To the drawing board
There are many types of videos that can be produced, all with different aims and objectives. Work out what your goal is. Are you seeking to inform an audience? Do you want to educate people? Are you raising awareness of an issue? Or maybe you are trying to tell everyone what you do? Be clear from the start what the goal is.
Keep it simple
If you have a message you want to tell your audience, then simply just say it. To put it bluntly, most people are incredibly lazy when it comes to reading and would rather passively watch a short video to get the information quickly and easily rather than actively read a long article.
Take a few moments and scroll down your Facebook or Twitter feed. I bet there are a large amount of videos that jump out and start telling you (visually or in text) what they want to say. I bet they are eye catching and instantly engaging. This is because it is a lot easier to make a video exciting, engaging and enjoyable than a text article.
We have created some videos, often called ‘talking heads’ for different purposes. For example, the video series about stopping smoking for Kent County Council, where we spoke to a wide range of experts and got their opinions was great for social media. They lasted between 5 and 30 seconds with subtitles. Or our own video series, ‘Bitesize Learning’ which combines ‘talking heads’ with animations with the same purpose as the Kent videos, to inform and educate the audience.
Do your research
Like all successful campaigns, research should be on your list. Videos that get more attention are topical, popular, fast and fun. Community, or the promotion of community and common values are also a strong crowd pleaser. Look at Google trends to help you.
Create a link...
Sometimes the most obvious links between a video and the brand are the best ones. If you can make a video engaging and memorable, and the brands catchy slogan is the centre of attention, then the brand itself becomes engaging and memorable as well.
A few examples of popular brands could be:
Nokia – Connecting people
Create a video of people using Nokia phones in different parts of the world that not only connect them in communication terms, but also emotional terms. Why not someone proposing with a Nokia phone? Or someone at war calling their loved ones back home?
Electronic Arts (EA) – Challenge everything
Create a video of a young person growing up constantly challenging the viewpoints of his/her peers. From a teacher in primary school, to university, to his/her football coach or to the people who think they would never succeed. Challenge their viewpoints and prove them wrong to succeed. Connect it to a popular sports person who then transforms into a digital version of themselves in a game.
An example of a video where we created the same sort of links was for Visual Print and Design. Their tag line is “Your vision in print”. We produced a video focusing on all the work they had created for clients actually in someone’s eyes (vision) being surrounded in a room covered in the same work. The striking visuals of the work in the eye and the vast amount of work plastered on the walls around the individual worked well to communicate the idea that this company has a wealth of experience and can create anything you want.
...Or cut all links
What is the most memorable Cadburys advert can you think of right now? Mine is the gorilla playing the drums. What does a gorilla playing the drums have to do with chocolate? Absolutely nothing, this is why it works perfectly. The randomness of the visuals makes the video memorable for the audience.
One example that follows these lines is the ‘Tagged’ video we produced for Tagged Rugby (for the London Rugby League Foundation). Over recent years retro gaming has become more and more popular, so we tapped into audiences interests and created a retro rugby gaming video. What does retro gaming have to do with modern rugby? Not a lot but it allowed us to use bright, exciting colours and eye catching animations that engaged a youth audience.
Most importantly – Be creative
Don’t be scared to do something a little different. The videos that break the mould are the ones that get the most attention because they aren’t the same old boring content that everyone else is creating. Don't think about the event, the highlights, testimonials and doing another 'explained' video. Have all the emotion of the awards ceremony!
We understand that it can be hard to be creative and do something different, but that is where we can help. We are experts in behaviour you know! Not only can we help you develop a creative idea, but we can get that idea shared…we are good like that you see. It is not good having something visually amazing if you can't optimise, measure, amplify and iterate it.
Can we really do it though?
If you have an idea but haven’t seen something similar in our past work, doesn’t mean we can’t do it! We are always eager to apply our expertise to new and exciting video projects and help you create something truly special.
Inspired now? Give us a ring and lets start making some video magic.
