas. Throughout the planning process I was in contact throughout, making sure the client was up to date with where I was with planning, I also made sure we were working around each other in terms of arranging the production day.
After numerous emails between the client and myself, we discussed a production day in January after the Christmas period for both the benefit of the video and to ensure the client was ready for me to film. I didn’t want to date the video with Christmas decorations nor did I want to be in the way when the salon is busy.
We decided that I would film on two different days; a quiet working day so that I could get B roll shots and a busier day to ensure I got the atmosphere of the salon on a normal day.
-Joshua Poole- 