How to leverage video across your enterprise while keeping it on-brand
With more and more video being created across your enterprise, it’s more important than ever to keep it all brand-aligned. That was the message in our first post about B2B Video Brand Guidelines that got a lot of attention with brand marketers.
In this installment, we pick up where we left off and provide some practical advice, examples and tips to help keep your video on-brand, including a helpful starter list for creating your own In-House B2B Video Toolkit – the Guardrails for your Guidelines.
What should your Video Brand Guidelines cover?
In our earlier post we introduced what we at Blue Marble see as The 6 Elements of Brand Video Guidelines, which covers the creative aspects of your video that add up to the overall quality of “brand”.
The 6 Elements of Brand Video Guidelines
- Motion
- Picture photography
- Sound: Music and Voice
- Animation
- Message
- Budgets
What about the Dos and Don’ts?
But what about the more practical “dos and don’ts” you see in most brand guidelines, brought to you by your friendly brand police? There are many situations and scenarios your Video Brand Guidelines could cover. But you can’t cover everything. And if you lay down too many rules, you run the risk of stifling the very entrepreneurial creativity you want to foster and empower throughout your organization.
Our answer – focus on what’s most important to your unique brand and organizational culture. For example, when we worked with SunTrust, the symbolism of the sun was central to the brand, so a key guideline for all SunTrust photography and video was to always have a single source of light visible in the shot. The guidelines didn’t get specific about what the source of light must be or where it should appear.
Of course, SunTrust (now Truist) had very comprehensive brand guidelines. But if your brand is new to having guidelines, it’s OK to start simple and build as you go.
SunTrust – “Lighting the Way” was created for a 5 monitor video wall that stretched the entire length of a hallway on the company’s executive floor.
When are Video Brand Guidelines really important?
How do you know if it’s time for your company or organization to invest time and effort into creating or sharpening up your video brand guidelines? Here are some of the most common traits and characteristics we’ve seen.
Large enterprises with numerous divisions
Much like herding cats, keeping multiple divisions on-brand can feel like a losing battle. Whether they produce their own video in-house or contract with outside video resources, this is a situation that calls out for robust, well-crafted video brand guidelines.
Companies bringing more video production in-house
It’s no wonder more businesses are finding ways to produce video in-house. Keeping the video pipeline full has become a critical requirement for both maintaining a presence on social media and keeping your website at the top of search results. Many of these companies may have nailed their best practices for high-profile marketing videos and are now looking at “the loose ends”, like internal training and customer support videos that previously may have been overlooked, but are in fact a key part of maintaining the brand experience.
The In-House Video Toolkit – Guardrails for your Guidelines
Guidelines are great, but a key way to protect your brand and make those guidelines easier to follow is to provide your team with an In-House Video Toolkit. This is the customized, approved, on-brand kit of video content elements we’ve created for many of our clients, that allows more people across more departments to create video that consistently stays on-brand.
As with your brand guidelines, it’s okay to start small and build as you go. Before you know it, you’ll have a well-equipped army of on-brand video content creators enlisted throughout your company, helping you reach your goals, grow your business, and achieve maximum video awesomeness.
Tools for Your In-House Video Toolkit
- Animated logos for your brand and important products
- “Lower-Thirds”- a branded graphic that pops up during an interview to identify the speaker by name, title, company, etc.
- Bumpers – often, an animated graphic used at transition points
- Titles and call outs – templates with correct type font, colors, etc., for show titles, section titles and text that’s “called out” on screen
- B-Roll Library – often built over time, this is a collection of approved, beautifully shot imagery of things like your company’s products in use, your manufacturing facilities and process, your customers’ industries, your main office and people at work, and any footage that helps tell your company’s stories
- Video icons, iconography – a consistent look and feel for symbols of your company’s various product or service categories, the industries you serve, etc.
Bonus Tip: If your company is working with a branding firm, simply ask them if they can address video in your overall brand guidelines.
Need help creating or enhancing your current Video Brand Guidelines, or want to start assembling your own In-House Video Kit? Give us a call. We’re known for getting the big jobs done!
