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We’re entering the ‘post-hardware’ era of corporate video production.

June 8, 2013 by 2 Comments

 

 

Changes in Corporate Video , One Market Media

 

Very soon, hardware will cease to be a differentiating factor in corporate video production. 

Way back in the day (i.e. five years ago) the equipment you owned defined your place in the video production hierarchy. Big production houses had very expensive equipment and charged accordingly. Then, out of the blue, Canon added a basic video capture feature to one of their portrait cameras and the video production industry has never been the same.

Today, professional video editing software is virtually free – so cheap that the cost is immaterial. Premiere, Final Cut, Media Composer, Vegas… whichever NLE that suits your purpose – they’re all great products that do much the same thing. The differences between them now relegated to angry LinkedIn rants. Same goes for editing platforms. Nobody knows or cares if you edit on a Mac or a PC. It’s irrelevant.

Hardware still matters in corporate video production today, but not for much longer. Black Magic has just announced a $4,000, 4k camera with a global shutter. That’s astonishing. It’s not perfect, it’s not quite ‘full featured’ and folks with ‘real 4k camera’s’ will dismiss this new camera as something less than ‘professional,’ but that would completely miss the point. 4k workflow is still a bit of a kludge for many, tomorrow it won’t be. Technology is narrowing the gap quicker than any of us realize and the subtleties and nuances that we in the industry chatter about are lost on the average corporate video viewer. Granted, there will always be the need (or desire) to employ the most expensive camera on the market to shoot an immensely complex high-end video for theatre advertising of for broadcast but for the vast majority of corporate video projects the tools we need are readily accessible and they are getting cheaper and better by the day.

We never really see these things coming – we can’t. Our linear brains are not wired to anticipate or predict the effect of exponential growth in technology. The incredible change we’ve witnessed over the past few years in the video production industry is really just the beginning. In a few years we’ll all be shooting and editing in 4k. (Whether it’s one, two or three years doesn’t really matter.) The point is that the cost of hardware is going to follow a similar path to that of software. It will never be free, of course, but it will be cheap enough that hardware will cease to be a differentiating factor in corporate video production.  Everybody is going to have access to the same great equipment and the same great tools. What happens then?

 

1. A new pecking order will emerge

Each geographic market will continue to have a video production market leader or two – the big name production houses that attract top talent. That won’t change. Beyond and below that however, we’ll start to see a lot of change, in fact that change has already begun. There will continue to be a flow of new market entrants as the cost of production drops. I’m not referring to the steady churn of ‘dabblers’ at the low end of the industry. I mean creative people, marketing people and people with other strategic skills who will begin to take up video production on their own… because they can. We’d all like to think that video production is a highly nuanced craft that requires years of mastery and training but the truth is that if you have talent and drive today there is very little stopping you. You don’t need to work your way up in a production house spending years learning different skills. We’ll also start to see creative firms competing across service specialties. Most ad agencies are already experimenting with video in-house and you will also begin to see video production companies working in social media, marketing and other non-traditional areas. Video production will remain a specialty for some, but for others it will become part of a more integrated offering.

2. More sector specialization

Calling up a prospective customer and saying ‘we do video, would you like some’ used to bear fruit. Today it doesn’t. Being ‘everything to everyone’ isn’t how you want to be positioned going forward. The value in video used to be in production and post-production. Today and tomorrow the real value will be in pre-production. That’s where the ideas, the business logic and marketing strategy are developed. Finding someone who has good equipment and understands how to frame, light and edit won’t be the biggest challenge. The challenge will be finding firms that can help you create a storyboard that delivers some type of measurable business outcome. I’m not diminishing the need for great production and post production skills. I’m saying that these skills, to some degree, will become table-stakes and they will be abundant.  We’re already starting to see the first stages of specialization in the Industry. Video production companies are beginning to specialize in specific business verticals. This evolution is inevitable. As a business owner who would you rather work with; someone who understands the quirks and dynamics of your industry (and someone who might even teach you a few new tricks), or a firm that does corporate video for everyone or simply to finance their entertainment ambitions. As new (non-video production industry trained) entrants come into the market they will bring their business sector knowledge with them – and that will add value to the process. Making beautiful video won’t be as important as making video that achieves a measurable marketing objective. Prospective customers are going to start asking you what type of video you specialize in.

3. More accountability

Accountability is the thing that most production professionals don’t see coming. As the cost of production drops it becomes harder to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Businesses are going to start to hold production houses accountable for results. “Hey, I just shoot and edit video, it’s your script” won’t cut-it. Similarly, winning awards, looking cool and being clever won’t matter the way it used to. As the web becomes the medium of choice for the vast majority of corporate video, feedback and measurement tools will have to become part of your service offering. And why shouldn’t they? This is exactly what business owners want. If you’re going to spend $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 or more on a video wouldn’t you want some way of measuring its value to your company? The production houses that bring some level of accountability into the process will thrive. A cool production reel won’t be enough.

4. Video Quality will improve.

I‘m not referring to the overall average quality (average quality has to drop as more people and businesses cycle through bad experiences in the vast lower margins of video production.) I am referring to the quality level of output from most professional video production houses (the folks and businesses who make a full-time living in video production ) – the quality level from full-time production houses will continue to increase. There are many reasons why:

Better tools (all other things being equal) better tools in the hands of professionals will result in higher quality products.

More experimentation. Access to high performance tools will result in more new methods, styles and uses of video. This will lead to better products over time.

Better and quicker learning. There is an unprecedented amount of great training available online either for free or at a very low cost. There are very few secrets in video production today. Just ask Phillip Bloom. Besides that, the best way to learn is by doing, and having access to all of the exciting new tools of production (not just classroom access as was traditionally the case) will result in much faster learning.

Better reference materials. Let’s not kid ourselves, just like in the movie industry; all corporate video production is derivative. We learn from others. We copy others. We do what other people are doing. The quality of reference materials and access to great video samples (i.e. on Vimeo) is accelerating and there is no end of people wanting to showcase their work. We will continue to learn from, and emulate others. The spiral is definitely upwards in this regard.

Specialization. As more people employ video in their marketing activities more specialists will evolve – both in-house and in production houses. This will result in better quality video because the content will become more focused and strategic.

Necessity. Owning equipment used to guarantee you work. Tomorrow it won’t. That means that only companies with initiative and talent will survive. By definition then, the overall quality has to improve.

Business demand. Video marketing will continue to grow in importance. Today video marketing is important mostly for web-based companies and large businesses who can afford broadcast advertising. Tomorrow virtually all businesses will be employing video in their marketing activities.

Allocation of funds will be more efficient. Money spent today on using expensive equipment will be put to better use in pre-production, distribution and measurement.

New and better ecosystems will evolve. As video production increases in use and popularity we’re seeing the development of new and exciting ecosystems develop. Amazon just introduced an automated storyboard tool. Hardware manufactures are all clamoring to announce new motion stabilization tools. All of these support and peripheral tools used in video production will quickly drop in price as competition and broad adoption brings in more money and technology to the industry.

5. Video Production Costs will continue to drop as video production becomes mainstream. (But the amount of work will continue to increase.)

My daughter learned video editing in grade 9 and she’s rather good at it – so are many of her friends. Basic video skills are already a commodity and the downward pressure on equipment prices will result in a hollowing out of the low end of the industry – much the same as we’ve witnessed in photography. Corporations will take simple video production in-house because they can and because it makes sense to do so – especially for basic point and shoot projects. Companies serving the vast and ever-changing middle market will also experience price erosion but specialization and new added-value services should help to alleviate some of this pressure. We’ve seen the same phenomena in website production over the last few years. There is little to no money to be made designing and developing simple/basic websites because there are too many free and DYI options available at the low end. Yet there is still a vibrant market for servicing mid and higher-end websites. The valuable work now for websites is where it always should have been – in creating compelling content. Video will play a larger role in future content creation priorities for corporate websites.

While prices at the high-end of the market have dropped the volume of work has increased dramatically. Television commercials and high-end corporate overview videos used to be the only high-end corporate video production opportunities available but today there are many different types and uses of corporate video.

These market forces will continue to cause production houses to become leaner (and yes, perhaps a bit meaner…) and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. New tech drives new efficiencies in every market it touches. Working out of your house is a good thing. A two-man crew that can do the same work that a three or four-man crew used to do is a good thing. Fitting all of your gear into a car rather than a panel van is also a good thing. Being lean and being nimble is a very smart way to run a business in an industry in transition.

As the cost of equipment continues to drop, talent, drive and specialized skills and knowledge will become critical success factors in corporate video production. What equipment you use won’t really matter.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Online Video Industry, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing Tagged With:

8 Ways to Convince Your Boss to Invest in Video Marketing

February 12, 2013 by 13 Comments

 

We’ve seen this movie before…

Remember a few years back when you were trying to convince your boss that your business needed a real website – not just a ‘web presence’ (an html version of your brochure.) Fast forward to today… finally, your website has evolved to become the information and transactional epicenter of your business (congrats!) but you realize that’s still not enough. Now, everywhere you look on the web you see video.  Every social media ‘poke’, ‘share’, ‘link’, ‘favorite’ and ‘like’ is about some new video that everyone is talking about. Big brands are all over video, your friend’s business has been using video for years now and yet there you and your company are, still finessing the text in your value proposition.

What to do? You know that doing video poorly is a waste of time and money. How do you convince your boss it’s time to invest in Video Marketing? Here are eight business arguments you can use to convince your boss that marketing with video should be a top priority for your business:

1. Social Media is more social with video. If social media is part of your marketing mix (it should be) and you want your content and your messages to be shared, include a video with it. Why? A recent report by Brafton Media indicates that online video is the key driver to effective social marketing and that social media marketing with video should be a priority initiative for marketers in 2013 .The report outlines the three basic reasons that video and social media are such a good fit: People like watching video online, people tend to share things they like and creating sharable content differentiates you from your competitors. The study concludes that ’Brands that create video clips for their specific audiences are likely to see success if videos are shared on social sites, as internet users spend 2.5x more time watching short videos that are personally relevant.’

2. Video generates higher engagement. According to Facebooks best-practices guide, posts including a video generate about 100% more engagement than the average post. Dave Marsey from Digitas tells us in this video that video is one of the key triggers that can drive viewer engagement – that increase in engagement ultimately leads to higher revenue. Video also converts! The research group Visual Web Optimizer ran A/B split tests with video on a specific test offer and found a 46% increase in conversion rates with video compared with just text. The folks at Marketing Experiments have found similar results with video but what’s most interesting is that they’ve also discovered that an offer than combines both strong text AND video is the most effective. Including both formats allows the user to consume the content in the manner which is must suitable to user.

3. Video viewing drives purchase behavior. A recent IDG study reported that ’64% of consumers have researched a product as a result of watching a tech-related video in recent months and close to half of them then looked for a product in a retail store (45%), visited a vendor website or contacted a vendor for information (45%), or purchased a product (44%).’ The same IDG study goes on to explain how much digital is part of consumers lives and that video is becoming the centerpiece of that consumer experience. According to Internet Retailer, over 50% of the people who watch online videos claim that those videos make them more confident about buying a product. This same report also stated that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not. According to Reel SEO, video has become so influential that ’4 in 10 shoppers visited a store online or in-person as a direct result of watching a video. Today, nearly 1 in 3 shoppers use YouTube to shop for apparel.’

4. Quality video impacts customer perceptions and behaviors.  A 2012 study by Unrly media found that viewer enjoyment of branded video is important because it has a direct impact on key brand metrics. Viewers who enjoyed the video they watched demonstrated 139% higher brand association, 97% higher purchase intent, 35% higher brand favorability, and 14% higher brand recall than their counterparts who did not enjoy the video.

5, Professionally produced  video content is good… and so is User Generated. Comscore released a study that looked at the sales effectivenees of professionally produced videos. Not surprising was the lift in preference for both featured products and the Brands total line was 25% higher after watching the professionally produced video. The User-generated video still generated stronger purchase presence at a lower 16% but what’s interesting is that the combination of professionally produced AND user-generated video produced a combined 35% increase in purchase preference.

6. Video helps your site with SEO. According to Search Engine Watch, ’Google and other search engines work to have a mix of content types displayed in search results (a.k.a., blended search results). For this reason, they give a higher ranking to video content than other forms of Web content in order to make sure that searches consistently display mixed search results.’ (There is an often misquoted 2008 research report conducted by Forrestor that claimed anywhere from a 50% to a 500% lift in search engine performance with the use of video. Forrestor stills agrees in principle with the findings of the report but doesn’t provide any specific performance reference.) A post by Jeremy Scott at REELSEO claims that videos in universal search results have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts. 

7. Adding digital video to a TV media plan is very effective. Comscore has released a study looking at the effectiveness of traditional broadcast advertising and online ad buying. Key findings indicate adding a digital video component to a TV media plan can increase reach very efficiently. The report shows that digital video ad formats are just as effective as TV ads and that multi-screen viewers (especially in the younger age segments) need to be marketed to on multiple screens.

8. Video adoption metrics.. (The numbers you see quoted most often) There’s a wealth of statistical information concerning the adoption of video and some of these trends may be relevant to your business. It’s always best to lead with direct evidence, but if that isn’t enough here is a list of trends and stats that you can overwhelm your boss with:

- Youtube attracts a kazillion* viewers a month and a bazillion* videos are uploaded every second. (*estimates)
- 22% of small businesses plan to post a video to YouTube in the next 12 months
- Online video ad spending will double over the next four years.
- Rich media ads with video generate 6 times as many post-ad site visits as standard banner ads.
- Over 90% of advertisers plan to use VANs (video advertising networks) in the coming year.
- 87% of brand and agency marketers use video for content marketing.
- 76% of marketers plan to increase their use of video marketing in the next year.
- Online video has taken the lead from television viewing (84% to 83%) in a recent survey conducted by Nielsen.
- 7 out of 10 B2B marketers use online video. Up 35% from last year.
- 40% of all QR codes take the user to some kind of video content
- Click-thru rates rose 7% to 13& when the word ‘video’ was included in the subject line.
- Forbes Magazine published a report stating 65% of Senior Executives have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video online.
- By 2015 Google predicts that over 50% of all display ads will be rich media ads.

In late 2009 I wrote a blog post declaring that 2010 would be the year that all companies become media companies. I got a little ahead of myself with that prediction but we are beginning to see many companies move beyond simple text and photos online and begin to develop engaging sharable media assets that help explain and promote the unique value offered by their brand.

 

 

Note: This post is also found in the TOP 10 POSTS Category of this blog.

 

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, Top 10 Posts, Video Marketing Tagged With:

9 Things to Consider Before You Shoot a Testimonial Video

November 28, 2012 by 6 Comments

 

 

No one really trusts you or what you have to say about your own company. Why would they? But people will listen to other people’s opinions about your company. If they know and trust that person – so much the better. Even if they don’t, they are more likely to believe a stranger (or better yet, a bunch of strangers) talking about you rather than you talking about you. That’s why testimonial videos are so powerful.

So is any testimonial video a good one? Not necessarily. It has to accomplish three important things:
1. It has be / feel authentic.  ‘Be’ is always better, but ‘feel’ is the next best thing. (We’re talking about marketing here….)
2. It has to be interesting. A talking head is still a talking head no matter what they are saying. Plan on having something interesting going on in the video. (Showing a customer using your product or service is a good place to start.)
3. It has to deliver a message which is relevant and that resonates.  Hearing a customer say “ABC Inc. provided great service… ” is not particularly informative.

 

Before you begin your next testimonial video here are nine things that you should consider:

1. Have you scheduled a pre-shoot meeting?  The best investment of time you can make is to schedule a pre-shoot meeting with the interviewee before the shoot to take them through the process. One of the reasons this doesn’t happen is cost – often your client won’t want to pay for the additional time to prepare for the shoot but this is arguably the most important time investment on the entire project. You get to know your interviewee, you get them familiar (and therefore comfortable) with you and the filming process, you get to do a site inspection prior to shooting and you get to find out the type of things that they may or may not want to say when you start shooting. All of this gives you time to plan and prepare for the shoot.

2. What is the overall style of the video? Is your video simply a talking head of someone sitting on their living room couch or behind their office desk or is it a video that incorporates footage of your customer actually using your product or service? Budget will dictate how much effort you put into your video but it doesn’t require much more effort to shoot the person you are interviewing actually doing something. Planning is usually the problem here. Unless your talking head is truly engaging (most are not) you should at least consider using two cameras for multiple angles (which makes the video easier to watch and helps you cut between sound bites) and you should also consider getting your interviewee physically doing something.

3. Who is speaking and who is on camera? This is an important decision to make upfront. Having a non-speaking spouse (as an example) or non-speaking business colleagues in a video takes away from the dynamic feel of the presentation. If multiple people are speaking and contributing relatively equally – that’s great. But if you have a person in the shot who isn’t speaking, that person will take the energy/attention away from the speaker. Two people are distracting unless their interaction is interesting and complimentary. Perhaps the single biggest challenge is the speaker themselves. Are they articulate, and more important, are they comfortable in front of a camera? If your answer is ‘no’ to these first two points then they had better be good at taking direction otherwise it’s going to be painful. I remember hearing comments about a testimonial video I had shot saying that my client was so lucky to have such a good speaker to represent them.  I wish the viewers could have been there during the shoot… direction and editing can cover up a world of hurt.

 4. What do you want the speaker to say? This is the single most important thing to consider. You don’t just show up with a camera, ask some questions and hope for the best. Before you approach your customer for an endorsement you have to know exactly what you want to hear them say and you have to know that they are receptive to saying it otherwise you may end up wasting everyone’s time. Just because you ask a question doesn’t mean you are going to get the answer you want. Even if you get the answer you want it may not be delivered in a suitable manner (i.e. a distracted ‘Ya… they showed up on time” versus an enthusiastic “Those guys where here exactly when they said would be.” . Arriving equipped to an interview with the right questions is only half the battle. You also need to be equipped with the knowledge of the exact sound bites that you need to hear otherwise you might end up staring blankly at your editing screen wondering what to do with all the useless footage you just shot. The questions don’t matter – it’s the answers you care about. Who’s responsibility is it to make sure the sound bites are exactly what you need?

5. How do you plan on structuring your soundbites? Let’s assume you get exactly what you wanted from your customer – great delivery and great content. Do you lead with a power statement that nicely concludes what you are going to see in the video or do you just start with the answer to the first question? What you place first is critical in video today. Online viewers today have attention spans similar to that of a house fly. You need to ensure that the message you deliver at the beginning of the video makes people think – ‘that’s interesting, tell me more.” I’ve seen too many testimonial videos that start with 30 seconds or more of preamble: “Well now… Bob from ABC Inc. gave me a call on Tuesday… no, it was Wednesday…  ’cause that’s when me and Earl go bowling, anyway, Bob gives me a call and asks me how my bowling game is doing – funny thing about that is… ”

6. How are the testimonial videos being presented? Are you doing one testimonial video or do you plan on doing a series of them. Like resume references, it’s not terribly difficult to get at least one person to say something nice about you. The more voices that support your message the better. If you are planning more than one testimonial video you should try to structure the videos so there is repetition on key brand elements and there is also new information in each video. If the videos are identical people won’t watch more than two because they will expect that they are all the same. If you are planning a series of testimonial videos you should label them clearly so that people can select the videos that relate to their specific concerns. (I.e “Bob Smith from Acme explains how ABC Inc saved him $4000 in research costs”)

7. What is the graphic and titling structure? How do you start your video.  I just watch a really well produced testimonial video that had 35 seconds of introductory branding and text. I wonder if anyone other than me made it through that intro. Do you start with shots of your interviewee, b-roll shots of your interviewee or do you begin with corporate branding and titling? Getting to the message as quickly as possible is critical. Do you include on-screen text anywhere in the video to support what is being said in the video? Using on-screen text in your video helps to reinforce a message BUT it may also make the video look more like a corporate/promotional video rather than a testimonial video. (I.E. Having the word ‘Lifesaver’ come up on-screen as someone uses that word to describe your service is probably too much.)

8. Do you include other support material in the video? As an example, if you are doing a renovation (house, car, person… etc) testimonial video, do you include a ‘before’ shot. Do you illustrate what the ‘problem’ that was solved by your company? It’s always better to show, rather than tell the viewer what the ‘problem’ was – that’s the whole reason to use video. Do you shoot b-roll to support the benefit of your product or service? (The answer is ‘Yes’). B-roll can include anything relating to the content being discussed.

9. What shooting style do you use in your interview? Is the interviewee sitting down or standing up? Are they in and around the thing the product or service that you delivered for them? (I.e. The most typical interview shot you see is someone sitting on a coach against the wall or someone sitting at a desk. Both are visually quite dull. It’s much easier to light and frame a shot if you can get move them and have them looking engaged – people often look ‘trapped’ sitting behind a desk or in the corner of a room on a chair.  This definitely takes more planning and cooperation from your interviewee but if you show up at someone’s office and capture a talking head interview with your iPhone it’s going to look like you showed up at someone’s office and captured a talking head interview with your iPhone.

9+. Do you choreograph your b-roll.?  Yes. Assuming that you want to make your testimonial video interesting to watch you are going to have to get people doing something that shows them engaged with your product or service. Remember, a testimonial video isn’t about you, it’s about the affect your product or service had on that person. Wherever possible you should try to demonstrate the use and benefit of your product or service which could mean purposefully getting the interviewee to do something more than standing in front of your camera. The chance of them doing something spontaneous that looks good on camera is low so you are going to have to tell them what you want them to do. An argument can be made that choreographing anything is disingenuous and takes away from the authenticity of the piece. While true, you have to balance this with the need to convey important information and get people to watch the video.

 

Considering all of these questions should help you begin to frame and deliver an effective testimonial video.

 

** Special Note: For those creating Testimonial Videos in the US here is a link to the 2009 FTC Guidelines governing Endorsements and Testimonials. (Thanks to Gavin Bryan-Tansley for providing this reference.)

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Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Managing Video Projects, Marketing with Video, Starting a Video Project, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: , ,

Video Portraits – Is there a market (need) for this?

September 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

Video Portrait – Michael Ball from One Market Media on Vimeo.

 

Should a portrait be ‘moving?’

Video will continue to find new forms and change how we market our products, our services… and ourselves. Some months ago while editing I created this little vignette out of a ‘hero shot’ of an expert who was part of a series we were producing. I did it for fun, sent him the file and he thought it was great. End of story. (I have no idea what, if anything, he did with it.) Then while cleaning up files I came across the clip and wondered whether this could or should be a new form. I haven’t seen this explicit form used before and don’t even know if it has a name but I’m sure there are many who have experimented with ‘moving portraits’ or ‘video portraits.’

The question is:  Is there a need (market) for this type of video / photography? (This type of media sits at the intersection of videography and photography.) On the positive side of the ledger these videos tell more of a ‘story’ – you get a little more information in a hundred and fifty frames than you do in one. They can also be a lot more engaging if done well. The biggest question around the use of this new form is ‘where the heck would I use this?’ Thumbnail photos are universal today – if you click on them you typically get a larger version to peruse. While video can’t easily replace that function I could see this form, as an example, used in the ‘about us’ section of a website – especially in the creative services sector where being a bit ‘non-standard’ is usually a good thing.

Video won’t ever replace text… or photography, but more information communicated in an effective manner is always a good thing. What do you think. Is there a place for Video Portraits?

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Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: ,

Dollar Shave Club – Video Review

March 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

 

Creating a successful viral video is like creating a hit record – it’s really, really difficult.

Michael Dubin, Co-founder and CEO of the The Dollar Shave Club is on his way to becoming the Victor Kiam of this generation. (A clever reference for the ‘over 40′ crowd…) The Dollar Shave Club launched with over $1,000,000 in funding from former Myspace CEO Mike Jones’s business incubator Science Inc. It has been reported that the video cost less than $5,000 to make but those numbers, like many production figures, probably hide a lot of unpaid or undeclared contributions from various parties.  With video views closing in on 4 million and product reportedly flying off the shelves (figuratively speaking), this marketing campaign is ‘making hay’.

Why this video worked.

There are two claims to success you can make with a viral video: 1. The video drove awareness or, 2. It drove business.  Awareness is good, business is better. The Will it Blend? series is the all time winner in this latter category.  Most viral videos today focus on awareness and even then the creators do their best at hiding any brand message so as not to offend sensitive viewers with anything too ‘salesy’.  Like Will it Blend, this video focuses on the unique attributes of the product in an engaging way and it doesn’t try to hide the fact that it is a promotion. Heck, there’s even an explicit call to action at the end of the video.

Inspired by the Old Spice videos, Dollar Shave Club has a lot going on and it’s a lot of fun to watch. It’s funny, it’s surprising and it actually makes you think (at least enough to consider the merits of the product). In order for a video to spread virally it has to be funny, or shocking, or entertaining – so much so that people want to share it with their friends. This video has certainly benefited from a lot of sharing. It’s very well written and Dubin, who has a background in improv, is fully committed in this video. Using profanity (even veiled profanity) is always a risk, but it works here. It shocks you enough to make you wonder what’s coming next. I can’t remember the last time a Polio reference made me laugh so hard. Great style, great delivery and great writing all came together to create a very engaging video.

Takeaways.

1. You don’t need expensive equipment or special effects to be effective. More than anything, you need a good idea.

2. This video is a shot across the bow of the Broadcast Industrial Complex. It pokes fun at celebrity endorsements, fake marketing technology and just about anything else that broadcast commercials employ to convince people to buy their products. It will be interesting to see if they maintain their internet-only marketing approach over time. (My guess is no.)

3. You can be successful with viral video even when you are ‘selling’ your product.

What’s next.

Dollar Shave Club plans on releasing more products this year, including shaving cream and after-shave moisturizer. Will the company be able to recapture the magic of this video or will they be like the band members of ‘Baha Men‘ sitting around saying ‘Come on dudes… we gotta come up with another “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

Time will tell.

 

If you are one of few who have yet to see the video here it is:

 

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Video Marketing, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,

Five things that make a marketing video effective.

December 15, 2011 by 5 Comments

This video is very effective.  It’s fun, it’s memorable, it’s evocative and it’s something that you want to share.  It informs you, it engages you, it moves you and it’s very well done. Wow.

Sponsored by RIOTUR, the City of Rio de Janeiro’s tourism authority, this video was created to support RIO’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. RIO won the bid making it the first South American city to host the Olympic games. I have to believe that this video contributed in at least some small way to RIO’s successful bid.

Like Paris, San Francisco, Vancouver and Venice, RIO is blessed with iconic scenery and natural beauty so an argument could be made that creating a video to promote the city shouldn’t be that difficult. There’s more to it than beautiful shots, however. This video works for a number of reasons:

1. There’s a strong story-line that carries the video. By story-line, I don’t mean ‘boy meets girl, boy leaves girl, etc.” The story-line is much more subtle in this video, but just as important. Music is at the heart of the video. Music not only sets the mood and pace of this video, it becomes clear that music is a core element that makes up the character of the city and the people of RIO. That’s the story being told. Music is an integral part of the culture. That’s a very compelling story.

2. The video is engaging. You want to watch the video, you are interested to see what comes next. This is a difficult thing to do in a video – make the viewer want to keep watching.

3. It solves a specific business problem. The business problem for the Olympic committee was ‘what city do we chose for the 2016 Olympics?’ RIOTUR provides ample reasons for IOC judges to consider RIO as the 2016 destination city: RIO is a ‘lifestyle city’ as evidenced by the myriad of activities shown in the video; RIO has a strong and obvious tradition of sports; RIO already has existing sporting facilities that could accommodate some of the different events; RIO will be a huge draw as a destination for travelers which will ensure that the games are well attended; and like the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the natural beauty of the hosting city will certainly have a halo effect on the games themselves.

4. Simple message. Show me don’t tell me. No talking heads, no spoken words, no happy talk or marketing bluster, just a compelling video highlighting the people, the lifestyle and the beauty of RIO all centered around a theme of music and culture.

5. The video is very well produced. From the inclusion of familiar iconic scenary like the cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain and the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking the city to an array of lifestyle and beauty shots of the city and it’s inhabitants, this video covers all bases.  A clever concept interweaving a combination of sound and music is complemented by beautiful cinematography and great editing.

I don’t know the name of the company that produced this video but they deserve a lot of credit for helping RIO win the 2016 Olympic bid.

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video and Government, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

10 Reasons Why Your Marketing Video Isn’t Working?

September 7, 2011 by 4 Comments

You just spent $2,000, $20,000 or $200,000 on your most recent corporate video project and it didn’t move the dial. What happened?

The creation of your corporate video should follow a structured development process. When it doesn’t your chance of success is low. Here are ten common mistakes made by companies developing marketing videos:

1. Poorly defined objectives.
Can you easily fill in the following blanks?: This video will help ___{this audience}____  understand that our product or service solves ___{this problem}___  and provides ____ {these benefits)____ . We will measure the success of this video by ___{this rating mechanism}____.
If you can’t clearly and succinctly fill in the first three blanks chances are your video will fail to achieve any measurable results.  If you can’t fill in the last blank you’ll never know what was achieved.

2. No clear message(s).
 “Expertocom is a world leader in the provisioning of leading edge solutions and robust, mission critical systems to it’s global client base.” Uh-huh. Even if you have a well defined audience, problem statement and benefit, you still need to communicate in clear and convincing manner. Some common mistakes:
- The video is all about you. No one cares about you, they only care about how you can solve their problem.
- B2N (Business to No one) If your message is so general that it applies to everyone it probably won’t resonate with anyone. Be specific. Pick one audience and deliver one really strong, concise message tailored to that specific audience’s needs.
- Jargon-loading. If you “utilize leading-edge best practices to incentivize and leverage your best-of-breed base through groundbreaking, synergistic and outside-the-box thinking” then… no one will understand you.
- Saying too much. “I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter but I didn’t have time to write a short one” – Mark Twain. It’s really difficult to be succinct. It also seems risky. Script-by-committee is death to most video projects. In video, shorter is almost always better.

3. Your video doesn’t resonate with your audience.
The best messages work on a visceral level. They make you think, even better, they make you feel something.  If your video is dull (i.e. a talking head) and if you don’t use video effectively (show me, don’t tell me!) then you will quickly lose your audience. Facts are important but a good story is better. While it may be interesting to note that your lubricant is 27% more viscous than any other on the market it may be more interesting to show that your product is the one that your local fire department depends on. Translating the key benefits you are trying to illustrate into ideas and building that into a compelling visual story is done before any crew show up to start shooting.  This is the most important part of the video development process and it’s also the hardest to get right, yet it’s usually the piece that gets the least attention. How do you find a company with this type of experience? Look at their previous work. If it’s not engaging, yours won’t be either.

4. Loose, or no processes at all to develop and promote the video.
The most important part of the video production process is pre-production. Chances are that if you are either surprised or disappointed by the results of your video it is because the planning process was flawed. A well defined storyboard should tell everyone involved exactly what is being said and what visuals are being shown to support those messages. A shotlist tells you exactly what needs to be shot, with whom and when.  When the video is shot and edited a marketing plan tells you exactly what the video is supposed to accomplish, how you are going to get your video in front of your intended audience (…who may or may not ever show up at your website) and how the results of the video should be measured. Again, all of this happens before anyone shows up with a camera. If your video production company tells you what your video should look like with little or no input from you – it probably won’t help your business.

5. You started with creative.
“Our President has this really cool idea!” Just like graphic design is the last step in the pre-development phase of a website (often it is first),  ’creative’ is the last step in the development of a video script and storyboard. Again… too often it is first. Creativity is an essential part of the video production process but it should never be be the tail wagging the dog. Sure, if you have a budget to create a whack of branded entertainment, that’s a different story – but for most corporate video projects, branded entertainment is not the goal.

6. Your video doesn’t support your brand.
 Too often, videos are created in isolation. Your brand is the sum total of all of the experiences people have with your company, that includes video. Your video has to support and complement the tone and key messages that you want associated with your brand. {Warning: Wacky viral videos often do more harm than good.)  Video production is not an isolated activity. Your video production company has to understand how you are marketing your business and has to be keen to engage with your marketing department and /or the marketing agency that is helping guide your brand.

7. Budget isn’t large enough.
“We took a couple thousand out of our cleaning budget to do this video.” “Yep, that’s all we’ve got, but we still want it to look like Avatar.” “My cousin Eddy said it would only cost him $400 to make the same video.” The cost of video production has decreased dramatically over the last five years. That said, there is little point in developing a video if you haven’t allocated a reasonable budget for the project. What does a video cost: Here are 25 factors and their prices that go into the cost of developing a corporate video.

8. Wrong type of video.
There are many different styles, structures and purposes for corporate video. Here are 51 different types of video you can develop to promote your business.  A thirty second pre-roll promotion video is probably too long and a one minute recruitment video is probably too short. Hiring actors to speak to a technical audience isn’t a good idea.  Putting your President on camera may (or may not be) a good idea. A talking head is often a waste of time.  A detailed technical video won’t resonate with people in the awareness phase of the sales cycle but can work very well for people in the consideration phase. What type of video you develop and what structure you use for the video is just as important as what messages you chose.

9. No call to action.
What do you want people to do after they have watched your video? If you don’t know, your viewer won’t either.

10. No distribution, SEO or promotion plan.
 Even if your video is great, if no one sees it you’ve wasted your money. Are you optimizing a webpage with keywords to help promote the video? Are you promoting the video on industry portals or other related sites where you intended audience might be? Have you developed an email campaign to promote the video to key audiences? Do you have a process to move prospective viewers through your sales cycle once they have viewed the video? Have you tested the video before widely launching it to make sure it accomplishes what you want it to? Do you have any budget for changes or do you assume that you’ll get it exactly right the first time through? Do you have a social media campaign, a PR campaign, a media campaign or some other promotional activity to build interest and awareness for the video?

The video production piece (shooting and editing) represents about 1/3 of the total value in the video development process. Planning (building the right messages for your audience) and promotion (making sure the video is seen) are both equally important.

 

—–

{Note: regarding ‘Jargon -Loading’, thanks to Lindsey McCaffrey for inspiration on ‘Words and phrases I don’t want to see in your copy‘}

Filed Under: Corporate Video Production, General, Managing Video Projects, Marketing with Video, Resources, Starting a Video Project, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Top 10 Posts, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: ,

Web video best practices? – Salesforce.com chooses YouTube

February 6, 2011 by 2 Comments

Salesforce provides cloud-based CRM tools and is a global leader in web-based services.  With over 1500 videos it’s safe to say that Salesforce is fully committed to web video as a means of reaching their customers and driving new business. If the internet is important to your business the above Saleforce video case study will show you how web-based video can support your ongoing business objectives. Saleforce presented this video at a recent Google B2B Think conference.

The video shows why Saleforce has chosen YouTube to manage their video assets,  promote awareness and drive new leads to the company. Some highlights from the video:

- YouTube is now one of Salesforce’s most important online marketing tactics.
- Saleforce equates their YouTube effort to adding 46 sales reps.
- Interestingly, one of the reasons Saleforce chose YouTube as their video delivery platform was that it was one of the most trusted by users.
- They have seen much greater success with video SEO since using YouTube to host their video.
- They have also tested YouTube Display Ads, Promoted Videos and on video Calls to action.

Many businesses today are considering what is the best option for hosting their marketing video. Obviously Salesforce isn’t concerned about issues such as YouTube being blocked by some sites or the possibility of other videos being shown around your video if you happen to click through to the YouTube site itself.  Should they be?

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, Online Video Industry, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Video is becoming a critical information source for senior executives

January 25, 2011 by 1 Comment

Work-related videos are driving senior executives to take action.

Forbes Insights, in association with Google, surveyed more than 300 C-level and senior executives at large U.S. companies ($500 million-plus in annual revenues) to learn more about how they are approaching Web video as a source of business-related information. The results are both surprising and important for anyone who’s job it is to communicate with and influence senior executives in any sized company.

The graphic above (created by eMarketer) illustrates post video-viewing intent. Clearly video’s influence is growing and will only continue to grow in the coming years. The following is a summary of some of the findings of the Forbes/Google research:

1. In some cases executives prefer video to text. When asked “If video and text covering the same topic are on the same Web page, which would you watch first,” 59% chose video and 37% chose text.

2. The top 3 objectives when watching business-related YouTube videos are: 1. Testimonials (29%), 2. Product demonstrations (28%) and 3. Product reviews (29%).

3. Video is social. 54% of senior executives share work related videos with colleagues at least once a week.

4. “Longer” videos are preferred. Conventional wisdom (it is usually neither…) has it that 2 minutes is the “absolute limit” for business related video. When asked, 47% of executives preferred a length of 3-5 minutes, followed by 36% preferring 1-3 minutes and 9% preferring over five minutes.

5. Video causes executive to take action. Overall, 65% have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video. Younger executives, however, may be more fully engaged with this type of media, and appear more likely to make a purchase, call a vendor, or respond to an ad.

Forbes summarizes these trends well – “While the Web itself is in the midst of a video makeover, executives are transforming their habits to be more open to video—the non-text Web—as a highly reliable and trusted source for gathering and filtering business information.”

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, Video Statistics Tagged With: , , ,

51 ways to use web video to help your business grow

January 3, 2011 by 43 Comments

video wall


As bandwidth increases and video production costs continue to decrease businesses are beginning to adopt video as a primary method of communicating with their customers and prospects. In-house or outsourced, video is quickly becoming a marketer’s media tool of choice for two reasons: video is engaging and, more importantly, video is persuasive. Here are some of the ways that businesses are using video to help improve their bottom line:

Customer Reference Videos

1.  Customer Testimonials (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Nothing is more compelling than seeing and hearing your customer (ideally in their own environment) extol the virtues of your products and services or explaining how your company helped them to achieve their business goals. These videos usually run from fifteen second snippets to a minute and are typically combined with or used to support other marketing material.

2. Success Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Similar to a customer testimonial these videos run between one and two minutes and follow an interview format where the person on screen answers questions posed by an interviewer just off-camera. These videos are usually delivered as stand-alone marketing support materials and are often grouped with other customer success stories.

3. Video Case Study (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
A video case study combines customer testimonials with more a more in-depth explanation of how your company’s products and services helped your customer be successful. These case studies usually incorporate two voices – a narrator and the voice of your customer and can run anywhere from two to five minutes. The video structure follows the same “Problem, Solution, Benefit” format found in a printed case study and usually include b-roll or other supporting text and video.

4. Man-in-the-street Interviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
These videos are typically done to promote events and to build buzz around coming events but can also be employed to capture ‘spontaneous’ responses to targeted questions that help promote your product or service or to help differentiate the benefits of your brand compared to the real or imagined problems associated with your competitors. Consumer focused companies such as soft drink manufacturers, phone companies and fast food companies often use this video format in advertising but you are starting to see this type of video appear as a stand-alone promotion on business websites or YouTube business channels.  Sometimes these videos are genuine. Sometimes they are completely staged. ‘Authenticity’ is, in some sense, becoming a style…

5. Customer Presentations. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
If one of your customers is presenting at a conference, trade show or event or even in your offices and is talking about your products or services either directly with you or indirectly as part of a larger discussion this may be a perfect opportunity to capture the presentation of video (with permission, of course) to re-purpose on your website and intranet.

Product and Service Promotion

6. Product Presentations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product (or service) presentation videos are typically employed early in the buying cycle. Product or service presentations focus on benefits and talk from your customer’s perspective. They should speak clearly to how your product solves a specific business, personal or economic problem that your prospect is experiencing. They are used to help your customers and prospects differentiate between the benefits of your products and services to those of your competitors.

7. Product Demonstrations (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Product demos show how your product works and highlight the features that differentiate it from that of your competitors. Software screen captures, a 3D cut-away, or a high impact demo by a presenter are all excellent ways of showing how your product or service works. These videos are typically used to influence a prospect who is relatively far along in the sales cycle. In technology marketing these videos would be targeted at the technical approvers who need to understand how something works. In consumer marketing these would be targeted at the economic buyers of larger ticket items who may be further along the sales process.

8. Product Reviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
The best product reviews are trusted third party reviews. Video reviews can be found anywhere from YouTube to various business portals. To the extent they are positive and promote your brand, they should be referenced. You can also partner with trusted third parties to create product reviews for your own products.

9. Visual Stories (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Quickly rising in popularity, visual stories employ illustrations, animations and motion graphics with a voice-over to explain complex products or services in a simple and compelling manner. These are sometime referred to as ‘explainers’ and are usually between one and three minutes in length. A new version of this tool, used primarily for entertainment, are websites that offer predefined characters and backgrounds that you can both animate and add an automated voice to (sort of like building your own Second Life commercials). You will begin to see many new hosted services offering customizable cloud-based animation modeling options – some good and some quite awful.

Corporate Video

10. Corporate Overview (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: moderate)
These videos are the video equivalent of the ‘company brochure’ for small companies – intended to give new visitors to a website a better idea of the company. Corporate overview videos typically company history, key products, executives/owners and other top level business info. As the cost of video production continues to decrease and the popularity of video increases you will start to see these videos being replaced by multiple, more targeted video.

11. Executive Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Whether you are preparing for a quarterly update, responding to a major event in your industry or making a regularly scheduled presentation there is great value in presenting the “face” and “voice” of your leadership team to all of your constituents.

12. Staff Presentations (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Social media and other Web 2.0 trends have caused companies to reconsider how they communicate with external audiences. Your senior leadership team should not be the first and only consideration to represent your company. It is becoming more imperative to consider showcasing the people that drive the day-to-day operations of your company. Customer service representatives, technical experts and legacy workers are all valuable considerations for this new category of corporate video. Surveys show that there is more trust associated with these employees than with senior management. When you are selling to influencers in organizations (versus economic buyers or decision makers) it is especially important you represent your company with people that your customers and prospects can relate to.

13. Corporate facilities or equipment tour (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Ten years ago corporate facility videos and equipment tours were popular. Down-sizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, a couple of recessions and a hollowing out of North America’s manufacturing base has change the priorities placed on these videos. Uniqueness is key to success here. That said, it’s really not about you and your stuff any more – it’s about how you can solve your customers problems.

14. Annual Report / Review (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Public companies are legally obliged to create annual and quarterly reviews. As well, larger privately held companies also create their own quarterly and annual reviews. As print continues to fall out of favor video will either supplement or replace these materials.

15. Video Signature and Video Introduction (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are just starting to enter into the corporate culture even though they have been part of the social culture for years. Other social sites like web-based dating services are now commonplace. Video is becoming a key component in how you ‘sell’ yourself, in your private life… and in business. A video signature is a video (either embedded or direct link to video) that is in the signature portion of your email. Introductory videos serve the same purpose – to give people who don’t know you a better idea about who your are.

Training

16. Training (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Corporate video first gained prominence with training (service, support, sales, personal development etc.) and continues to be one of the best uses of video. Online Video is a cost effective substitute for in-class training. You can also easily integrate video into online training management tools.

17. Overnight expert videos (Sales Support)  (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
If you serve a large geographic area or sell through channels then it is well worth the effort to put together short ‘overnight expert’ sales support videos that highlight the key selling points, features, benefits, objection handling and follow-up issues to consider by your direct or channel sales force.

18. Just-in-time learning (‘How-to’ Videos)  (Popularity:Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Contextual training videos are becoming very popular on the web. ‘How-to’ videos, video manuals, on-site video reference, quick assembly demos, and other types of video are being used to supplement or replace traditional training. Mobile video will increase the popularity of this type of video.

Customer Support

19. Post sale support and maintenance videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
No one reads manuals. You can save thousands of dollars of post sale support by creating informative assembly, installation and maintenance videos for your products and services.

20. Website FAQ Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In certain formats video can be a suitable replacement for text where an authoritative voice, support materials or other visual references are required. A list of FAQ’s answered by a company expert is an example.

21. Live, two-way video (i.e. Apple’s FaceTime or Skype)
I believe an interesting application for mobile computing and video is going to evolve around the ability to incorporate live and recorded video into the customer support process. Imagine being able to show someone the problem you are having with their product rather than trying to describe it or send them a photo. Showing someone the problem is just the beginning. Getting a step-by-step video response with someone talking you through the solution – live… that’s the holy grail of customer support. Most companies will dismiss this as too expensive. Other companies, like Apple, will integrate these types of services into their entire brand experience.

Internal Communications

22. Internal Communications (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
In larger companies few people have the time or interest to understand what other groups or functions within the company do or even why they exist. Internal videos that highlight business plans, new business activities and achievements can improve knowledge transfer and lead to more effective communications. They are also a great way to show off your local heroes. These videos can be either live or recorded and are typically used in larger more geographically dispersed companies. As employees continue to work from home these videos will become more important.

23. Event/Conference and Trade Show Communications. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Most companies spend a disproportionate amount of their marketing budget on attending and participating in a variety of industry events and yet only a very small percentage of employees ever benefit from these activities. Share the knowledge gained at these events by capturing the presentations, demos, interviews, commentaries etc. on video.

24. Employee orientation (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Once your new recruits are on board employee orientation videos are a great way to get new staff up to speed. Company history, structure, procedures, policies and codes of behavior can all be communicated effectively with video.

25. Health, Legal & Safety (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
The cost of dealing with health and safety related issues within organizations continues to grow. Video is one of the most effective means of minimizing these costs.

Advertising , Marketing  and Promotion

26. Commercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
While advertisers are becoming more selective in how they chose to spend their promotional dollars with broadcast television, other venues for commercials such as online video pre-roll, online sponsorships, in-game advertising, event sponsorships and in-theatre advertising are starting to take the place of broadcast / cable commercials. A proliferation of video screens cropping up on every building, device and structure will create an even more diverse set of advertising opportunities. The challenge will be to create specialized content targeted to ever- shrinking niche audiences.

27. Viral Video (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: High)
A video is viral if it is so compelling that people want to share it. (Calling a video ‘Viral’ doesn’t make it so). Viral videos have to be extremely engaging, entertaining, shocking or meaningful to be successful. Unfortunately some of the most successful viral videos have little connection (and therefore value) to any brand. Everyone references ‘Will it Blend’ but very few viral videos are remotely this successful in actually driving sales. Viral video is very difficult to do well.

28. Email Video (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Testing has shown that open rates can double if you include video in your email marketing activities. To be effective the video should be purpose-built to elicit a specific conversion activity such as requesting a demo, more info, etc. E-mail is seeing a resurgence with marketers and embedded video in emails (like gmail supports) or links to video in email is becoming very popular.

29. Infomercials (Popularity: High  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Infomercials have been around forever. While they continue to be the primary focus of web-based parody videos they have remained remarkably resilient over time. The shopping channel is, in effect, a 24 hour infomercial. If done well, Infomercials can be very effective at selling certain consumer products.

30.  Content Marketing (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
This is a broad category that will become very important over the next months and years. Much of the content (video or otherwise) being created today by companies is focused on selling and focused on the brand. Focusing on solving your customers problems first and then associating your brand with those solutions will be increasingly more important and effective. (i.e. Home Depot has developed branded ‘how-to’ series that sits on their website and shows their customers how-to fix various things around the house. ) What knowledge do you have that can help your customers and prospects. People don’t go to your website to see your sales pitch. They go to see if you can solve their problem.

31. Landing pages and micro sites (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential: High)
Video is beginning to replace or supplement text and graphics as a content element on many corporate websites. Landing pages can offer a more compelling call to action with video. Some micro sites on larger web properties are self contained, purpose-built conversion machines that have the singular purpose of generating a conversion activity (sign-up for more info, attend event, order something etc.). Video is becoming an important part of the conversion process.

32. Interactive Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The promise of interactive video has been around for years but we’re just starting to see companies build in interactivity into their videos. You can build in calls to action, form fields, multiple scenarios and any number of engaging content that get people to not just passively watch your video but actually gets them to start to interact with your video. Technology will play a huge role in interactive video over the next few years. You can already see the foundations of this with YouTube allowing you to add annotations and links to videos.

33. Branded Entertainment and Sponsored Video (Popularity:Moderate  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
Viral Video in many ways is just branded entertainment. There are many ways companies can benefit from having their names attached to content. In the ’50 the ‘soaps’ were a great way for P&G and other consumer companies to promote their brand. Everyday there is a new format for sponsored video being created for delivery on the web. Many will fail but some will become hugely popular. Associating your brand with the right entertainment and informational content on the web is a very interesting opportunity.

PR Support and Community Relations

34. Video Press Releases (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
The standard four paragraph press release is now being supplemented with video and rich media to tell a more engaging story. Video is now being purpose-built to directly support the important company announcements. The new challenge for press releases is to change the focus from the company to the customer.

35.  PR Support Materials (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)

Make it easy for networks, bloggers, news gathers and others to promote your business and also to talk about your industry. Smart companies are developing video support catalogs of company and industry related materials (b-roll, industry footage, sound bites etc) and offering them to news and business portals. The demand for video is everywhere. If a news agency (online or broadcast) is looking for stock footage to use in a story it might as well be yours. (assuming the story is positive, of course)

36. Community Relations Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
If your company is out working in the community, being good corporate citizens, helping the environment or contributing to important causes you should be capturing those efforts on video. Show the world what you are doing, don’t just talk about it.

37. Corporate Talk Show / Interviews (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Weekly newsletters require a lot of effort and the ‘open’ rate on most of these is quite low. Companies of all sizes are now starting to develop talk-show format video where a host interviews various people (either internal or external to their company) to discuss things that are important to your audience. Think of it as the long tail of interviews where very specific interviews are being delivered to very specific audiences.

38. EPK (electronic press kit)  (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
While EPK’s are still being delivered on DVD, web based video and text are quickly replacing this electronic version of the press kit which became popular in the mid 90′s.

Event Video

39. Event Presentation video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Events represent a unique confluence of expertise and opportunity – often under-leveraged. Trade Shows, meeting and conferences are usually attended by your top sales people, your corporate executives, industry experts and other influential business people. If you are speaking at an event or someone is referencing your company you should be capturing this valuable content on video.

40. Round table Sessions (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Take the opportunity at an event to corral four to six of your best customers and other industry experts, put them in room and video tape them talking about industry trends, business issues and the future of your industry. This content will be the most valuable content you could ever capture.

41. Q&A Expert sessions. (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
There are many opportunities to take specific event participants to the side and take them through informal Q&A sessions on various topics that matter to your customers. This content is valuable lead generation content.

Other Uses of Video

42. Recruitment Videos (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Finding the best employees is the single most important function of any company and yet comparatively small amounts of time and money are allocated to this critical task. Recruitment videos that feature company employees, highlight corporate culture and promote the direction of the company can be very influential.

43. VLOG (Popularity: Moderate  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
There are many levels and types of Vloggers today but for the sake of brevity I will identify two: 1. Pro Vloggers who have engaging styles, rich content and a growing list of followers who promote their vlog on their site and through various syndicated channels and 2. Regular Vloggers who have chosen, for whatever reason, to speak into a camera instead of typing on a keyboard. The problem today is that, unlike onscreen text, you can’t scan a vlog – you have to watch the whole thing to see whether it is worth your time. The other problem is that most people just aren’t that compelling on camera so there is little, to no value of a talking head – and often it’s a distraction. Of course everyone references Gary Vaynerchuck (from Wine Library TV) as the rule (rather than the exception) for video blogging in the same way that everyone references the success of Will It Blend as being what to expect when you launch your first viral video project. For individuals looking to gain notoriety from their passions vlogging can be a good option if you have a good on-camera presence and great content.

44. In Store Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: High)
Wal-Mart has its own profitable in-store TV network that makes shoppers aware of new promotions. LCD screens are ubiquitous. In store LCD’s will be networked and customizable offering you the ability to promote your own goods and services or make money by promoting other complimentary services.

45. Company Lobby / Waiting Room Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
HD video screens are popping up everywhere – why not in your lobby or reception where you can get a jump start on first impressions and also take advantage of a captive audience.

46. Mobile Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Huge)
Yep, ‘there’s an Ap for that’. Mobile video will soon be the largest video category outside of broadcast. In the short-run, mobile video will consist of hastily re-purposed video made to fit on a mobile device. It will quickly evolve into a much more specific format – i.e.  five to fifteen second hyper targeted messages that are part of geo-located (‘location aware’) and micro-niched promotions. Adding mobility (true context) to video will generate many new uses and formats for video.

47. Market research, focus groups and polling (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Moderate)
Market research firms are now capturing the anecdotal feedback along with the raw statistics of their research. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video of your customer describing her likes and dislikes of your new product is priceless. Go to YouTube to see how people are describing your products and services.

48. Video White paper (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Video white papers have evolved over the last years from basically a person reading a white paper on camera (what’s the point) to a professional delivery that is accompanied by charts, graphs and other visual references to make the presentation more valuable.

49. Video Magazine (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential: Low)
Some video production companies specialize in helping companies deliver serialized video content to their customers. Like the name implies video content is created on a regular basis (usually monthly) that customers and prospects can view through a subscription service. While it makes sense to apply tradition formats to new technology and ideas, not all ideas transfer as elegantly as others.

50. Customer UCG Campaigns (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential:Moderate)
User Generated Content Campaigns- where customers are encouraged to upload videos showing how they use your products are becoming quite popular. Contests are usually the driver but sometimes just giving customers a forum to express themselves is enough.

51. Behind the Scenes Video (Popularity: Low  | Growth Potential:Low)
Personalize your brand. Open up the cultural veil and let customers and products understand who you are – a group of humans rather than a ‘brand’. Authenticity is important.

Have I left any out? Let me know.

 

Bonus Applications:

52. Projection Mapping. Like everything else related to video, the costs of projecting video is dropping quickly. As a result you are starting to see innovative applications of projected video. Here are some great examples: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7676-16-mind-blowing-examples-of-big-brand-projection-mapping?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, Resources, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, The Future of Corporate Video, Top 10 Posts, Video Marketing, video production Tagged With: , , ,
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