How Med Comms Brands Can Use Video In The Pandemic
Continuing our interview series exploring the impact of Coronavirus on marketing and content generation, this week we catch up with Gary Nolan, Deputy MD of Scientific Education Support.
Gary is refreshingly upbeat about the way his business has adapted to substantive change and he takes us through the way he’s not only been able to sustain effective communications, but actually improve them through the use of video.
He also has an interesting perspective on how he feels marketeers will have to embrace producing quick, dirty content for the short term, but to be ready to get back to producing high quality content soon.
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How Trade Bodies Can Use Video During The Coronavirus Pandemic
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been interviewing our clients from various sectors, to find out how they are using video to help deal with the disruption that Coronavirus has caused.
Our conversations cover a range of topics, from the unexpected benefits of video comms platforms, to the future of large scale events.
In this first episode, we talk (virtually) to Milda Manomaityte, of the Railway Industry Association about how trade bodies and membership organisations can continue to make meaningful contact with their customers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Milda takes us through some of the stickier points they had to deal with at the beginning of the crisis around the disruption to communication and shares her thoughts on how to leverage video in the future to engage with new customers – she also has a few pointers on how to behave appropriately on camera.
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How To Look Good For Video Conferences
Web conferences are the new normal and all of us are bound to need to collaborate over Skype, Zoom, Gotomeeting etc over the coming weeks/months. This vlog from Dead Ready Director Chris Tongue, offers three tips on how to make sure that you stream/webcast yourself clearly – and look good doing it!
Transcript below:
Hi. With most of us working from home now and all events and meetings taking place online, it’s important to not only know how to look good in a web conference, but to also make sure that you can be clearly seen and understood. This counts double for anybody who is used to presenting at a large scale event, where there might be a whole technical team there to make sure you’re both lit beautifully and can be heard very clearly by everybody in the room.
Online, you’re going to have to get used to being your own technical team, but fortunately, the essentials are pretty easy to get right. So here are three tips on how to look good for video conferencing.
Tip 1.
It’s essential to get your light source falling on your face, to make sure you don’t appear as a silhouette, so make sure you don’t shoot with your back towards a window. Natural light is often most flattering, so try to set your camera up underneath a window, where the light from outside can illuminate your whole face. This isn’t possible for everyone, it’s not possible for me, so alternatively, to increase the light on your face, consider just putting in a household lamp behind the camera. It really does make a massive difference.
Tip 2.
Poor quality audio is arguably worse than poor quality visuals as people have a far lower tolerance for content they can’t hear. Most laptops have built-in microphones, which are usually pretty good these days, but just remember that the further you are away from your laptop the worse the sound quality will be. I’m shooting this video with a professional microphone that I happened to have in the house when the lockdown was announced but your laptop microphone is usually ok. I would just consider buying one of these options if you’re going to be doing this on a regular basis.
Tip 3.
This one isn’t the most important, but a standard approach is to put yourself in the middle of the frame, with a little bit of your shoulders showing. It’s also a good idea to try to keep your camera at eye level, because shooting from a low angle is pretty unflattering.
Remember also to have a look at what you’re capturing in the background to make sure that you’re not capturing anything sensitive, personal or embarrassing. Neutral backgrounds are usually a safe bet, but just try not to put yourself right up against a wall, because it’ll make you look like you live in a broom cupboard.
So there you go, three simple tips to make sure that you represent yourself clearly in a video conference and look great doing it.
Stay safe. We’ll see you next time.
How To Plan Promo Videos For Maximum Engagement
Promo videos often have a lot of information to deliver. Whether you’re using them to launch a product or to promote your business as a whole, you’re probably under pressure to pack in lots of brand messaging and the risk is that you fall into the trap of talking AT your audience.
This severely undermines engagement, so the way to avoid it and to keep the audience focussed on your content, is to not only think about what you’re saying, but HOW you’re saying it.
Here are a few approaches to make sure you’re not only delivering your messaging, but that you’re giving your audience what they want.
Be Slick
Being slick isn’t about being too clever, its about disciplined execution. Cut down on any unnecessary repetitions, pauses or hesitations to keep up the pace of your video and make sure you give it the required rehearsal time.
Consider adding a visual hook which delivers pretty standard corporate messaging, while the one-shot approach takes the audience a visual ride.
Be Impressive
Video is an innovative area of technology and new production approaches are popping up all the time, many of which are available to relatively low production budgets.
If you move fast you can take advantage of the novelty value of augmented reality, 360 filming or aerial footage to to wow your audience with something they’ve not seen before.
Make Us Feel Something
There’s research that suggests that marketing on functions and features can increase the perceived benefits of your brand by 21% which isn’t bad, but if you tap into something emotive, the bump could be more like 42%.
Whether you’re making your audience laugh or tugging at the heartstrings, emotive scripts benefit from having a focussed creative vision.
So, assign script writing responsibility to your most talented writer (or engage a pro script-writer), give them plenty of rope and protect them from interference from elsewhere in the business.
Embrace Metaphors
Finally, I wanted to share an example of a promo video we produced for software platform Jaggaer One.
Knowing the complexity of their product would be difficult to explain literally in a few short minutes, the client embraced the idea of featuring a visual metaphor to quickly communicate the value of the platform.
Presenting the gymnast on the pommel horse at the beginning gave the audience something unexpected to kick off the video and kept them engaged, before easing them into the specific benefits of the product.
The key to a successful promo is to excite your audience; inspire them with a vision of how their future could be if they were to reap the benefits of your offering. If you know your customer and you never lose site of what they want, you can’t go wrong. Good luck!
If you would like to discuss how Dead Ready Productions could help you to further enjoy the benefits of video for your business, please get in touch via the button below or by calling +44 (0)208 339 6139.
Introducing Hollie Our Graphic Designer
This week we’re really pleased to be welcoming our newest member of the team, Hollie Coote!
Hollie brings with her a wealth of graphic design experience, from the disciplined, corporate style she developed at Hertz, to the child-focussed packaging designs created at Galla Trading. We’re particularly looking forward to applying her skills to the animated videos we produce, adding that extra polish to propel our production values to the next level.
Having been on the lookout for a while, we’re really excited to have found Hollie and can’t wait to get her started on the diverse range of client and internal projects we have in the pipeline.
So welcome to the team Hollie, you’re going to be busy!
