Building a brand through video
In the synopsis for Darren Taylor and Mark Schriber's fantastic book "Rebranding Branding" (available by clicking this link ) they sum up the current state of play of branding quite eloquently:
The emergence of digital technologies has democratised branding from the province of marketing professionals to any teenager with an Instagram account. Brands can be institutional or personal, profitable or playful, but the environment they compete in has expanded to the global arena, where change is the only constant.
What this quote and the book itself highlights is that branding is more relevant than ever and is a crucial element for all businesses, large and small.
While many marketers are still stuck thinking that video is only good for awareness (they are wrong) video is actually a potent opportunity to build a voice and image surrounding your brand.
Used correctly a video becomes your brand voice... In action.
How do you do this?
By considering the following five points (you don't need to use all of them).
1. Produce a variety of types and styles of videos.
To build a brand voice and vision that relies heavily on video content you will want and need to have a number of videos that demonstrate a well-rounded view of your brand.
Many brands make the mistake of just producing a single style of video content that they like but brand content like content in general (tv broadcasting is a great example of this) has to have a more eclectic mix that engages with the different tastes and requirements of your audience.
Keeping the tone of the videos consistent will help your audience maintain a sense of your business’s personality.
There are numerous types and styles of video content you can use when presenting a brand voice and vision to your audience:
The more content you have with a consistent tone and message, the more people will start to associate your brand with that particular type of influence.
2. Use consistent videography.
Brand voice and visuals rely on consistent tone in order to work.
In order to achieve this, you want to maintain a consistent look and feel of your video content with lighting, camera work, choice of shooting style, backdrops, typography, design and atmosphere.
The challenge for a lot of brands is that they don't have video brand guidelines for their content (they should as with any other element of brand, video is essential to be consistent and "on brand") and that their approach to video is purely price driven.
By being price driven without guidelines in place - consistency of look and feel of their videos becomes a challenge that they struggle to overcome.
By working with a video or visual content agency to develop their video brand guidelines, brands can then take some measure of control over the consistency of their videography and work with suppliers who fit to certain price points more readily.
3. Use the same face.
Videos can also help put a literal face on your brand.?
Having a consistent face or voiceover in your videos helps your consumers better relate to your brand.
They start to trust that person.
When they see that person on the screen, they know they’re hearing from your business.
This face turns the brand into a personal friend rather than an anonymous company.
Have a spokesperson for your brand can help at various stages of the brand development journey to connect your audience to your brand.
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4. Use live streaming.
Live streaming is crucial in today’s world of social media instant gratification.
Live video campaigns can be a great way to attract customers and engender longer term loyalty.
Maintaining a consistent brand voice while broadcasting shows your consumers that your brand voice is not something you do in your promotional video content, it is actually engrained in your culture.
The “live” aspect makes your brand voice feel more real and authentic.
Consider using Facebook Live or the recently launched LinkedIn Live (if and when LinkedIn finally gives this feature to everyone).
5. Create quality videos.
Use the four building blocks of branded videos to create quality content that will connect with your audience.?
1. Branding: who you are
2. Value: why you exist
3. Call to action: how your audience can relate
4. Social sphere: how your audience can further interact with the brand
Creating quality, effective, professional videos should be at the center of any business’s brand.
You need to ensure that the video content you put out consistently reflects the brand voice you want to convey.
A challenge for many brands is doing this at scale while maintaining quality.
Many have tried cloud based video solutions or internal video resources to grow their scale but have found that this tends to have a long term adverse effect on the overall quality of their content and their audiences responsiveness to it.
The issue with all of these solutions is that they are not strategic in mindset or executed with a thorough understanding of audience want and need.
You need to find a partner or partners who understands audience, brand and video and can collaborate with you on a long term basis.
STILL NEED MORE HELP?
Reach out to me and the team at?APV !?
We’d love to talk to you about video for your brand, business, organisation or institution and find out more about the story you are looking to create and share with your audience!
Thomas J Elliott ?is the Senior Producer/Director for?APV ?an advertising agency specialising in video and animation with offices in Wan Chai Hong Kong.?
He is a winner of numerous international awards for video and animation and the author of five books on visual content.
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