Why brands are shifting away from traditional advertising and leaning into commercial documentary marketing strategies.
Consumer attention is shortening and their tolerance for being sold to is limited. Millennials and Gen Z are increasing in purchasing power, and they don’t care about your brand name. They’ve seen brands come and go. One trending product quickly gets replaced with another. The brands that develop customer loyalty are the ones who consistently embody the lifestyle of their consumer’s aspirations. It gets harped on time and time again. Still, the content rings true every time- consumers want to be entertained, and surprised, and most importantly- crave a connection that helps them navigate the tribulations, and celebrate the joys of being human. If brands want to continue to connect with their target audience and outpace competitors, they need to make it less about their products and their story, and more about amplifying the voices and stories of their target audience. Brands can do this by producing commercial documentaries.
How Do Brands Connect With Their Target Audience?
A key component in a brand’s marketing strategy is curating a message and then developing a distribution strategy that reaches its target audience, engages with them, and retains them. Video content has dominated against traditional forms of advertising in its effectiveness and affordability for marketing strategies. A corporate video production company packages a brand’s message in a succinct and creative vision that companies can leverage in their digital marketing strategy. Brands can maximize their video marketing efforts by utilizing video production agencies to deliver high-quality videos that ensure brand cohesion, technical precision, and save time for marketing teams to focus on strategy while video production companies execute their video marketing content.
Which type of video production effectively communicates brand values?
Communicating a brand’s values that connects with its target audience used to be straightforward: make a brand video. Simply create video content that tells the audience who you are, what you offer, and be tone-adjacent to your audience’s values. These days, however, the answer is not so straightforward.
While brand videos are still a great way to showcase a brand’s identity, commercial documentaries are more effective at fostering connection over shared values. Commercial documentaries offer the opportunity to tell the brand’s story in a more in-depth and engaging way, and they can help businesses connect with potential customers on a deeper level.
What is a brand documentary?
A brand documentary, or commercial documentary, is a video production that is paid for by a company but focuses on an individual’s or community’s story. It’s an engaging way of sharing a testimony. A branded documentary is essentially a story for viewers to see how a brand plays a role in an individual’s life. It removes the barrier of consumer vs. business and creates a shared experience, inviting others to partake in the industry in their own creative way.
How Commercial Documentaries Influence Conversions
Purchasers aren’t actually looking to buy, they’re looking to experience and will purchase as a means to experience. Brand documentaries don’t sell your product, they share how your product improved or contributed to a community’s well-being. At its core, purchasing is a by-product of pursuing a lifestyle or fulfilling a need. All the decisions leading up to the purchase overlap between product qualities and emotional connection, but at the end of the day- emotion and belief systems win over logic. Brand documentaries are an effective video marketing tool that emotionally connects consumers to brands that can provide them with an experience they value.
What is The Difference between a Brand Video and Brand Documentary?
A brand video centers on the brand itself, it tells the story and values of the company, and what products or services it offers. It helps establish clear and direct communication about a brand. Brand documentaries highlight an individual’s or community’s experience with the brand as a side character of the story rather than the main focus.
Why are Brand Documentaries effective?
- The masses want an authentic 1:1 connection
- Testimonials develop brand authority
- Stories are evergreen marketing
- Emotional Selling Points meet Unique Selling Points
- Distribution channel effectiveness
- Stories spread like wildfire = word of mouth marketing
- Humans see themselves in other humans, not enterprises
What is video marketing?
Video marketing is an increasingly effective marketing strategy companies are leveraging across all industries. It is an affordable way for companies to share their values, products, services, and creative vision with like-minded consumers. Video marketing is no longer limited to t.v. commercials repeating in between soap operas and news stations. The way brands are reaching their target audience through commercial video production is increasingly spread across social media, affiliate and influencer marketing, video streaming services, online video ads, billboard videos, product placement in movies, and in-app ads.
How do you develop video marketing content?
Develop Your Video Marketing Strategy
- Know your target audience
Understanding your target audience’s demographics, pain points, values, motivators, and lifestyle aspirations are integral to any marketing strategy and your video production process is no different. Knowing your target audience allows you to speak their language, understand the nuances, and remain embedded in your audience’s culture. - Determine your end goal and distribution channels
Are you looking for reach or conversion? Brand awareness or customer retention? Being clear and specific about your end goal will drive the effectiveness of your video content. A one-size-fits-most approach offers lukewarm results at best, so be intentional about keeping your end goal specific whether it’s reach or conversion. - Develop your message and keep it consistent
Your brand image and messaging should remain consistent across all channels to develop brand recognition and reiterate your brand’s connection to it’s target audience. - Define your timeline and budget
Based off of how quickly you need to complete the video production process and your allotted budget will play a factor in your video production services available. We understand different companies have various needs and restrictions and partner with you to deliver high-quality video production services within your video production budget.
Execute Video Production and Distribution
- Outline your video production process
Pre-Production: This stage will entail the bulk of preparation detailing your idea development, location scouting, casting, scripting, shot list, crewing up, equipment acquisition, timeline, and contingency planning for the inevitable.
Production: This stage takes place on location setting up lighting and sound, coordinating talent, equipment setup, and filming.
Post-Production: Once the filming has taken place, post production edits the video content, color grading, splicing, lining up audio and visuals, and formatting the video for it’s appropriate distribution channel. - Distribute your video content through marketing channels
You’ve created your video content and now it’s time to share it with the world! Plan your release around your audience’s active engagement times and make sure you’re able to monitor results from its release.
Evaluate Your Video’s Performance
- Measure and Evaluate Video Performance
Based on your original goal, measure your performance through a video’s key performance indicators. KPI’s can include reach or impressions, click through rate, engagement, and watch-time retention. This helps your brand gleam valuable insights to where your audience resonated with your message and if they tuned out. What worked in the past doesn’t guarantee success in the future. Monitoring your audiences’ response and recalibrating your video marketing content will help your brand continue to connect with your audience.
Types of Video Production
- Brand Documentaries (Commercial documentaries)
- Brand Videos
- Explainer Videos
- Product Videos
- Industry Videos
- Promotional Videos
- Corporate Videos