The Goldbox Blog

2022: A year in review

Now that the new year is in full swing, we wanted to look back at 2022 and take a moment to reflect on all the best highlights.

11th January, 2023

Written by Ben Collison

2022 was a fantastic year overall, filled with fun, packed with progress, and, stuffed to the brim with lots of spectacular shoots! Across the board, things have improved significantly, for us individually, as a team, and as an overall brand.

Of course, these things do not happen overnight, and life is of course not always sunshine and rainbows. So before we get to all the good bits, let us start at the beginning of January, a time when circumstances were a little shakier.

For many businesses, January in particular can be a pretty quiet month under normal circumstances. However, the way this year began was far from it with the country still adjusting to life after the lockdown, rising inflation, and the war in Ukraine.

The first couple of months for us were pretty tough. After speaking with other businesses, big and small, it was somewhat reassuring to hear we were not alone in this situation.

We could not just lie down and do nothing though. So instead, we embraced the pressure and utilized the fact we had more free time to our full advantage.

A lot of necessary changes were made in the process that has stuck ever since. This has allowed us to bring in a variety of different clients month-on-month with consistency and produce incredible results.

At the end of February, we took a little break to relax and reset. It was exactly what we needed and became a real turning point for us moving forward. Creating a snowball effect that continued to build and build throughout the entire year.

Let's now take a look at some of these successes that occurred throughout last year.

First of all, our service has improved significantly. The four of us feel incredibly energized within our roles, which we have continued to tweak and improve through honest, open discussion.

This has increased the efficiency and quality of our processes considerably. Across the board, the feedback we have received from clients has been overwhelmingly positive. Being creative and implementing new techniques when producing videos motivates us. So it's a great feeling to know our production quality keeps improving month by month.

We also refined our formula to provide a wide range of solutions and services for new clients, no matter their industry or audience. This paid off as we have worked with all kinds of brilliant brands across the country.

Securing work with two big brands, Hilton Hotels and Dunelm in particular felt like a big milestone and we cannot wait to work with them again very soon.

It has been especially rewarding to work with lots more local businesses and organizations doing some really good things.

Some of the positive messages we were able to share through video include:

Collaborating with Derby Theatre, University of Derby & Derby College on a project called Odyssey - a virtual reality live audio play experience for care-experienced young people and families.

Building a relationship with Nimbus Disability to promote their access card, which has removed all of the hassle disabled people faced when trying to access events. This has swept the country and won them the Queens Award for Enterprise.

Working with Marketing Derby on three projects to date, interviewing tons of important people all doing amazing things to help innovate the area. Filming and attending their London Embassy Event in particular was an incredible experience for us. We still feel it is our most cinematic piece of work to date.

Creating a lovely little promo video for Little Starts gift cards. Katie and the team created this idea to give access to 1000s of classes for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. This allows children to engage in social, play-based environments instead of just buying plastic toys that are not as fun and become forgotten too soon!

Cosy Direct’s sustainability efforts also won them a Queens Award for Enterprise, which was great to show off after they gave us a tour of their HQ out in the beautiful countryside.

Ward Recycling gave us a ton of creative freedom to help make people more aware of just how much good they do to recycle almost every material that comes their way for reuse.

Finally, we filmed the Christmas Show Online for the third year in a row now for Darley Dance Productions. It's always a blast being able to capture such fun dancing, singing, and comedic routines.

Events filming has been one of the more popular services for us this year, however the breakout star, without a doubt, has to be our new wedding film service. This has been a monumental success, mainly because of our focus on providing such a bespoke experience for each couple with a cinematic touch.

The feedback could not have been more positive from the many diverse couples we have worked with all across the country. We feel truly grateful to be able to use our passion for filmmaking and storytelling to capture the most important day of their lives.

Moving into our new office at the Enterprise Centre was another big milestone for us. It’s a stunning environment that we feel privileged to walk into each day and everyone in the building is always so friendly.

We cannot thank the University of Derby, who owns the building, enough for being so accommodating and we look forward to continuing to strengthen our already strong relationship with them moving forward.

Our marketing and branding have gone up a level as well. Providing free value has always been a big passion of ours and we have thoroughly enjoyed advising people through our nurture content reels and blogs which seem to get a really good response.

The website has also had a complete revamp, now with much easier navigation, tons more content, and info, plus a much cleaner design. Hopefully, you agree whilst reading this!

Several interesting opportunities have come our way in the form of hot press and public speaking. We worked with the BBC on a couple of occasions, appearing on the news as well as participating in their Share Your Story talks at local schools. Attending lectures, speaking on stage, and supporting a few UCAS events with the University of Derby has also been a blast!

We never expected to be given these opportunities to inspire young people in deciding where they want to go in life. We’re still figuring that out for ourselves to a certain extent but that seems to make our story all the more resonating.

Honesty is one of our most important values here at GoldBox, so we try not to sugarcoat things when presenting ourselves in these environments. Instead, striving to be as open about all the highs and lows we have experienced, and what we learned from them to make as positive progress, as possible.

The last couple of months for 2022 in particular were really busy for us, a complete turnaround considering where we were at the start of the year! It felt like a non-stop thrill ride, the perfect way to end the year before enjoying a relaxing Christmas break with family and friends.

Overall, we have worked with so many brilliant clients across 2022 and want to thank every one of them for their continued support. This year is already looking to be our busiest and best yet and we’re committed to smashing it out of the park!

Here’s to a great 2023!