Understanding the goals of your corporate video production
After a while of focusing on music and event video productions, I’ve decided to dive deeper into the realm of corporate videos. On the contrary to an existing opinion that corporate videos are usually boring, I actually think they can be very challenging in a creative way. But working on some of the recent projects got me thinking that it’s actually more important to answer the “why” question first, before getting to the “how”. And while the idea, creativity and quality are important to avoid the risk of being boring, starting with defining the goals and messaging is crucial.
What does corporate video really mean and what does it do?
I like to think about producing corporate videos as the art of combining filmmaking, marketing and communication. Instead of talking about products or services, they tell the story of the company or brand and aim to showcase their mission, vision, values or culture. The indispensable element of the definition is to wrap it all up in a visually appealing and emotionally compelling form. A corporate video should be a presentation of the identity and its job should be to create a lasting impression on the audience. Easy, right? But how to achieve this? Three tools: brand message, story and purpose. And I wouldn’t be myself if I haven’t thrown a good pinch of creativity and fun into the mix. In other words, we’re producing corporate videos to inspire, inform and entertain.
How to make a corporate video “Noisy”?
Best practices & our approach
As the title itself suggests, the purpose is king if it comes to our approach to producing corporate videos. This is always the first step on the road map with any client we work with. The goals mentioned above are rather general, but the specific goals of the videos can be very different and have to be defined before anything else happens. Do we want to build brand awareness, attract talent, showcase values or something else? I’ve mentioned marketing before and I think that it is extremely important to discuss every single video as a part of the company’s marketing strategy, so its goals can be aligned. The goals will determine what kind of research has to be done as the second step. The research is usually a pretty exciting and informative process and the outcomes give us steps three and four which are defining the target audience and the channels of broadcasting the message. Honestly, it’s quite hard to talk about those processes and separate steps, cause they all influence each other and are essential for what I call the strategic part of the pre-production phase. The thorough work on the goals and research is our good friend when we take on the creative phase. As the definition says, a good corporate video has to be engaging and visually appealing to the target audience. That’s why it’s a great field to think outside the box, have a cinematic approach and use technology to help achieve the best possible quality. There are still a lot of people picturing the “talking heads” when thinking about corporate videos. And there’s a reason! “Talking-to-the-camera” style videos tend to be the reason why people are getting bored when watching them. It’s important not to be afraid of being a little out there with the ideas sometimes to achieve the messaging goal. An action video with stunts when talking about careers in procurement? Why not?! As long as we don’t bury “the meet” and the aesthetics and creativity aren’t taking control of the purpose.
If you’d like to learn more about our process, check out our website and learn more. I’d be happy to learn about your business and how we can implement the above to create a kick-ass video for you!
Five "deadly" sins
Producing corporate videos always come with high hopes and great expectations, so it’s not the worst thing to think ahead to avoid some sins that can be committed along the way. One of those mistakes might be not thinking about the videos in a strategic way. Doing an ad hoc production might have its pros, but well thought-through video marketing strategy can help achieve long-term goals. Not defining the goals might be followed by mismatching the target audience and making the messaging, well, completely pointless. One of the reasons some of the corporate videos (and virtually any videos) are boring is the lack of storytelling. And again, storytelling is not always a person telling the story to the camera. It’s important to be creative and avoid the old patterns that are just vanilla. At the same time, we have to pay attention and not let the purpose be defeated by the form. It has to be simply balanced to achieve the goals. What’s also important to consider these days is the length of the video. As a rule of thumb, corporate videos are anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes, that however, depends on the channel. Most companies are putting their videos on YouTube, where the average view duration is around 50-60 % of the actual running time. Length is even more important when the main channels are Instagram or TikTok.
I don’t want to share too much, but I’m really excited about one of the corporate video productions we’re working on right now. Hopefully, it’s gonna have all the elements mentioned above that make a good corporate video. If you’re curious how it turns out, watch Noisy Creations at the end of May. As part of the research for this production, I’ve started looking for examples of creative videos made for brands, that might not sound so creative and fun at first glance. One of the examples is HubSpot’s spot about its company culture. Another TV commercial-like video campaign I really liked is Allianz’s “Confidence is tomorrow”. But what really struck me doing that research was that there aren’t as many “out of the box” videos as one might think, but it’s worth mentioning that this is an observation from the finance industry. But feel free to drop some links in the comment if you know them!
To wrap up, to produce a good corporate video: 1. Think “strategic” when defining goals
2. Do your research
3. Take care of clear messaging
4. Put story-telling first
5. Don’t be afraid of “little out there” ideas
We’d love to learn more about you and your company to tailor your video strategy to you. We’re your one-stop-shop video production excellence in Sydney. We specialize in creating videos that don't just look great, but drive real results for your business. Book a call and let’s make some noise together!