Video Agency Épinal: Creative Ads, UGC and TikTok Formats
Long before social media, Épinal was already selling stories in pictures: the Imagerie on quai de Dogneville has been printing them since 1796.
Scroll to learn more ↓︎Shooting, editing and publishing for brands in Épinal
Long before social media, Épinal was already selling stories in pictures: the Imagerie on quai de Dogneville has been printing them since 1796. Insee records 32,251 inhabitants there in 2023; the prefecture of the Vosges, the commune is largely covered in forest. Our Paris studio travels to shoot Meta ads, UGC testimonials and TikTok formats here, for the shops, wood-industry firms and cultural venues of Épinal, from the town centre to the Campus Bois.
See our workFrom the 1796 Imagerie to Reels
According to Explore France, Atout France's website, the Maison Imagerie d'Épinal is the last imagerie still in operation in the world. In 2014, two entrepreneurs from the Vosges relaunched it, multiplying collaborations with illustrators, comic-book authors and street artists. The parallel with short-form content is direct: an image d'Épinal told a story in a few panels, a Reel does it in a few shots. For a local business, this visual culture is a resource. A workshop that prints the old-fashioned way is best filmed very close up, ink and paper included, and holds attention far better than a wide shot of a shopfront. A gift shop or bookshop can shoot a UGC format in which a customer unwraps a print bought that morning. We write these videos with a real arc, beginning, twist, end, like a panelled print.
A catchment area built for 100,000 inhabitants
Insee's census gives 32,251 people in Épinal in 2023, slightly more than the 31,740 of 2017. The figure that matters to a shopkeeper lies elsewhere, though. According to the City, Épinal has a catchment area comparable to that of a city of 100,000 inhabitants and brings together most of the brands found in major French cities. The traders' association Epicentre alone lists 240 Épinal traders. An independent shop in the centre therefore finds itself up against national brands, with customers who come partly from neighbouring communes. A Meta ad served across the whole catchment area, in which a creator shows the route, the parking and the welcome in the shop, answers this situation directly. On the casting side, a UGC agency in Épinal is better off mixing residents of Épinal and of the surrounding area, so that every potential customer sees themselves in the video.
Vosges timber, ENSTIB and Campus Bois
The City of Épinal presents itself as the capital of wood, and the figures it publishes bear that out: the Vosges is the 3rd French département by number of companies in the sector, which accounts for 13,000 jobs there, and the Vosges forest covers 282,000 hectares, a woodland rate of 48%. Within the commune alone, the wooded area reaches 3,550 hectares. At the Campus Bois, ENSTIB, part of the Université de Lorraine, is the only public engineering school in France specialising in wood technologies. For a sawmill, a panel manufacturer or a timber builder, video is above all for recruiting technicians and engineers: a portrait of an operator on his line, a timber-frame house build filmed in time-lapse, a process explained for LinkedIn. The Défis du Bois, organised since 2005 with the Nancy school of architecture, also provide powerful images: timber structures designed and built by young engineers and architects.
Château, parc du Cours and place des Vosges
The terrain gives Épinal rare viewpoints. The château, built in the 13th century by the bishops of Metz on a rocky spur at 387 metres, overlooks the Moselle valley. Below it, the parc du Château, a 26-hectare English-style garden open free of charge all year round, offers its paths and its Chinese Tower, built between 1805 and 1808. Place des Vosges keeps its commercial arcades, and the basilica of Saint-Maurice remains the oldest surviving building in the town. The calendar paces the shoots: at the end of May, the Imaginales sets up a four-day festival of imaginative literature in the parc du Cours, on the banks of the Moselle, with more than 45,000 visitors a year according to the City. In June, Rues et Cies fills the squares with street performances. In December, the Saint-Nicolas festivities take over in the centre.
An Épinal shoot prepared from Paris
The journey begins at gare de l'Est, where the team takes the TGV with two suitcases of equipment. The script, locations and casting of Vosges or Lorraine creators are wrapped up in advance, as soon as the brief calls for faces known to the local public. A typical day starts in the morning at the covered market for fresh produce shots, continues in a shop on place des Vosges, then in a workshop or a wood-industry company in the afternoon. The end of the day is kept for the Moselle quays or the parc du Château, as the light drops. For a brand aiming at the whole agglomeration, we also film the access routes and the parking, the practical questions customers ask themselves before coming. Rushes sorting and editing then take place in our offices in the 8th arrondissement, with hook variants for Meta and TikTok.
Why creative ads deliver better results
An ad that looks like an ad gets skipped in a second. A creative ad works on the hook, the message and the format so it is watched to the end, then tested and adapted for as long as it converts.
Get resultsContent built to capture, engage and convert
Our approach to creative ads
Every video is designed to be tested, measured and then improved.
Strategy & audience analysis
Market, goals and audiences: we choose the angles to test.
Visual creation & ad copywriting
Scripts, shooting and editing to each platform's codes.
Testing, iteration & continuous optimisation
We compare the variants and roll out the winners.
Frequently asked questions about our video production studio
Another question? Write to us, reply within 24 hours.
Write to usChoose your slot now
30 minutes with our team. You leave with a content plan, even if we don't end up working together.