THE CHANNEL
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ISSUE 2 2014
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41
we would tell it in America or in
Europe. So it’s important for us not
just to have specialists but specialists
who know their markets and know
their audience. The approach is just
the same as if we were a broadcaster,
we just don’t have our own
terrestrial or satellite channel.
Right now we are doing a piece
about the construction of the largest
offshore floating liquefied gas
facility in the world. The ‘Prelude
FLNG’ is the largest floating thing
ever built, bigger than any cruise
ship. We built it in locations around
the world, and the facility will end
up off the coast of Australia. The
idea was, instead of having a
refinery onshore, that it be done on
sea, bringing the refinery right to
the exploration place.
When we floated the hull of the
facility last December, we sent out a
one-minute time-lapse clip of the
launch on our own channels –
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. The
clip already has 700,000 views on
YouTube. It was shown by
BBC.com and all the broadcasters
around Australia and just about
everywhere in the world. Even the
UK’s
Guardian
newspaper showed
it on their technology page.
Newspapers are very keen to have
digital content for their audience, as
long as that is something that is not
dictated by the company.
Describe Shell’s production process
If we take the ‘Prelude’ story as an
example, in planning, we discuss
what the milestones should be over
the next four years and we decide
that the outcome we want at the
end is a one or two episode TV
documentary about building the
largest offshore liquefied gas
facility in the world and we want to
distribute that with a large network.
We can also offer content to a variety
of outlets, including our own visual
channels all throughout the process.
It took us time to convince the
engineers about the project and to
let them know that we weren’t
doing it in a corporate way – that it
will be a proper piece of journalism.
My executive producers have filmed
it all in the same way a broadcaster
would. We identify characters, we
identify the right story.
You can imagine that it’s not
easy to get a broadcaster in to cover
it. We don’t own the shipyards, so
we have to work with partners.
And there can be thousands of
people in such shipyards, and there
are restrictions. We can’t have a
broadcast team there every day. We
would have NHK one day from
Japan, then ABC from America the
next day. We can be there for the
long term. And it’s important that
they trust us, so that we properly
show what’s happening.
The engineers are on a timeline,
they have to deliver the project.
And there’s safety and health,
which is very important for oil
companies. So that’s another good
reason to have a corporate filming
the project because a normal
broadcaster doesn’t have the
certification. A BBC crew wouldn’t
even be able to board the helicopter
without special papers.
Another example of our content
that has been very successful is our
Shell Eco-Marathon. In this event
students are given a task to create a
car that goes the furthest with the
least amount of energy. For us, that’s
a great story: why not follow these
teams for the five or six weeks they
are designing and building them?
We followed three of the teams for
five weeks – in the US, in Canada,
in Brazil.
That length of commitment is
something a network might find
hard to do, but we can do that. We
ended up with a TV documentary
that was shown by Fox in Houston
and MBC TV in South Korea. This
year we did something similar with
Eurosport. So the company is
getting closer to operating like a
media house.
How do you counter the
expectation that you’re just trying
to deliver a corporate message?
We want to produce things that
excite mass audiences. That cannot
be content that the company wants
to see, it has to be the content that
the audience wants to see. So
there’s a shift in emphasis. No one
From top
Hazards abound
filming in Iraq;
Participants line
up in Shell’s Eco
Marathon
Above
Sven
Herold
wants to see white-washed
company messages.
I think there needs to be a shift in
understanding from the journalists’
side too: they should know that
companies don’t always want to
keep editorial control. There has to
be bigger trust in working with
companies and some acknowledge-
ment that we are trying to meet
broadcaster standards.
We have to come up with stories
which are different from what you
have seen in the past. So you will
see drama, you will see challenge,
you will see openness, you will see
honesty. It’s not easy. There is a
way to go with companies, and not
only in Shell, because no one is
used to that. It’s a very new
approach.
Sven Herold, thank you.
