3 Reasons Why We Still Love Corporate Video Production

There’s sometimes a stigma attached to corporate video production…

“They tend to be boring, they can be cheesy, they’re too long, or they all look the same.”

There’s certainly enough articles online that are taking the mickey out of bad examples or telling us all the reasons why they don’t work. I’ve even known people within the video and film production industry to be a little sniffy about working on them, preferring not to be credited. So is all of this negativity warranted? And if so, why on earth do people continue to make them?

As you may have seen, we produce a huge range of videos, from TV adverts, animated explainers videos, academic research films, and yes, we also produce corporate videos. We therefore, feel perfectly placed to stick up for the poor old ‘corporate’, and in this article, we intend to dispel a few myths and point out why there’s still a place in our hearts for a well thought out and carefully produced corporate video.

So let’s get cracking!

Problem #1 – Corporate videos are too long

The duration of a corporate video can often feel like it’s running loooooooong, which of course has a very negative effect on audience engagement. In most cases though, this is simply due to a couple of reasons:

• The messaging and objectives of the corporate video have not been clearly identified by the production team
• The video is trying to shoehorn in every last bit of detail

Our solution

Sometimes, the reasoning behind why a business has commissioned a corporate video can get a little lost in the mix, so it’s vital that at each stage in the production process you keep asking yourself the following questions:

• What business problem are you looking to solve with this video?
• What are your objectives?
• What are the messages you need to communicate?

If you’re not sure about the answers to those questions, there’s a tendency to just include everything and hope that somewhere in there, you’ll cover what you need. And of course, this is where duration starts to drag out, and viewer engagement diminishes.

A video that tries to be the equivalent of a printed manual, trying to cram in every single piece of information is going to extend the duration way past everyone’s bedtime (health and safety videos are a perfect example of this).

Corporate video production isn’t great at communicating vast amounts of details – audiences will begin to glaze over, or worse, stop the video and go look at one of your competitor’s videos. So, identify your key messages, and think about how they can be communicated succinctly. The shorter the duration, the more engaged (and quite possibly grateful!) your audience will be.

Problem #2 – Corporate video is boring

This can easily be the case if there has been no thoughtful consideration of the target audience. Quite often, a corporate video can be a box-ticking exercise… ‘We need to cover this particular list of objectives so let’s get it done and out the way!’ Tick, tick, tick…

No thought has gone into the actual engagement and communication process, which is entirely missing the point of why you should make a video. Video is there to engage, to hook and to grab the viewer’s attention. If it doesn’t do that, then you may as well stick with your PowerPoint presentation and spend your corporate video production budget on something else. 

Our solution

Once you’ve identified your messages (see statement #1), think about how you want to communicate with them, or even better, speak to a creative agency and get their input as well, as there are endless possibilities and approaches on how to communicate your content engagingly. And remember, your video doesn’t have to go viral, it just needs to keep the viewer engaged. Whether that’s achieved with a well-written script, beautiful aesthetics, or voice-over, is up to you… just as long as you keep your target audience in mind and let that inform your approach.

Problem #3 – Corporate video production values looks cheap

We’ve all seen ugly looking corporate video… badly framed shots, shaky camera work, incoherent audio, but all of this is easily avoidable. It primarily comes down to making the right choices, both in terms of the amount of budget you allocate, but also in whether you do this yourself (not recommended unless you have tons of experience!), or whether you bring in an external agency.

Here’s one example that’s sooo bad, it’s almost mesmerizing! – Who Needs a Movie?

Our solution

The key thing to remember here is that if you are bringing in an external agency, then you must check their showreel. And not just that either… ask for examples of previous work… ask to see some corporate video productions that are similar to yours… and if you don’t like what you see, then go somewhere else.

Secondly, have a budget in mind and commit to it. Don’t be too coy about sharing the indicative range either, as this knowledge will allow the creative agency to develop realistic concepts, and enable them to develop content that is specifically suited to meet your objectives. Without an idea of budget, a creative can skew in unrealistic directions, and video which has had its budget spread way too thin is precisely where you will begin to see poor production values, and ultimately resulting in a cheap-looking video.

So with that, we’ll wrap up there, and continue our staunch defence of corporate video production in part two of our article, coming soon.

We’d love to hear from you