Corporate Video: A Versatile Communication Tool

This format aims to present the company as a whole – its history, organisational structure, industry expertise, values, offerings, and key figures. It offers a behind-the-scenes look into the company, emphasising its competencies, know-how, and talented workforce while maintaining an informative and professional tone. It can also humanise the company by featuring interviews with key individuals.

Internally focused, this corporate video format aims to disseminate information across the organisation, reaching all levels of the company. It can cover news updates, team discussions, executive committee addresses, HR communications, or crisis management updates. The messages conveyed are conventional, but this multi-channel format saves time and ensures effective communication with employees, regardless of their location.

In its institutional form, the corporate video aims to enhance the brand image. This format is similar to a company presentation video, with a focus on highlighting the value proposition and achieving commercial objectives. These objectives may include generating leads, attracting potential partners, recruiting top talent, boosting sales, expanding market share, or fostering customer loyalty.

This format is specifically designed to promote a product or service. It can take the form of a promotional film, commercial, or feature showcase, aiming to tell a compelling story, evoke emotions, and ultimately drive sales. The focus here is on engaging storytelling rather than academic or rigid content.

This type of video is dedicated to capturing and promoting corporate events such as conferences, conventions, or trade shows. It can be live-streamed or recorded for later distribution. Sharing event highlights through social media channels encourages strong engagement. This format effectively showcases the event and elicits emotional responses from the audience.

Video interviews are incredibly versatile. They come across as natural and authentic, providing valuable content in an accessible and educational manner. They contribute to brand recognition while adding a human touch. This format offers numerous possibilities for presentation, such as face-to-camera interviews or voice-over interviews, adopting either a corporate or journalistic style. It can even take the form of a u0022question boxu0022 format, reminiscent of popular platforms like Konbini or Brut, which works particularly well for social media engagement.

In a filmed profile, an employee shares insights into their role, daily activities, and profession. This format differs from interviews as it solely focuses on the individual's perspective. It showcases employee profiles, initiatives, skills, and dedication, effectively humanising communication and highlighting the people behind the company.

Video newsletters serve as the u0022externalu0022 counterpart to informative videos. They are directed towards partners, prospects, clients, and other stakeholders. Need to convey a message? Want to share news or introduce a new organisational structure to shareholders? Video newsletters are an excellent medium, combining accessibility with an engaging and interactive approach.

Also referred to as u0022web series,u0022 this format consists of multiple videos presented as episodes that contribute to a cohesive message. It works particularly well for complex communications, such as presenting major internal projects like ERP migration or showcasing a series of initiatives to the public, such as multi-phase operations or environmental campaigns.

Training videos can be categorised into internal training (e-learning) and tutorials (for internal or external communication). They provide an effective means to demonstrate and teach methods, processes, skills, technical procedures, and product usage, while sharing valuable expertise. Training videos offer an engaging and adaptable format suitable for various audiences, aiming to enhance their skills and knowledge.

Begin by defining the project's scope. Your corporate video should fit within a well-defined framework, based on answers to the following questions: What is its main objective? What message do you want to convey? Who is your target audience? You will also need to choose a video format, set a maximum duration, consider the location for filming, and establish your budget.

Similar to the film industry, the production of a corporate video involves a two-step pre-production phase: scriptwriting and storyboarding. The script serves as a roadmap, containing all the essential information, including the sequence of the film, actions, dialogues, voice-over, filming locations, roles of the participants, sound and text overlays, equipment requirements, filming dates, and more.

The storyboard is the second step in pre-production. It visualises the ideas laid out in the script, using illustrations that represent the shots to be filmed. The storyboard provides valuable guidance to the technical team as it describes each shot and details every camera angle, allowing for a well-organised filming schedule.

With a well-crafted script and storyboard, shooting the corporate video should be a breeze. It's simply a matter of creating the best possible conditions: preparing the set in advance, briefing the participants who know their lines, ensuring the filming location is free from background noises (honking horns from the street can be off-putting), and having the necessary equipment available on the day.

It's time to move on to the post-production stage of the corporate video. Editing involves selecting the best shots and arranging them in the intended narrative order, including transitions where needed. The video needs to be colour-corrected, with sound and text elements integrated, audio mixed, and even visual effects incorporated if required.

Once the corporate video is completed and polished, it's time to share it with the intended audience. The relevant channels will depend on the chosen target audience: internal communication through email or intranet, reaching external audiences via newsletters or social media, or screening it during an event, among other options.

Every corporate video should convey a well-defined message. Otherwise, you risk losing your audience's attention. The information presented should be unique, clear, and understandable. It should answer a specific question in a simple and accessible manner – that's the key to message retention. If your message is more complex or you have multiple pieces of information to convey, consider creating separate videos.

In the era of snackable content, audiences respond well to short, quick-to-consume, and easily memorable content. It's estimated that a video, to maintain the audience's attention, should ideally last between 60 and 90 seconds – beyond 2 minutes, attention tends to wane. However, it's important to prioritise the relevance of the content over strict adherence to duration.

For a corporate video to be effective and engaging, it must deliver its message in a coherent and logical manner. Storytelling is key: telling a story instead of presenting scattered information helps maintain the audience's attention and evokes emotions. This enhances the impact of the message, facilitates its retention, boosts engagement, and improves the brand image.

Videos are often watched without sound, especially on mobile devices. By incorporating subtitles in your corporate film that transcribe the voiceover and dialogues, you ensure message accessibility and understanding while boosting its social impact (as u0022silent viewingu0022 is particularly common on social media). You can also enhance the video with written transitions (such as questions asked during an interview).

In a video, music plays a crucial role as a unifying element. It creates an emotional connection between the content and the viewer, acting as a guiding thread throughout the viewing experience. It also adds dynamism to your corporate film and makes the message more cohesive. You can choose royalty-free music or invest in acquiring a license or commissioning a custom composition.

To make an effective corporate video, it's not just about the content; the presentation matters too. Creativity is a powerful tool for capturing attention and engaging the audience. It enables you to create an original and distinctive film that is visually appealing, captivating, and memorable. You can enhance your corporate video with 2D or 3D animations, and impactful transitions, or opt for a motion design style.