Ezzie Chidi-Ofong, Condé Nast’s Global Head of Video Industry Talk

Ezzie Chidi-Ofong industry talk

The Condé Nast College was delighted to welcome Condé Nast’s Global Head of Video, Ezzie Chidi-Ofong to our virtual lecture theatre for a truly inspiring talk. MA student, Megan McClelland reports… 

 

About Ezzie Chidi-Ofong

 

Ezzie Chidi-Ofong is a video, fashion and e-commerce editorial content and strategy expert with a deep knowledge of luxury fashion, marketing, digital and print. She has experience on both consumer and brand-facing levels and has a unique understanding of both the creative and commercial sides of the digital video industry. 

 

Building A Strong Foundation

 

Having won the prestigious Vogue Talent Contest, Ezzie began her career as Editorial Assistant at British Vogue in 2002, and then moved to Glamour UK as Entertainment Assistant and was quickly promoted to Entertainment Writer. Ezzie then went freelance to hone her writing skills, and worked as a features writer for titles such as Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar UK, The Times, The Independent and The Daily Mail. During this time, she learned to create content quickly and efficiently. After a period of freelancing, she joined Net-a-Porter as Junior Fashion Writer then Fashion Writer, and went on to moving image to become TV and Video Editor, launching NET-A-PORTER TV and subsequently became Video Content Producer, building the video proposition across the Net-a-Porter business; while creating groundbreaking video campaigns for brands and editorial.

 

Creating Meaningful Video Content

 

Ezzie’s video-first strategy for Net-a-Porter was simple, to create meaningful content that spoke to the company’s consumer. To do this effectively, Ezzie had to identify what mattered to the Net-a-Porter customer and figure out how to implement that into their content. The result was a multifaceted video strategy that helped to launch brands, create commercial campaigns, and make space for leading women to get together and talk about the issues their sectors were facing. The result was a successful video streaming platform on an equally successful eCommerce site. 

 

Optimising Video Content

 

In 2017, she returned to Condé Nast as Global Head of Video creating content for each market and driving the international video strategy, as part of Condé Nast Entertainment. By this time in her career, she already had experience creating video content and knew how to speak to a digital audience. From there, it was all about optimising this content and driving up their numbers by expanding the content reach. To do this, Ezzie and her team ensure that the content they create is exported to fit each of Vogue’s media platforms and that each of these files is accompanied by copy so that all the receiver has to do is upload the content and click “paste.” Going one step beyond, they localise all of the content they created for each Vogue so that the videos and copy are translated into the language for each of the respective Vogue audiences. 

 

Working From Home

 

Ezzie and her team started slowly preparing for the stay at home conditions, back when the idea of lockdown was just the worst-case scenario. When the impetus of Coronavirus heightened, they preemptively developed a strategy that would help them to ensure that their production pipeline would still be in place. Once the content they had created prior was published, they had to move on to create content from home. 

 

This was done by utilising resources, such as Open Reel (an app that helps you shoot videos remotely) and figuring out the kind of content that audiences were searching for. After noticing that people at home were developing more playlists, they launched a new series within their creative portfolio called Listen Up, where musicians share music that should be on people’s radar. It’s moves like these, where a team can continue to find new ways to connect with their audience and tap into new vessels (in their case, music) that makes for effective business operations.  

 

Key Take-Aways

 

  • Video is the largest growing sector of internet traffic.
  • Seize the opportunity to learn transferable skills.
  • Meaningful content is created when you centre the viewer’s needs. 

 

By Megan McClelland, MA Fashion Media Practice: Fashion Journalism 

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