brutalmoose.com is evolving

Ian is… writing a blog post.

Hello all! Long time no post again, but I bring exciting news of an exciting time of exciting change. I hope you enjoy the following collection of seemingly randomly-arranged words:

BACKGROUND:

For the last two years I have had yearly brand deal agreements to produce a pre-determined amount of ads on my main YouTube channel for HelloFresh. It was a really unique opportunity to have some garunteed income for a full years at a time. I’m a big fan of HelloFresh, the payout was larger than anything I’d been offered before, and they also allowed me to place ads at the end of videos, even though we’re in an age where mid-roll ads are the norm. I’ve had a blast coming up with cool ad concepts the past two years, and it was rad to work with people that allowed me to do pretty much whatever I wanted in the name of entertaining advertising for a product that I personally enjoy.

That said, there were downsides to this opportunity that I didn’t really notice until I was in the middle of the agreements. I entered into these deals imagining that the extra capital would free me up to be more creative, but I slowly began feeling like I was producing videos for the sole purpose of getting the advertisements out on time, rather than just for the joy of video production.

Despite the brand being clear that I could make whatever kind of videos I wanted as long as it was delivered on time, I ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself to place the ads on videos I was more confident would perform well. This, again, was not the fault of the brand, but the result of me not realizing that I had changed my relationship with my own work. It inadvertently made me really reliant on food videos and unwilling to experiment too much for fear of a flop, or fear that new ideas could lead to long production cycles and missed deadlines. It also led to me spending multiple production days on the advertisements, rather than putting that time into the videos themselves. I put a ton of pressure on myself to deliver high quality ads within the deadlines, which led to a lot of personal and creative stress the past little while.

Well, that’s all over now. I’ve got my last HelloFresh ad spot airing this month (it’ll be pretty simple, nothing fancy), and since the brand is exiting our contract early, it feels safe to assume that another yearly agreement isn’t on the table for 2024. And that’s super exciting for me, I’ve actually been looking forward to this moment for most of this year.

TL;DR Since January 2023 I have had a ton of HelloFresh brand deal obligations that kind of inadvertently frucked up my creative process. I still love and will be continuing to eat HelloFresh on the regular but I am excited at the idea of not being on the hook for a brand deal every month.

THE FUTURE:

I’m really stoked on the idea of taking all the energy I was spending on advertisements and putting it back into my actual creative work. I’ve been working on a big update to brutalmoose.com that I was going to debut early next year, but now that my timeline has been moved up a bit I’m going to try and push it out next month.

If you are a brutalmoose.com email subscriber, this will mean a lot more brutalmoose content delivered into your inbox. I’m planning on using this blog to start announcing new videos and completed stream series in addition to the occasional blog post/update. I’ll see if there’s something I can do to let you opt-in to certain types of posts and opt-out of others but that might be too complicated for me.

I am also planning on stepping up my Patreon usage. Along with resuming posting new videos and streams to the feed, I’ve been brainstorming ways that I can add value to being a brutalmoose Patreon supporter. I’m not sure what that looks like just yet, but expect to see those wheels turning in the coming months. After spending some time relying too heavily on brand money, I’ve realized that I’d much rather produce extra content for a Patreon versus putting a ton of effort into ads all the time.

Stream viewers and VOD watchers have been enjoying more broadcasts lately as I’ve been settling back into a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and that should continue strong into next year. I really really enjoy doing livestreams, and I have a lot of cool ideas that I want to try out next year. I feel like I let streaming take a back seat to my YouTube work during the past year or two, and I don’t want that to be the case anymore because I do really love doing it.

OTHER UPDATES:

brutalmusic fans, don’t fret! My first album is right around the corner. No, really! I mean it this time! Sorry for making you wait but I probably announced it a little earlier than I should have, oops. I should be able to get you some of that new music by the end of the month – thanks for hanging with me on this!

the brutalmoose refrigerator leak disaster of 2023 is almost over! My kitchen floor is fully repaired, and the living room carpet is being installed as I draft this blog post. All that’s left now is to re-build a couple of the kitchen cabinets. That’s supposededly going to take some time and be a pain in the ass, but at least the rooms are usable, now. That’s what’s most important.

CONCLUSION:

I am so incredibly excited for this change in my workflow. I feel like I’ve fallen into a cycle of getting really hyped for new ideas at the top of the month, then letting it all fall to the wayside in the second half of the month as I cram to complete a video so that I can meet an ad deadline. It’s made me become much more of an over-promiser and under-deliverer than I’m comfortable being. Going forward I’m definitely going to be more cautious about what kind of advertising deals I accept, especially if it’s something longterm.

Anyways thank you all for sticking with me, as always! MJ says hello. Hope you guys are doing well!