Your Video Content Should Match Your Message

Your Video Content Should Match Your MessageI really hope you have an About Us video as part of your video content. In my opinion, it’s an essential component for your company’s website. I also hope the video that’s there is in-line with your company image and message.

Which brings me to the Illinois Innovation Network. How I ended up at its website isn’t important. A click here, a click there… next thing I know I’m looking at something called the Illinois Innovation Index. Huh? Thankfully, there was an About the Index video right there for me to watch.

So… I did… and a little more than 2-minutes later I knew that the index provides analytics to inform the public and policy makers about the state of Illinois’ entrepreneurial community.

The video did exactly what it was intended to do. It educated someone unfamiliar with the index (that would be me).

Here’s where things went wrong

You know what struck me about the video though? Here’s a video touting the Illinois Innovation Index, yet the video itself wasn’t the least bit innovative. Just a series of sound bites.

Granted, the sounds bites were strung together well to tell a good story, but that’s all it was… talking heads. There weren’t any additional visuals… no video or graphics to enhance what was being talked about.

Even without the visuals, I can think of one great way to “innovate” through a talking heads video. All you have to do is get creative with the interview shots. Big wide shots, super tight shots, putting objects in the foreground, shoot through a window, use reflections, interesting lighting… etc. There’s nothing like that in this video.

Your message and Video content need to match-up

For me… that highlights a huge disconnect between the video content and the message. An organization centered around innovation better bring that in all aspects of what it does. The same can be said for your company. Take a look at your company’s mission statement, its marketing, its company culture. Does its video content match-up?

You videos are an extension of your business. They’re what people are watching and what they’ll associate with the company. Make sure they accurately represent who you are and what you do.

–Tony Gnau

Tony Gnau is a three-time Emmy-winning journalist. He is also the founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions. T60 has won 11 Telly Awards for its work over the last eight years.