Videos for brands. They’ve been around for decades, and yet for the past few years we’ve been talking about them like they’re something completely new to the scene. Because, in a way, they are. You see, before the internet, YouTube, Social Media and the likes, brand video usually meant 30 second advertising spots that you saw on TV during “commercial breaks” or at the movies, before the feature you came to see started.
What’s different now and why the discourse has changed is that the web has enabled brand video creators to go beyond the traditional 30 second spot, into other types of video content, and reach far wider audiences than before.
But that doesn’t mean that simply producing video content – any content – will guarantee success. The increase in brand video production made audiences more selective, so videos have to stand out in order to make a difference in the public’s mind. In other words, they need to be good. Actually, not just good. They need to be great.
But what does a great brand video do?
First of all, it provides value.
Great brand video is produced with more than just sales in mind. These videos need to make their audience’s life better somehow, to enrich it. If you want your brand videos to do that, they need to be:
Engaging: Your brand videos spark interest or curiosity, makes the audience want more.
Informative: Your content educates the audience. After watching your videos, people feel smarter, better informed, more educated etc. This means creating videos that offer practical advice, tutorials, tips and tricks and so on.
Entertaining: When people talk about “viral videos”, they usually mean this type of content – videos that are exciting, interesting, or just good fun.
For example, here is a video we produced that explains the advantages of medicinal shoe insoles:
Second, it tells a story with emotion.
The visual medium in general, and motion pictures in particular, has the advantage that it can trigger an emotional response from viewers. A study published in 2015 found that highly emotional content was more likely to go viral, because of something called “emotional contagion”, which basically means that a person’s emotions will elicit similar emotions in others people who witness them. So whatever story your brand wants to tell, make sure it’s supported by a core emotion and make sure that everything you create in the process (script, shot list, music cues etc.) is designed to carry that emotion.
Here are a few boxes your video content needs to tick in order to have an emotional impact on it’s audience.
Good story
Your video script should, as much as possible, borrow from the traditional story structure. It needs to have an introduction, a dvelopment, a climax and a denouement. It also needs to have a good narrative that makes sense and is easy to follow. In the end, it needs to make use of the emotional response it elicited in the audience to make them take action.
Music
Music can help lift your story emotionally tremedously if you use it well. Just make sure the music you choose fits the story you’re telling.
Voiceover
We talked earlier about emotional contagion and how we respond to other people’s emotions. That’s why having a human voice narrate your story, with emotion, is a sure fire way to have your audience feel the same emotion. Because the human voice is familiar, it is another device to deliver your message in an impactful way. That human element can reinforce a sense of comfort, giving your brand more credibility.
Length of the video
There are many “schools of thought” here. Some will say short is best. Others, that stories need time to develop. We believe that videos need to be as long as they need to tell the story in a way that people understand it and connect to it. Also, the length of your video will depend on the audience you’re targeting, the platform they will watch it on and the action you want them to take at the end.
Here is an example we produced for TELUS International’s annual event TELUS Days Of Giving. It was produced at a time when everyone was trying to make videos as short as possible, yet both us and the client knew that the story needed its full 4 minutes of runtime to develop well and have an impact.
