3 Reasons Wistia Always Makes Time for Brainstorming

We’ve been superfans of Wistia for a while now—and we’re not alone. They’ve built a whole army of superfans with binge-worthy shows like One, Ten, One Hundred and Brandwagon. 

In fact, watching Brandwagon sparked the idea for a brand-new series of our own. In What’s the Plan?, we talk to leading brands and influencers about how they plan, build, and launch their best projects. 

And who better to have as our first guest than the team that inspired it all? 

Go behind the scenes with Wistia’s Head of Production Chris Lavigne and Strategic Partnerships Manager Kristen Bryant for an up-close look at their video production process—from concept development and organizing a production crew to creating an evergreen strategy for promotion. 

If there’s one thing we learned from Chris and Kristen, it’s that creative ideation is a mission-critical part of project planning at Wistia. Here are 3 reasons why Wistia always makes time for brainstorming before video production begins.

It helps projects stay on schedule

At Wistia, they don’t just use brainstorming to dream up big ideas. They use it to develop a detailed concept for each episode so they can build a foolproof plan for production and promotion. 

“If you’re trying to release something with a regular cadence, you need to stay on schedule,” Chris says. “And you need to have ideation sessions well enough in advance to allow your team to hit pre-production and make a plan.”

Hear why Chris says it’s also important to leave time for ideas to fail. 

It gets everyone aligned on the plan

When everyone’s on the same page about what the project means from the get-go, you don’t have to pause work to hash things out mid-project. That’s why Wistia took time to flesh out a clear concept document for Brandwagon early on. 

“As people start envisioning what that means from an entire company standpoint, it was important to lock down that concept and what I mean when we say, We’re going to shoot an interview-style show with fun segments,” Kristen explains.

See what kind of questions Wistia’s concept document answered. 

It keeps scope in check and simplifies video production

With Brandwagon, Wistia used ideation as a strategic tool to make the entire video production process manageable and repeatable. 

“One thing that really helped us scope the project and stay on track schedule-wise was coming up with a container for the show—almost like our own format or template for the show,” Chris says. 

This sets limitations around what each episode can be so scope creep doesn’t rear its ugly head. It also saves time and effort because you don’t have to spend additional hours brainstorming and resourcing each episode once production begins. 

Find out how much time Wistia spent on pre-production vs. production.

Watch What’s the Plan? and get a free project template

Want to make your projects more memorable? Watch the first 3 episodes of What’s the Plan? to discover:

• Why good project planning creates space for brainstorming, concept development, and even the occasional bad idea
• How Wistia organized a crew for Brandwagon and why role clarity was key to managing workloads and inspiring better accountability
• Why Wistia ditched the traditional SaaS marketing playbook and looked to media networks as inspiration to create an evergreen strategy for promoting Brandwagon

We’ll also show you how to apply the lessons we learned from Wistia to a real project plan and share a free template you can use to plan your own video projects.

Watch What’s the Plan? now!

‍