Over the last decade or so I have lost count of the number of corporate videos I have made.
You know the ones: There’s a nice opening logo sequence, the talent comes on-screen, and then occasionally it cuts away to some other footage to reinforce the message being delivered and help the narrative move forward. We’ve all seen them.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with this. This type of work has sustained me, and our business, for a long time. But I can’t help but think “how can this evolve?”
There are many ways to tell the same story. The trick is picking what works best for your business and, more importantly, your audience.
Learn a trick from Netflix
One of things that people all have in common is a taste for good content. Netflix is a testament to that. Its production budget this year is sitting at $6 billion — and that’s for original content. It’s projected to hit $8 billion by the end of the year.
So, how does this correlate to your business? Well, if the narrative is engaging, the audience will always feel compelled to watch. They will want to relate to, empathise with, cheer on and journey with the characters. Translate this to video content for your business and, all of a sudden, you have a very powerful staff engagement tool.
During 2016 we produced a number of tightly scripted “corporate dramas”. The feedback we got from the businesses involved was astounding.
Why? Because their staff had connected with the characters they were watching, the scenes were based in their business and the scripts were built around real-life incidents.
They weren’t having to watch another training or safety film with interviews, voiceover and cutaways (again, there’s nothing wrong with this) but, instead, got to see how an event unfolded in the business, what the knock-on effect of that was, and how it actually affected people.
Stand out from the norm and be more effective
This is a completely different approach to creating content for your business, but I truly believe it is highly effective, given our appetite to watch stories.
Here’s a clip from one of the videos we created for a business this past year:
Once you venture down this rabbit hole the possibilities become endless. In years gone by we’ve been continually trying to work out how to make online videos shorter. But now, with this approach, you move into short film territory — where 10 minutes will move through very quickly. What could be next? With 360-degree video starting to take off, soon you could be creating scenes that put your audience in with the actors, for a fully immersive experience.
This is not a replacement for traditional corporate films; it’s just another way of communicating with your audience or staff. Engagement is what’s most important here.
Ask yourself this: Once they’ve left the room, are my staff or audience still thinking about the latest safety video we’ve made them watch? Are they talking about it over lunch? Choosing a “corporate drama” to deliver your next message could achieve exactly that.
The Lush Digital Media team would love to share with you some of the corporate dramas we have made. Please feel free to get in contact and come to the office for a viewing. Alternatively, we can send you a private link so you can watch a few examples.
Like what you’ve read? Sign up to the Lush newsletter for fortnightly advice to help you market your business better, tips from our video production gurus, and a podcast or two from our favourite podcasting team, Brand Newsroom. In the meantime, you might enjoy these:
4 Ways to convince budget holders to invest in video
Animate your video (without a Toy Story budget)
Here’s the one big reason so many corporate videos fail
How to avoid 4 common video lighting mistakes
