Stop making brand videos, you idiots

So you’ve decided to make a brand video. How exciting!

Are you excited? You should be.

You’re going to hone everything your company offers down to a few pithy words. You’re going to bring your brand to life with sound and colour. You’re Oliver Stone mixed with David Ogilvy. The Kubrick of corporate communications.

The bad news is: you’re an idiot. A big, gullible idiot.

Unless you really want to show the world how good you are at wasting money, don’t make a brand video.

Even if the CEO really wants you to.

Even if your agency told you it’s definitely, 100%, without a doubt a great idea.

Because nine times out of ten, brand videos are a waste of everyone’s time.

Video is a terrible format

You can’t skim it or skip it. You can’t see what’s coming up. There’s no easy way to glance at the key points, or find the bit you know you’re interested in.

You know the Star Wars opening crawl? Imagine if every website you ever went on was built like that. Imagine if you had to read every line of copy at the speed and in the order the company chose.

It would be fun for ten minutes, because Star Wars. But then it would suck.

That’s video.

It sucks.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of the talkies. Video can be a wonderful communication tool. It’s absorbing, and emotive. It can pull you in like nothing else, and explain things you just can’t get across in words and pictures.

But you need to be sold on the idea to start watching. You need to want to press play, and spend thirty seconds or thirty minutes or however long passively consuming the information someone else chooses to put in front of you.

Which brings me to…

No one cares about your product

That’s not to say they won’t care. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with your product. I’m sure your product is lovely.

But right now, I don’t know anything about it. So why don’t you start by showing me a sexy picture, and a sexy headline?

The thinnest laptop ever.

The consultancy that banned the word ‘synergy’.

The only yoghurt that contains real Scottish salmon.

OK , you have my attention. Now where’s that video?

The reasons people make videos are usually bad ones

Here are some reasons you may be thinking of making a brand video.

Reason one: you really want to impress someone. Maybe it’s your CEO, or your CMO, or someone else high up in your company who thinks a shiny brand video will be just the ticket.

Unsurprisingly, this is a terrible way to make business decisions.

Reason two: your agency have sold you on the idea. It’s a great way to show the world what makes Company Corp great, they said.

I hate to break it to you, but: they’ve done that to make more money. If you make a brand video, you can charge a client for just about everything: storyboarding, scripting, shooting, editing.

Video prints money.

For them, not for you.

Reason three: “People don’t read any more.” This is the big one. I’ve heard people say this a thousand times, and I’m not that old.

“We’re making a video, because people don’t read any more.”

Sometimes, this is specifically about young people, AKA millennials. It’s often backed up by “data” from surveys like this one.

(Let’s pause here to consider my favourite-ever claim, which comes from this 2015 Psychology Today article:

Videos are processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text.

Nope. I have no idea what that means, either.)

It’s true that there’s been a shift in how people consume certain things, like news. Modern humans, bathed in cheap Wi-Fi and 4G data, love to watch video.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but these people reckon the average Briton watches over four hours of video a day. OK, we’re watching less TV. But we’re making up for it by watching more and more online video.

Think about that for a second. Four hours! That’s Braveheart, and three episodes of The Simpsons, every single day.

Doesn’t that mean they have two minutes to watch your new video?

Err, no. Sorry. You know why?

Because they’re looking for Braveheart, and they’re not looking for you.

Young people read a lot

Those millennials we hear so much about? They actually read more books than their parents.

People often talk about our ‘visual culture’. But ubiquitous social media and instant messaging mean we’re very used to reading short burst of text. Most of us do it all day, every day.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s not that people don’t read. It’s that they are time-poor, and fickle. They want something quick, and easily digestible, that they can consume on their own terms.

The last thing they want is a video.

Unless…

Making a video is a good idea, sometimes

Like I said before, I’m not anti-video. There are lots of great reasons to make a video, including:

• People are already interested in what you’re saying, and want to learn more.
• You want to show something that really can’t be described in words. New technology often fits into this category (unless it’s VR, or AR).

• You’re making an ad. Different kettle of fish, advertising. An ad is interruptive: you’re grabbing someone’s attention when they’re already watching something. You’re asking them to change lanes, not to get in a car and start driving.

Media companies make videos because videos make them more money

You may have decided that video is the way to go because of The Media. Media companies are making more video than ever. For example, 70% of The Sun’s online articles now contain a video.

Why? Because media companies make their money from advertising. And pre-roll video ads are big money-spinners.

The exact rates advertisers pay vary hugely, but if you look around (here, for instance, and here), you’ll see that pre-roll video earns many times what display ads do.

This isn’t the market most companies are in. What’s more, it suggests that at least some of the growth in video isn’t because people want to watch video. It’s because advertisers and media companies want them to watch video.

This is a lesson worth learning: what people do isn’t always a good indicator of what they want to do.

In conclusion…

Don’t be an idiot. If you’re thinking of making a video, ask yourself why. If someone else is pushing you to make one, ask them why.

And for god’s sake, give people another way to get the same information.

If you liked this piece, please recommend it, and share it with all your friends. They might just read it.