webdev Group corporate videos are an interesting animal. Many people would think back to rather stiff and staid 80’s style productions of the past. To a great extent – they would be right – in 2012 – group corporate videos are having an identity crisis and it is important to circumnavigate a number of clichés and issues that large organisations frequently fall into with this type of video.
The web video challenge
The first fact is that group corporate videos have a reputation of being quite boring (there – I said it). With the advent of web video – sitting and watching a 10 minute (or longer) video with a corporation talking at length about how wonderful they are seems a bit much.
In fact with the average web punter having such a short attention span, group corporates look positivity archaic. The first obvious piece of advice would be to chop the 10 minute video to bits – perhaps to have a series of shorter videos which can be digested easier online.
Doing the rep a favour.
This would be gratefully received by the kind of people who would be using the group video most actively – the sales representative. If they are conducting a presentation or hosting a conference – they’ll appreciate having a snappier form of video to show.
Don’t use staff if you can help it!
We see a lot of group corporate videos here and there seems to be a classic mistake seems to be using staff as “presenters” for the video. This *rarely* works, the staff end up looking very embarrassed and the wind is taken out of even the most sophisticated production. The way around this (if you insist on using staff) is to interview them in a natural way and allow them to talk in their own voice rather than using a script. The more sensible way – if you want to have a professional looking presentation on the video is to hire a presenter!
The return of the Group corporate
Given all that is laid out above, it is interesting to see some (normally huge) organisations returning to the concept of the group corporate but running with the idea and making the video into an event, which will keep the PR’s and copyrighters busy.
A great example of this is provided by Maersk who shelled out £2 MILLION for this group video – The film was directed by Christoffer Boe, winner of the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, and narrated by British actor John Hurt.
