Price vs. Value
Recently we’ve had the un-pleasure of mentally fighting back with potential customers of ours on the premise of price vs. value. This debate has been going on since I can remember, but we just got a comment from a pastor about our brand new New Year’s Video called This Year. He says it was a “Good message, well done, but at 50 cents per second, way to expensive.” It’s a high end, TV commercial style sermon illustration that is only 0:44 seconds long and we’re charging $20 (as we do with every sermon illustration). One of the big problems with this kind of thinking is we don’t spend any less time or money on something because it ends up being shorter. In other words, we spend roughly the same amount of money and invest the same amount of time on something whether it ends up being 30 seconds or five minutes (And I promise you all that we are not in this to get rich but to serve God… you can check out our books :). Our intent with “This Year” was to make a very tight, powerful video that could be used by pastors to set up a great message about the coming year. A tongue and cheek style simple short for New Years that pastors can take in a lot of different directions.This issue of Price vs. Value has become a big issue within the filmmaking community…the church filmmaking community that is. I personally see an enormous divide between the price of a product/service and the value of said product/service. Others I guess don’t see it that way. Chuck Brady, from the online publication, Bizcovering, says “In simple terms price is the same as affordability. It comes down to whether or not your prospect has the means to pay for your product or service. Value on the other hand comes down to whether or not your customer thinks your product is worth the money.”
So, if the folks on the price per second side of the isle are right, and it really does come down to value for the length of the product, then that means you MUST get more value for your $8.50 movie ticket to go see Transformers (run time of 2 hours and 15 minutes) than for your ticket to the 2005 Academy Award winning movie Crash (run time of only 1 hour and 47 minutes). Maybe you did like Transformers more, but was it because it was longer? Was Crash a worse movie or worth less at the ticket window because it was shorter?
Again, our heart in all of this is to serve God and His Church with our gifts. Not to gouge churches for money by overcharging for Sermon Illustrations. I know there are a lot of churches out there barely scraping by, but so are we, and we’re all in this together, right?
Love to hear what you think. Post it. Email it. Blog it.
Tags: cost, crash, criticism, filmmaking, making videos, Media Ministry, movies, New Years, price, This Year, transformers
October 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
As a person who comes from a media driven society I have to jump on this one! I went and watched Transformers… I loved the movie minus some lingo!! But I have to say I have been frustrated spending $8.00 or more for any movie. However as a pastor I have never had any problem spending $20.00 or more for any movie to use in worship. Do you care to know why? (insert dramatic pause here) Because any amount of money is worth transforming (no pun intended) lives for Jesus. If its .50 per minute people are worried about then quit drinking coffee for 2 weeks and save a soul. Of course I say that out of the largest amount of Christian love I cam!!
October 25th, 2007 at 10:33 am
The band Radiohead recently decided to put their newest CD online for download and allowed the people downloading to set the price per song. Other musicians are thinking of doing the same.
Here’s a scary thought - posting videos online for download and allowing churches, and others, to purchase them for whatever price they are willing to pay. Some might be skimpy and only pay $.01 others may pay $10, still others may pay $20 or more. Who knows?
October 25th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Hey guys, I can totally relate with what you’re going through. I’m the Executive producer over at FortyOneTwenty (another church media company), and it’s so frustrating to see this being brought up in the church community.
I don’t think Pastors understand the amount of work that goes into this. Not to mention the hardships it places on our families. We are relatively new, which makes things harder, but we have to make decisions between paying ourselves or advertising.
Great New Years video by the way…well worth the 20.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Great post, Lee. Check out this Seth Godin post (I think it was posted today):
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/174867674/i-cant-afford-i.html
October 25th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Great point Matt! Thanks for bringing that to light as well. We are literally making choices everyday whether to ‘grow the business’ or pay ourselves. It’s a constant battle and we don’t want to stop making good media for the church to use. No body is forcing us to be in this business, but sometimes it just hurts when the comments are so derogatory and from a lack of understanding.
Scott, great article from Seth. I love that guy’s perspective.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Wanting shorter videos to cost less, regardless of production cost or impact, is the same as wanting the teeny tiny jeans at Baby Gap to cost less than adult jeans. What people don’t realize is that even though the seamstress gets her $1.47/day either way, she works a lot harder sewing those teeny tiny stitches on the baby jeans than the giant stitches on the…Ok…Maybe that’s a bad analogy. How about this. It’s the same as staying at a buffet for 2.5 hours just to make sure you’ve gotten “all you can eat.” You’ve paid $8.99, and by golly you’ll eat until you feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth…Even though the 7 slices of prime rib, 3 cups of broccoli and cheese soup, 4 yeast rolls, and 2 ice cream sundaes you ate would total $94 at a single serving restaurant.
Coincidentally, most people in Christian media jobs get paid just below what Gap jeans laborers do. So they can’t even afford to eat at buffets. Things that make you go Hmmmmm. (That’s right, I just said that.)
Anyway, This Year is my second favorite video you guys have ever made. I still take the Change Is Possible video #1. That guy is awesome. Seriously. Awesome.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I think Matt M. hit the nail on the head- people don’t know how much time goes into producing a video. However, I don’t know how much time goes into producing a sermon on a weekly basis. But I’d be willing to bet it’s as much as producing a short clip on a weekly basis. It comes down to lack of understanding.
One big thing about technology is that it makes everything look easy. So those who aren’t creating media think it’s simple to write, shoot, edit, animate graphics, write music and author a DVD - all for one video. Personally I think $20 is a perfect price point when you consider how much money and time you are saving by not having to pay someone to produce that video yourself.
I wonder if people ever stop to think about how many videos you have to sell to recoup your basic costs on that video before you can even begin to pay yourself.
There will always be those who want something for free or for cheap, but most things that are free or super cheap aren’t worth it in the long run.