Online and Social Video Specialists Coolbox have had their most successful quarter to date. Despite ongoing turmoil that the pandemic has brought, the production house based at M-One Studios in Manchester has been able to navigate the choppy waters of covid uncertainty, to secure several high profile clients.
Director and Founder of Coolbox Marc Grundy commented on how the pandemic has affected the business over the past 12 months.
‘It’s been an unimaginably difficult year for people all across the UK, and businesses in the creative sector have been hit hard. The same goes for the food, beverage and hospitality industry, who happen to be Coolbox’s primary client base.’
‘We identified pretty early into the first lockdown that if we wanted to survive (and thrive), we needed to pivot, and adapt our offering. Luckily we managed to avoid furloughing any of our staff for long, and made good use of any ‘downtime’ with training, learning new techniques and experimenting with new filmmaking equipment – enabling us to offer a plethora of new services when our clients felt safe (and were allowed) to go back to work.’
Pivoting the business’s offering opened the door for Coolbox to begin working with customers outside their usual client base, namely infection control specialists InfectProtect and Google Shopping machine learning technologists Bidnamic. The video creators also partnered with their long-time collaborators Luma Marketing to help launch two new start-ups, Rebelleon and Rise Futures.
But Coolbox hadn’t forgotten about their core customers; after all some sectors of the food and drink industry were thriving. In response to the cancellation of most live events, Whisky Magazine appointed the video production company to help create their Whisky Live At Home online events. Head of Content & Marketing at Paragraph, Christopher Coates said.
‘Working with Coolbox has allowed our business to pivot into delivering high-quality video content, in spite of the challenging circumstances presented by the pandemic.’
The client wins continued into 2021 for the video company, with Coolbox being appointed as video production supplier for Peak District beer producers Buxton Brewery, and the University of Leeds.
Marc Grundy added. ‘In spite of the current situation, we wanted to step it up a gear this year, and we weren’t going to let the pandemic slow us down. It was great to see all our hard work pay off as we were awarded the contract to be one of the University of Leeds’ video suppliers for the next four years. It’s a fantastic opportunity, and we can’t wait to start working with the University’.
Coolbox’s good fortune didn’t end there either; with their Producer/Director Cain Jennings being nominated for Marketing and Creative Professional of the Year at the Made in Manchester Awards.
