Expanding in the UK at the exact wrong time!

September 23rd - Update: it seems that the British economy is actually doing better than expected! Theresa May announced that Brexit would not happen before 2019. So in the end, no worries, at least for the next few years.

July 7th

I moved to London a month ago to expand Left Productions, the Right Company I co-founded. 3 weeks later, Brexit happened! This will be remembered as the worst timing ever! The Economist said: “It would be bad for everyone if Great Britain shrivelled into Little England“. I must concur but Brexit might be an opportunity for us.

Our core business is video advertising, i.e. the first thing company cut in times of recession. And guess what: WINTER IS COMING! Christine Lagarde, from the IMF, forecasts a recession between 1,5% to 4% in the next 5 years. And to cap it all: England delivered a humiliating performance at the Euro.

It all started well, though. We came over here doing a campaign for Medicanimal, an amazon for Cats and Dogs with a turnover above 100 million euros. Our video ad is running on YouTube, Facebook and in the London Tube with a theme that I really like: Fugly Animals. Everyone loves it!

Here is one of  the MedicAnimal prints in the London Underground.

But then, Brexit happened… Some people tried to tell me it wasn’t going to be that bad. Well, here are a few reminders:

• We use videos to generate sales. Our targets are business-to-consumer companies that want to dramatically increase their acquisition. Those companies need sales or funding.
• Well, recession is rarely good for consumption.
• And questions arise whether London will stay a strong Financial Hub, which could probably result in less money invested in companies.
• And oddly enough, the people who actively fought to leave the UE (Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage) are not taking any responsibilities today. Are they afraid of what’s going to happen next?

But still, we think ahead to develop here is a good choice:

• We  wanted it and we’ve wanted it for a long time. We make campaigns that already run in different countries (the Medicanimal ad I talked about earlier is running in the UK, Germany, and France, for instance). It  didn’t make sense for us to be only in Paris, and it made complete sense to come to the UK: we already work with talents based here, it is probably     the most vibrant city for Entrepreneurship and it’s a starting point to  conquer the world! (And come one, who doesn’t love One Direction ☺)
• Overall, our services are a good fit for companies that want to expand without spending too much money. We integrate concepting, production and distribution of video campaigns, we A/B test our videos to make sure they’re efficient and we scale the investment only on the video that performs best. It is a great method to create striking video campaigns without taking too much risk. We have great results (we gathered more than 80 million views), we specialize on one thing (video acquisition) and we end up costing less than traditional agencies
• We will soon launch a new service that will be an online shop for video production. Any company will be able to order a video online in a minute and receive it in 10 days. The goal of this service will be to become the easiest solution to produce videos (ads, motion design, interviews, shooting of conferences, events, etc). And it won’t be expensive, which     may be perfectly suited for the times ahead.
• And of course, we’re in the UK! Great Britain has always found a way to get ahead. I’m anxious to see how this time. 

Is this the worst possible timing? We will see. Meanwhile, we continue to do what interests us: produce films. We bet that this passion will be contagious. If you have tips, reactions or if you know people who want to make a campaign videos, please tell us in the comments by writing below.

Augustin de Belloy, Left Productions' co-founder