TCC Content Production

Stories change cities

Since the 1920s, New York has been known as the city that never sleeps; a place people go to chase their dreams; to struggle till they find success. Stories helped build this perception, stories such as two movies released with the title ‘The City That Never Sleeps’; Frank Sinatra’s song ‘New York, New York’; and the Sex in the City television series – a consistent flow of stories and content perpetuating this theme. Recently, a new type of story has emerged, changing this busy image of New York to a more personal, intimate perception of the city. ‘Humans of New York’ is an intimate exploration of New York residents, introducing a richer, more diverse perspective of New York. Both styles of storytelling continue to attract new residents and visitors to New York who have shared values, strengthening this identity of the world city.

Unfortunately for Townsville, in recent times there has been an unhealthy balance of stories focused on crime, economic troubles, water shortage and lack of transparency, resulting in low level of confidence in the community and hesitation from potential residents to move to our city.

Townsville now has the opportunity to change this perception through stories; positive stories promoting the rich lifestyle experienced by our residents, stories about innovation, passion and commitment, stories to help establish a positive identity for Townsville, especially for the millennial and z generations.

What does our city want to be known for? What stories can we tell to influence and lead this change? What do we need to achieve this?

Stories change cities. And we produce the stories.

Who we are

We collaborate with production partners and suppliers who provide crew, talent, and catering, big data – whatever’s needed to produce great content. In addition to making our own quality content, we commission content production and acquire quality content from external suppliers; local, national and international.

This means we can supply a regular flow of quality content that informs, entertains and inspires our audience.

What we do

We make content that influences positive change in our city. We love the fact ‘stories change cities, and that we produce the stories.’

We prefer content that:

Fact: Audiences respond to content that informs, entertains and inspires. Want your content to make impact? Inform, entertain and inspire.

Why we do it

We love to celebrate the fact Townsville residents are educated, innovative and confident; that Townsville can engage with a global market; that our local council and residents work hard to continually improve the quality of life north Queensland residents enjoy.

We want people to be informed, entertained and inspired when they watch stories about our city.

What if… Now how…

We love using our creativity. Our favourite words are ‘What if…’ and ‘Now, how…’

As in: ‘what if we did [insert amazing idea] to surprise and delight your audience?’ And ‘Now, how do we do that?’

• What if rubbish could talk and remind you to recycle? Such as plastic bottles who desire to be recycled together.
• What if Townsville residents had super powers and worked together with council to solve daily challenges?
• What if the customer service team had their own music video and could pull customers through computer screens to join their team?
• What if we start a trend that the community can participate in? #10secondtownsville; #lifeintownsville; #townsvilleshines

Now, how do we produce our imagination - the visual effects and choreography - to tell these stories?

With every project we get better at what we do; we want awards and recognition for our work; we want to inform, entertain and inspire our audience. We can only do this by making the imaginable real. Therefore, What if… Now, how…

Markets (themes and categories)

We focus on the most valuable markets that connect with our customers, grow our audience and promote our business. These include:

• City basics: waste, infrastructure maintenance, services
  City basics content is designed to keep residents up to date with information regarding water, waste, infrastructure and basic operations of the city.
  Example: Call on Me (TCC); Road works at night.
• Jobs: business, economy, innovation
  Jobs content is designed to keep residents updated with information related to business, economic development, innovation and jobs. This content is also produced with a global audience in mind to help attract investment to the city. Example: Silver Level Homes, Stadium Sod Turn, etc.
• Townsville 2020: the future of our region Townsville 2020 content is designed to promote the future that residents  can expect to experience living in Townsville and north Queensland.
  Example: TBA
• Water
  Water content is designed to inform the community about water related content.
  Example: TBA
• Lifestyle, health, leisure, well-being 
  Lifestyle content is designed to promote and highlight the quality of life that residents experience living in Townsville and north Queensland and attract new residents to the region.  
  Example: Cemetery Art; Yoga in the city (in production.)
• Premiere positioning
  Premiere positioning content is high quality storytelling designed to influence the global market perception of Townsville. Premiere positioning content entertain and inspires Townsville residents, helping to confirm their world view that Townsville is a wonderful place to live, influence behaviours that we desire in our community, and attract new residents to the community. Premiere positioning content is produced at a high technical and storytelling quality which can be licensed (to broadcasters, subscription and streaming platforms) to help generate additional revenue for the city. Example: ‘It’s Life. It’s Townsville. Series’ (in production.)
• Campaigns/other
  Content that is not directly related to our themes/categories programs. Includes annual events, short shelf-life and ephemeral campaigns. Example: CG2018 Festival.

An essential routine

We prefer to publish content often; our default schedule is two pieces per theme/category per month; this schedule can be strategically interrupted by business calendar needs, annual trends, and pop culture.

We need consistency to build value. Just like working out every day to build up your fitness and strength, we publish content regularly to build up our audience and nurture a sense of trust and reliability with our customers. To change a city, residents require constant reminders that nudge and influence their behaviours and world views, mixed with strategically timed campaigns that cut through the noise. This is why it’s important to establish the markets we operate in and a routine.

Content made for your audience

We can produce many types of content for your audience, with a focus on producing digital content for mobile audiences and streaming content platforms. The top ten most popular types of content include:

Content that matters (obviously. Know your target audience; broad, niche, account-based.)

We prefer to publish content that matters. When you pitch an idea, we ask, who would care about this content and why?

A good answer results in good content being made. We want to connect with your audience and if they care about your content, they will pay attention. What’s your objective, why is this important for your target audience, who are they, and why would they care?

Local and global content

We make content that caters for both the local and global audience. We want to build confidence in our city through local stories that inform, entertain and inspire. We also want to attract new residents and investors to the city, which is why we prefer to make content that also resonates with global audiences.

Hard working content

We prefer making content with a long shelf-life. Long shelf-life content can be reused many times for different audiences and licensed to content distributors, generating revenue for the city.

We want our content to be valuable for new and existing audiences 18 months, even two years, from now. Think about films such as Star Wars, which have a long shelf-life and is still working hard generations later, delighting new audiences. Our team works hard to make hard working content.

(Yes, we can make content with short shelf life, too, such as promoting an upcoming event, but we prefer making content which has a long shelf-life.)

Series or one-off content

Will your campaign be ongoing? If so, consider producing a series style-guide, which will help provide a consistent tone and quality for your audience. For example, the Marvel movie universe has a style-guide, also known as the lore of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

TCC Original Content Waste TVCs are a series, with each ad driven by characters and contain a humorous or delightful twist to the message of waste.

Otherwise, one-off content will do the job for you.

We love intrinsic marketing, stories with emotional arcs and experiential marketing

Although we make all types of content, we prefer content that tells a story, celebrates people, and takes your audience on an emotional journey. A journey has a beginning, middle and end:

Beginning: introduce your characters and topic or key message,
Middle: introduce a challenge for your characters/audience,
End: resolve the challenge, or suggest a solution, and call to action for your audience.

Your world views are formed by your experiences in life and your strongest memories are often the emotional moments. We love making content that takes your audience on an emotional journey, just like life, which helps makes your content memorable.

(Note: Many tourism videos use the exciting and shiny extrinsic ‘look at what you could be doing’ formula. We can complement traditional extrinsic tourism campaigns with the more intimate and genuine intrinsic ‘why this matters to humans’ storytelling that motivates action; it’s a winning combination.)

Character driven stories = “the stories of us”.

We love celebrating our team and community.

Humans love gossip; gossip is the simplest form of communication. People love talking about themselves, their friends and peers, and people they love (like celebrities) and all the things we do. It’s the stories of us.

Which people, or characters, will help drive your story and inform, entertain and inspire your audience? Who is the star of your story?

The production process – from idea to delivery

Click on the thumbnail image below to view full sized production process.

Click on the thumbnail image above to view full sized production process.

The content journey

While making a piece of content go viral isn’t an exact science, there are strategies that can help your content reach a larger audience, if required. For example, if you nurture relationships with your true fans (brand champions) and social influencers before unleashing your content into the world, they will help your content travel.

What makes us excited about today?

Every day we are motivated by these aspirations.

• For the content we produce to reach every member of your target market,
• For the content we produce to attract new residents, long term visitors, and investors to the city,
• For the content we produce to help provide transparency and build trust between the council and the community,
• To influence the overall sentiment of Townsville City to be a feeling of pride, innovation and confidence,
• For content to be distributed on leading content platforms; including Facebook, YouTube, Airlines, and Netflix,
• To set trends, (i.e. ‘Meanwhile, in Townsville…’ and ‘It’s Life. It’s Townsville.’)
• For international recognition and awards.

We want our content to reach 100% of our target audience, every time.

How friendships are made

Now you know more about us, we’d love to hear about you and your content needs and aspirations.

We want to team up with you to make content that resonates with your target audience; to inform, entertain and inspire. We love being part of a winning partnership/team.

Be a hero

We want to be a hero for you, so you can be a hero for your audience, customers and clients. We love to lead and provide others with the confidence to follow.

Business development plan for TCC Original Content

The TCC Original Content Team is new; therefore we’re pacing ourselves as we develop the business.

During 2018/19, we’ll focus on developing our team, relationships with partners/suppliers, resources, content production strategy and workflow; as well as our clients, social influencers, true fans, etc. to efficiently produce,

• Social media clips
• TVCs
• Mini documentaries
• Short films
• Music videos
• How to… videos
• Pilot projects (i.e. Coffee with Cook social media series; Customer Service Team music video)
• Visual effects (time-lapse, stop motion, slow motion)

In 2019/20 we’ll add high quality series production to the mix (i.e. This is Life. This is Townsville series) that can be broadcast on streaming channels with high quality demands (i.e. airlines/Netflix.) This will also provide council with the option to license our quality content as a revenue generator for the city to distributors such as Vice (via SBS) or Netflix.

We want to produce as much quality content as possible to develop a strong core audience.

2020/21 - To be confirmed early 2019 based on what we learn from our target markets and core business.

Models used by effective original content companies

• Netflix
• Ted Talks
• ABC
• Curiosity.com

Gear graph

Click on the thumbnail image below to view full sized Gear Graph.