One of the biggest challenges businesses have with online video is their lack of knowledge on how video affects their branding as a whole. Most feel that all they have to do is simply “make a video” and then they “have a video” that will work wonders for their business. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Video is such a strong emotional connector. So strong, that it is capable of establishing brand awareness in ways no other communication tool can. Check out this video series for Honda as an example (http://dreams.honda.com/). Honda calls this a documentary series focusing on huge dreamers and how they make their big dreams happen.
Before this web series, you may have assumed Honda’s brand was all about reliable vehicles, built with exceptional quality. Reliability and quality are great brand identifiers for Honda, but Honda is also about dreaming huge dreams and they’ve done a lot of “Big Dream” research and technical work, well beyond the automobile. They wanted that part of who they are to be known across the world, so they made this series to help share this part of their brand.
This video series is a clear demonstration that Honda understands how to harness the power of online video to educate the public about its brand… If only that were true for every business! Many businesses, particularly small businesses, often don’t take the time to work on the content of their video, ensuring that it represents their business and its brand the way they want it to. This is such a disastrous mistake, because just as quickly as video encourages an emotional loyalty to a brand, it can easily fall flat and miss the mark entirely.
When video is used wisely, it is the most powerful brand identifying tool out there. When used hastily and with little thought as to how you want the public to identify your brand, it can dry up your marketing budget with little to no results.
Leap of the Week: While making your own videos, keep this in mind… Whether the videos are homemade or professionally produced, it is essential that you always, ALWAYS keep your brand identity in the forefront of your mind while creating video content, because if you don’t, your videos might actually dilute your marketing efforts, and work against you in the end!
Have fun with your videos,
Danielle
The “Chick In Charge” at Velvet Pumpkin Productions
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