How Storyblocks enabled Freethink Media to grow their audience and produce impactful branded content

In a news landscape so often dominated by toxicity and negativity, Freethink Media instead focuses on telling stories that provoke thought and inspire conversation. The media company, based around their flagship editorial brands, Freethink.com and Bigthink.com, employs a skilled team of over 65 journalists and filmmakers spread out across the US and Europe. Over time, they’ve become a leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content, featuring experts ranging from Bill Nye to Michio Kaku.

The team produces both premium short-form documentary-style content as well as quick-hitting “social-forward” content like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. The busy team puts out four marquee documentary videos every week, along with sponsored content created 
in collaboration with more than 100 brand partners. To create videos that are as engaging as possible, Freethink Media relies on stock media to supplement their visual storytelling.

Since 2019, the forward-thinking media company has trusted Storyblocks for the footage it needs to capture viewers’ attention and grow their audience. Freethink treats branded content with the same degree of care and integrity as its editorial work, so maintaining their high-quality standard across all content types is paramount.

Filmmaking and cinematography are the cornerstone of the products we put out.”

Tim Drummond

Lead Video Editor, BigThink at Freethink

How Storyblocks became Freethink Media’s essential stock footage partner

Freethink Media has grown a lot since its 2016 launch, and for much of that time, Storyblocks has grown right alongside them. Their audience numbers have surged since they stepped up their video output, and Storyblocks has been an instrumental partner every step of the way.

As subscribers to Storyblocks’ unlimited subscription model, they’ve got access to everything they need to ensure both visual interest and maximum impact for every piece of content they put out. As Drummond notes: “We want to be able to add some visual interest to visual storytelling, to add a little bit of variety. Stock footage is the primary way that we do that, and it’s a huge part of the product that we make at Big Think.”

We started releasing content in 2016 and we were pretty small at that point. We weren’t growing super fast, but then came an uptick in being able to release more videos.

Mike LaHood

Lead Video Editor, Freethink

This has been a huge cost savings, especially for footage that would be impossible to capture or create themselves. The depth and breadth of subjects they cover require a wide variety of footage, often including historical or conceptual topics, or esoteric topics around science and nature, energy, space, technology, and healthcare. The footage has to be not only plentiful, but the quality must also meet a certain standard to match their highly credible journalistic style.

What I really appreciate about Storyblocks specifically is that it has stuff that feels real. I can really lean into Storyblocks content for news-type footage.

Collin Mauro

Senior Video Editor, Freethink

Much of Freethink Media’s content centers around discussing new ideas and big topics, so having an engaged audience is one of their biggest measures of success. One key metric they carefully monitor is how many viewers watch their content from start to finish, which they define as completed video views. As Drummond puts it: “We value growing our audience, but one of our base metrics of success is: can we grow an audience that wants to watch and stay engaged with our content.”

“We want to make it something that our audience is interested in sitting down for, hopefully watching the next one, and hitting subscribe – all those good things.” – Tim Drummond

Commercial-use stock helped forge 100+ unique brand partnerships

Freethink Media regularly leverages Storyblocks’ collection of commercial-use stock footage to support its more than 100 unique brand partnerships, including renowned brands like Ford, SAP, Microsoft, Ancestry.com, and Pfizer, as well as notable foundations like The John Templeton Foundation, Unlikely Collaborators, and the Skoll Foundation.

These partnerships represent a vital revenue stream, and Freethink treats this content with the same integrity 
as they do their own editorial content.

Their focus on creating highly watchable content means they’re able to guarantee 
at least 200k completed views across most of their branded videos, rather than just focusing on total views. To achieve this, they hold their partnership content to the same standard as their editorial, applying a consistent tone of voice and engagement strategy. It’s also important that all of the stock media they use for branded content is available for commercial use, not just editorial use, while ensuring it still has 
that authentic editorial feel.

“We work on a lot of really fun and exciting stories with our partners, and it’s important to know that people are watching, so ‘watch time minutes’ is another important metric for us, and especially meaningful for brands that want to get their stories out there.” – Mike LaHood

Enhanced creativity leads to award-winning results with Storyblocks

Their meticulous efforts have paid off 
time and time again. Freethink Media has 
racked up 45 distinguished awards for their branded content, including a Webby award for Short Form Video for a video 
on the future of cancer research created 
in collaboration with Intel.

With their Storyblocks subscription, Freethink Media has the freedom to experiment until they create the exact look and feel for their next video. They can download as many unwatermarked comps as they need and test different assets out. Even if they only end up using 10 frames, it saves them time, stress, and money. Even if it just saves a little bit of a headache for every project, over the course of a year, that really adds up,” says Drummond.

When we were able to get access to Storyblocks, it opened the doors to a lot of creative things that we used to not be able to do because we couldn’t justify paying for a half second of a shot – the value wasn’t there.” – Mike LaHood

Conclusion

With Storyblocks, Freethink has been able to produce a steady stream of engaging, high-quality videos that are perfectly calibrated to their audience’s tastes and interests. This has been a critical part of their business success as a media organization and instrumental in their rise as a popular and trusted source of news and information.