Tunbridge Wells-based company Digitom marks its tenth year by winning ‘Video Production Specialists of the Year’ in the South England Prestige Awards 2020 and ‘Best Video Production Company – Kent’ in the UK Enterprise Awards 2020.
Published: November 2020
Digitom, which creates video and animated content for a variety of clients in the private and public sector, has also earned industry recognition from the global industry directory Creativepool, ranking second in their production services listing. Earlier in the year the agency was a finalist at the prestigious Royal Television Society Southern Awards for its work with global tech company Nextdoor.
Founder and creative director Tom Chown said: “The variety of work we undertake means no two briefs are ever the same. We’re fortunate to be able to trade on our reputation. We have worked with some amazing clients who have then referred and recommend us to their colleagues.
Founder & Creative Director Tom Chown Credit: David Bartholomew
“The creative sector is highly competitive. I’ll be honest, when I set the company up in 2010 I just wanted to make films, but I very quickly learnt that to succeed as a small business owner you have to be responsible for everything, from the IT and equipment to marketing and making the coffee.”
2020 also saw Digitom invest £30,000 in brand new bespoke office premises, which more than doubled their capacity. Accessing a grant from the South East Creative, Cultural and Digital Support programme enabled the creation of a new role; Bournemouth University graduate Jacob Baker joined the company as a production assistant in July.
During lockdown Digitom pivoted its production services to support clients with remote screen recording, turning the edit suite into a broadcast studio, filming client projects with contributors around the world.
“We were called upon by the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) which, due to Covid-19 restrictions, couldn’t meet face-to-face and onboard their new directors. Within seven working days we created an e-learning module from scratch which enabled SELEP to continue functioning and distribute state support across Essex, Kent and Sussex,” added Tom.
Covid-safe production for Stagecoach
As soon as industry guidelines on Covid-secure measures were published for the creative sector, the team returned to filming in person. This included their second campaign this year for Stagecoach South East, capturing the enhanced cleaning measures taken to keep passengers onboard their buses safe.
“I’ve seen many technological developments during my career, most notably the move from analogue to digital broadcasting in 1999, and then rise of video on the internet. One thing that’s remained key to any content is the narrative. What story are you telling, why and who’s your audience.”
Adapting to the changing communications landscape has been key to Digitom’s growth and sharing professional film-making expertise complements their services. The advent of smartphones, empowering the growth of user-generated content (UGC), has seen Digitom’s training programme adapt to deliver workshops for the likes of KPMG, EKC Group and Savills.
Tom concluded: “2020 has been an emotional roller-coaster. When the first lockdown came the biggest impact was undoubtably the juggling between work and sharing home-schooling with my wife, adapting to the constantly changing guidance and trying to maintain some sense of normality. This year has definitely aged me! My beard’s going grey and I have more wrinkles. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder on the business – it was exhausting – but we’ve got some really exciting projects in the pipeline for 2021 that we’re looking forward to working on.”
Published by Kent Business News 27th November
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