Those who have known me (Brian) for awhile may remember that my company didn’t used to be VidVictory. It used to be Black Hat Media. Black Hat Media focused on Video Production and photography. Every once in awhile I still run into folks who remember Black Hat Media and it gives me a chance to remember why I made the change to VidVictory.
On the surface the two companies look pretty identical. My day to day offerings are essentially the same. One key difference is the focus on video. My wife is the photographer and she has continued under the Black Hat Media name, but other than dropping photography from my offerings what is the real difference between Black Hat Media and VidVictory?
No More Russian Hackers
One slightly humorous difference is that Black Hat Media had some unfortunate connotations that I didn’t learn about until several years after starting that business. Black Hat SEO tactics are used by hackers and they can get you blacklisted from Google. The Black Hat Media blog and website used to get an insane amount of traffic from Russia and we had no idea why. The name also made it hard to work with certain companies, specifically web companies who didn’t feel like it was a good idea to work with a company with Black Hat in the name.
None of this really affected my wife’s photography, so she has kept the name. She does great work, you can check that out here – www.blackhatmediautah.com
The Real Reasons – More Than Video Production
When I brought on Tom as a partner in 2020 I knew I needed to rebrand. It was great to get rid of the Black Hat problem, but I had also learned a lot about what my clients needed. First off I focus on video production so I needed a name that made that clear. Too many companies have businesses with term ‘media’ in the title that have nothing to do with video. So I knew I wanted the company name to have video or vid in the title to make that clear.
The victory part of VidVictory though is especially important to me. As Black Hat Media I had been providing clients with great videos for years, and I had noticed some trends that I didn’t like. I used to think that by simply providing videos to my clients I was doing my job. I’d hand over the assets and mentally call it a day. I realized this outlook was not serving some of my clients.
Some clients had no idea what to do with the videos when they got them. They would sit in Google Drive for months sometimes without even being downloaded!
I wanted to help my clients to be victorious with their videos. I started working with them before filming ever began to make sure they had a plan. I always wanted to make sure that if they didn’t have a plan we could help them make one.
This has cost us some work from people who were willing to pay, but had no plan. I don’t like to take on a client simply to take money from them. I want to know that their video is an investment and that they are poised to achieve their goals through the videos we create.
I love video production but even more I love helping my clients to be victorious!
