Branded videos can be a great asset for many businesses. They can be used to create brand awareness, to assist with re-branding campaigns, increase leads or improve conversions depending on how they’re used. 

Since we’re a video production company that specializes in branded content, we often get asked about what types of videos can be used to create brand awareness. We put this list together to help you think of different video concepts that can help your brand expand its’ reach. 

We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. 

1. Brand Video

What is it? If your goal is to increase brand awareness or to establish your brand, then a brand video is a great way to do so. A brand video helps to create a personal connection with your viewers and educate them on the what and why behind your business. These types of videos focus more on the values of your business rather than the specific products or services. If you’re an outdoors brand, then you might want to show off an appreciation for nature, or if you’re in the health industry you can convey a sense of dedication and perseverance. This can be a very open category but these videos will always try to align a brand with certain values in the eye of their audience.  

How do I use it? The audience for this video will be everyone who falls into your ideal target market so it’ll be a bit more generic than other videos. You want the video to serve as an introduction to your brand for new viewers and to build a connection with customers who are already familiar with you. Typically, we try to keep these videos under 2 minutes long and recommend hosting them on your website, social media channels and google my business.

What are the Benefits? Increase brand awareness, improve brand reputation, increase consideration, leads and sales.

2. Founders Story

What is it? Take your audience from customers to advocates with a founder’s story video. These videos dive more into the journey of the owner or founder of an organization and provide context for your goals and mission statement. The goal of this video is to tell the viewer why your organization was created and what motivates you.

How do I use it?  A founder’s story will occasionally serve as a brand video and this can be really effective for some businesses (especially for small businesses), but there are times when you want to keep these separate. 

If you’re a company seeking investment or funding, you’ll likely want a brand video targeted towards your customers and a separate founder’s video to appeal to investors. For larger organizations, we often want to hire talent to create an emotional connection that resounds with the audience. In these cases, a founder’s video can go a step further to create a more personal connection with the people behind the brand and enhance your brand video.

The length of these videos can be longer than a brand video as the viewers typically are already familiar with your business. The actual length will vary based on how compelling your founder story is, but usually, they’re still between 2-5 minutes. We recommend hosting these videos on your website, social media channels, Kickstarter, and investment decks (when appropriate).

What are the Benefits? Increase brand reputation, increase consideration, leads, sales, and advocacy.

3. Product Commercial

What is it? When you want to highlight a product or service to your audience, a commercial can still be very effective. Product commercials introduce a new product or service, highlight some of the main features of at least the main features that appeal to the target audience of the video. These videos are more effective when they’re visually appealing, eye-catching and short. 

How do I use it? When starting to develop your commercial you want to consider your marketing strategy. Introducing a new product to an existing audience (Product Development), new product to a new audience (Diversification), existing product to new audience (Market Development) or existing product to an existing audience (Market Penetration) will all require different approaches. Knowing your strategy here can help guide your creative process.

You will want these videos to be high quality and under a minute, and usually under 15 seconds (or at least have a 15s cut available) if you’re going to run non-skippable ads on YouTube. Although these videos are short, it can take a lot of consideration to include all of the features in such a short timeframe.

What are the benefits? Increase leads, sales, product awareness.

4. Explainer Video

What is it? An explainer video is a mix of a brand video and a product demo. It highlights the features of your product or service for prospective customers. Usually, it stops short of explaining ‘how to use’ the product or service but gives the audience an idea of what to expect from your business.

How do I use it? These videos are typically up-beat, snappy, and short. It’ll give your audience an introduction to your business or product. The goal of these videos is to entice them to spend more time on your website or convince them to research your product/service in more detail. These videos are effective on your website, social media, or paid advertising.

What are the Benefits? Increase brand awareness, increase consideration, convert leads and sales

5. Explainer Video

What is it? Product demonstrations show how to use your product or service. If you have a complicated product or platform that users will have to navigate, it can help to give them added support and cut down on your customer support costs. Some products will show a physical demonstration but for products that aren’t tangible, the product/service can be effectively demonstrated with a screen record or basic animations.

How do I use it? You want to write a script that is extremely easy to understand. These videos can be quite long, although if you have a complicated product, you may want to consider breaking it down into different videos for each chapter. Often, customers will watch several videos before making a purchase decision and each one of these videos can be used indirectly in your sales funnel. Another option is to create a ‘Product Care’ video, this can help continue the relationship with your customers after they’ve made a purchase. Alternatively, if you have a very simple product you could even use a demonstration as a creative product ad.

What are the Benefits? Convert leads, increase sales, reduce customer support costs, increase retention rate.

6. Customer Testimonial

What is it? A testimonial video is a great way to add social proof to your business. These videos feature a customer or user of your product who talks about how great their experience was with your business. The format is fairly similar to a review. Usually, this is an interview-style video with some additional shots of the customer using the product laid over top. It’s important that these testimonials cover the ‘sticking points’ that prospective customers have so you can bring them closer to converting.

How do I use it? Often, we’ll see this video placed directly on the product or service page. This placement can be effective because customers will see the testimonial as they’re in the consideration stage for your product. If you’re just interviewing one customer, these videos can be as short as 30 seconds but it’s common to show multiple customers and run around 3 minutes or so.

What are the benefits? Increase brand awareness, build trust, convert leads to sales.

7. Showcase Video

What is it? A showcase video is similar to testimonial videos, but instead of asking a customer to give a review of their experience you want to showcase how they use your product. The benefit of this video is that you can borrow some ‘brand equity’ from your customers and appeal to a similar audience while giving them an idea of how they could implement your product themselves.

How do I use it? This video can be used on the product or service page of your website or it could also be effective on social media or paid advertising. This type of video is becoming more popular with larger corporations or businesses that have less of an ‘approachable’ face. By showcasing how their small business partners use their product they can effectively let their customers act as the face of their business.

What are the Benefits? Increase Brand Awareness, build authority & trust, increase leads, convert leads to sales.

8. Branded Documentary

What is it? Many brands are starting to fund short documentaries about causes that align with their values. The subject matter varies extensively, but as marketing tools, they can be very effective since the audience is choosing to watch the video. Consumers are getting better and better at tuning out advertising on all platforms so creating content that people want to watch can be a great way to expose your brand to people. 

How do I use it? You may want to create a landing page for this video and share clips on social media where you send people to your website. The goal here is to get as many eyeballs on this type of content so you’ll likely want to share on YouTube or Vimeo as well.

What are the Benefits? Increase Brand Awareness, Builds Authority

Summary

That’s it! We hope you picked up some ideas on how to spread your brand through video. The most amazing thing about video is that within each of these categories are hundreds of possibilities for each business. If you’ve picked a type of video to create but you’re stuck for ideas, try combining multiple concepts from this list and see what you can come up with!