Our video work takes us to all kinds of clients operating in many different sectors and industries. And within those industries there can be a broad range of demographics to work with. Some industries are fast moving, very techy and have a young, upwardly mobile workforce. Others are more traditional and will be looking at new ways to market themselves to the 21st century customer. One isn’t better than the other, both have their pros and cons but the basic principles of marketing will always apply. Sometimes though, this gets forgotten.
When I first started out in advertising, video was a bit of a dirty word. The internet was just becoming a thing, the iPhone was years away, and videos usually fell into one of two categories: Corporate or Health & Safety. Neither of which anybody actually wanted to watch. Back then video’s only saving grace for a young and inexperienced copywriter, was that it was the closest I could get to working on a TV ad.
Fast-forward (sorry, occupational hazard) a couple of decades, and I’d suggest video is now the number one marketing tool for any brand serious about creating a deeper connection with its audience. And in many ways, it’s even left TV for dead.
I’m writing this on the fly so I don’t have the figures to back that up, but I’m sure they’re out there. And it’s pretty easy to make the case for why: video is the simplest way to convey a lot of information quickly. I’m not talking about ‘facts and figures’ information – although it works very well for that too. I mean information like emotion, personality, trustworthiness – the kind of information you can get instantly by seeing someone smile, or listening to their voice as they make a passionate argument. Video is the next best thing to being in the room with someone and talking face to face.
Of course this isn’t a revelation. It’s exactly the thing the corporate video makers were trying to exploit when their choice of channel was VHS or Betamax. The thing that’s changed, is how ridiculously easy it is today for virtually everyone to consume video. Watching video has become our default way of learning almost anything. We use if for work, entertainment, and finding out how to fold a T-shirt like they do in Japan. So as a brand, it makes a whole lot of sense for you to be using it too.
At Kingel we work with a few financial and corporate clients. We recommend video to them for the reasons I’ve touched on above, and more. It allows them to break down the barriers of what people perceive them to be so they can tell the real, human stories that are really behind their business.
We could do that in print, with nice words and photography, and we do. But video allows us to do it more immediately. We don’t have to work so hard to make their case for them when they can do it themselves.
It’s what business marketers have been trying to do forever. Finally the stars have aligned to make it all possible. We just don’t call them corporate videos anymore.
Nigel Thomas has been an advertising copywriter for more than 20 years. He is copy director of Kingel, a creative agency based in Sutton Coldfield.
Kingel is a collective of creative campaign specialists. We answer our clients’ business challenges through a mix of unexpected ideas and commercially focussed insight delivered across multiple platforms.
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