Corporate Video Production

Corporate videos have traditionally been used for marketing meets, sales expos and trade shows. Today, videos can do so much more… Video has been evolving, especially in the last 5 years.

 

Corporate videos are not really new to the Malaysian market. Malaysia has an extremely commendable strength when it comes to global economic growth and one of the quickest nations to recover from the global economic recession. Malaysia is also a land of beautiful islands, beach spots, and a melting pot of food and diverse culture…

Let’s find out…

Something amazing happened when film went digital. And even more, when the world put a camera and smartphone in everyone’s hands. People started consuming videos – everywhere.  They not only watched videos for everything; but used videos as a casual everyday part of their lives. We started making videos of our own. Video calling and video-logs became personal extensions of expression.

Every social media network jumped on the video band wagon. They started supporting native video on their channels. Even Google ranked pages and websites with video, higher on search results. Search engines became clever, they started learning to understand videos and then rank them according to how relevant the content was to a keyword phrase. Website and homepage video has become a rage.

With this explosion of video as the most popularly consumed form of media, it started to put an added pressure on brands to use video in their marketing campaigns. And with so much of noise in the video space videos need to be made better, unique and separate themselves, above the competition. This is what we look for while we flick right on a film production company in Malaysia.

Today we have access to lightning-fast analytics. We have so much data to work with. To understand what is really happening. It’s now much easier to tell what kind of content is popular with your viewers. Where they drop off. That’s where we can add some life to your video productions.

What if you told your viewers something interesting like your origin story. Gave them nuggets of something that was important to them, that will save them money, give them more value; all this before they lose interest or turn away. Adding emotions of empathy, perseverance and motivation can leave your target clients with a positive influence after watching your business video.

How does this happen? It happens when you listen to your customers and when we listen to you. When you present your business at a conference, a sales expo or even at a small meeting at a coffee shop, you know what makes your audience’s eyes sparkle. You notice when interests dip? When they pull out their smartphone or roll their eyes. It’s all about being tuned-in with your client’s expectations. It’s all about understanding: how they love to consume your information? This makes all the difference.

Our team asked over 600 people from the corporate and technology industry to watch three of our videos along with a PDF brochure and case study. Testers were from middle management to senior leadership from multinational corporate companies. They watched these videos on various devices: desktops, projectors, smartphones and tabs. Over 90% of them preferred to consume a video format. Most of the industry people admitted to consuming video rather than text too. We all know this is true, we’ve seen the stats.

But here’s what was extremely striking about the study…

Almost all these technocrats preferred the one video that had emotions and a strong story. Even though this video was close to 8 minutes long, twice as long as the other two videos we had shared.

So truly, filmmaking isn’t dead. A good story, establishing characters, connecting with your audience emotions and taking your viewers through an epic journey. That’s what it’s all about. These nuances create a far better experience for viewers. They culminate to add to a positive perception towards the brand.

Circling back to emotions. Just because emotions make videos more sticky doesn’t mean that every emotion under the Sun will fit in with a corporate theme or brand. When it comes to corporate videos we also need to be weary of not going with the “too commercial” approach. Missing out on the opportunity of using emotion in your communication is just too much of a risk in 2017. Use emotions that imbibe our corporate culture. Emotions like perseverance, teamwork, motivation, confidence can enhance the journey of the corporate story. Meanwhile, emotions like humour, etc can be played down since the main communication of most corporate videos are confidence, competence and to establish trust.

There have been all sorts of corporate video trends from the ages. And to be honest, I’m lucky that I missed quite a few of them. Back in the day, corporate videos were usually an interview with subtitles or a translator reading out a script approaching companies for business. Direct!

There were music videos, lip-sync videos, the corporate video, over-the-top spy stories and more.

Among some of the trends, my personal favourites are the short film approach, documentary style and honest interviews. There is always a worthy story to be told about any organisation that people will connect with.

Corporate videos are all about trust and relationships. The success of a production is always about keeping everyone happy, the stakeholders, the production crew and the audience. The more relaxed and less pressure on the set the better the performance of the talent and the crew. We take a lot of care during pre-production and post-production. We want to make sure that we have addressed all possible contingencies so that everyone has a smooth experience. Being transparent is another factor from our experience. It’s always good to let everyone know what’s going on so that there are no last moment surprises.

I also encourage having a relaxed and fun environment on set. Sometimes some of the clients like taking a few shots with the second camera. They might be excited about manning the clipboard between takes. We spend time chatting about camera lenses and what type of camera they should buy for their travels. Sometimes, we shoot some fun short skits or vines that are played in between corporate events. So there you have it, corporate video productions don’t have to always be boring or really serious. Happy faces make great videos!