Video has never been more important. The Facetime calls to grannys and granddads have helped to ease the sting of isolation. All of us have experienced the call to rally our resilience and get through this together. Many of these messages have hailed from the power of compelling video content.

Businesses have also created videos not only to stay in touch with their customers but to expand their reach and send essential messages of safety and hope during the pandemic.

One thing is certain– the economy is going to take a battering over the next couple of years. Hopefully, the incentive packages will help companies to get back on their feet. But companies are getting creative and thinking outside the box for themselves. This list contains companies that make content creation during COVID look like a stroll through the park.

As internet use has spiked by 70 percent, it’s a great time to get a video campaign out. Here are some of the video production trends that are really connecting with people as they live in this strange dystopian-like time.

1. Live-streaming events through social platforms

Here lies the biggest change in video production. Live events were not all that commonplace before, but they have become pillars in modern marketing these past few months. The demographic of people who partake in live events is also broadening. Plus, the moment to moment interactions is an incredible way to connect with your audience.

Once everyone suddenly wasn’t able to interact with the world in the way they once did, people naturally found alternatives. For instance, when Italy became the epicentre of the virus back in March, Instagram Live views doubled in just one week. It just goes to show how human adapt and find ways to cope, even when faced with months of isolation.

Live broadcasts on social media have been used from everything from the massive trend of live workouts, to live, unscripted gardening shows and yoga classes. These trends are unlikely to go anywhere quickly, as although a lot of people are eager to return to normality, learning from home has brought with it a slower lifestyle that many are hoping to take with them even as the world opens back up.

2. Lockdown’s shown that video production isn’t everything…

Before we get into any of the other points, people have something essential in video production during this lockdown. And it’s this – content is what people are craving and not all of the bells and whistles. Obviously, with social distancing, it’s impossible to have the production scale that we saw in 2019. And guess what? People are enjoying clips more than ever. Think Tik Tok. Those videos are hardly masterpieces in cinematic art – and yet the app enjoys 800 active users worldwide.

So if you’re thinking of putting your video campaigns on hold until things pick up again, perhaps think again.

3. Animation

Before the coronavirus, animation was a vastly underestimated and under-utilized storytelling medium. The flexibility and endless opportunities to make your ideas come to life make animation a rich tapestry that instantly creates moods and tones from the first scene that are hard.

The Canadian government created a lego animation thanking Canadian children on their commitment to tackling the coronavirus. This masterpiece is such a wonderful example of how animation works to tug at the viewer’s heartstrings.

4. Live-action

It’s a refreshing take. Everything goes these days. Smartphones, tablet cameras and GoPro footage have all been accepted into advertisements of even the behemoths of advertising. Before all of this, all of us expected ads and commercials videos to be polished, high budget, glossy and flawless. However, this new style of video production relaxes the imagery and gives your audience an insight into real life and maybe reflect their own back at them– which is a welcome novelty for many.

5. The Human Touch

The coronavirus has made us more aware of our shared humanity and some companies have made us seriously sniffle through their video – even if it’s barely a minute long.

Behold the 2020 Uber ad

The power in this ad is in capturing emotions. It’s the frustration, the laughing through the pain, the glowing, hopeful eyes of children and those that are just holding themselves together as they wish everything would just go back to normal.

When creating an ad, it’s vital to know how you want your viewer to feel. Uber obviously wanted to reflect the ups and downs people are experiencing right now and acknowledging people’s struggles.

6. Humour

Moving on from this, another route that businesses have taken is to help lighten the situation. British Gas have certainly taken this approach in their stride:

Playing on the regular routine of the “man in the van” from a flask of tea to filling at the petrol station and adding in the full and heroic orchestral music is a stroke of genius. You’d also have to be made of stone not to crack a little smile at the toddler acting as customer care support help for her mother.

British Gas shows that capturing your business in its every day right now can be pretty hilarious material for your audience.

7. Mobile viewing is down

In this brilliant article from The New York Times, The Virus Changed the Way We Internet, we can see how the use of websites have shot up while app usage has declined.

So while mobile-first has been drilled into us over the past five years, suddenly we see a spike in computer viewing. As Koeze and Popper put it we “appear to be remembering how unpleasant it can be to squint at those little phone screens”. So while your mobile is, of course, still prevalent, don’t expect all your view to come from a 4.5-inch screen anymore.

If you’re looking for help to create video campaigns and reach your audience now, then you can contact us here. Whether you’re looking to educate an audience, inspire your clients or ignite their imagination – we help to turn concepts into beautiful videos that capture your viewers.

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Your animation’s format is one of the first things to consider, along with the purpose and the concept of your animation for business marketing. We’ll be diving into each of the five major animation types and why it might be the best fit for your next project.

1. Motion Graphics

The most commonly used by businesses these days, motion graphics is perfect for when you have a decent amount of information that needs to come across clearly. Motion graphics takes this in its stride, making dense topics come to light in an entertaining way. This style tends not to revolve around characters and storylines as much as the other alternatives. A strong voiceover accompanied by appealing graphics really helps to amplify your message. If you’re looking for a format that will fit your next explainer video or product launch, then this is a great option.

Hubspot’s video here is one to watch – they are giving their audience valuable advice along with a free signup at the end, so we can see that they are working to attain prospective customers:

2. Whiteboard Animation

This means of animation involves the appearance that the video’s text and graphics is being drawn onto a surface. You’ve probably seen quite a few of these and that in itself comes with its challenges. Although extremely useful in relaying information, it’s essential that you’ve got a strong concept as many are lacklustre, to put it politely.

That being said, here’s one by Blue Zones that shows the engagement potential of a whiteboard animation done well:

3. 2D Animation

The grandfather of animation, Disney’s classics pop into the mind when we talk 2D. Invented in 1880, the medium is still used both in the entertainment and marketing industries. If you’re looking to capture a story and stand out from traditional advertising, especially if nostalgia is at the centre of your concept, then 2D is an excellent option.

Here is a wonderful example of what can be achieved in a 2d advert made by Airbnb:

4. 3D Animation

Again, we’re drawn back into Disney here, but instead, we’re thinking of their latest collection of movies – Frozen, Brave, Moana. 3D is a more contemporary option, and like 2D, the style lends itself for storytelling, characters and emotion-based ads. The flexibility of playing with the lighting, textures and overall style of this mode means that you can make the end product visually stunning and on-brand. That’s why it lends itself so well to brand awareness ads.

This beauty by Erste Group shows the potential of a 3D animated ad:

5. Typography Animation

Also known as kinetic typography, this is an animation technique that mixes motion and text to express ideas using video animation. This style is perfect for showcasing your brand’s offerings or product launches. It also works well with the sound off, which suits the predominantly mobile-first internet users.

Spotify’s typographic animation shows how compelling and entertaining this format can be:

If you’re looking to engage your audience, grow your reach and pile up on those conversions, then you can get in touch with us here at Videoworks so we can create the perfect animated video for your business.

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In this article, we’re going to walk you through what your business can gain from having high-quality explainer videos as assets for your brand. We’ve cherry-picked the best explainer videos and show you why these videos performed so well for the brand. Gaining insights and inspiration from successful videos will help kickstart your brainstorm so you can create a truly exceptional explainer video that enriches your content library.

So what exactly is an explainer video?

In a nutshell, explainer videos are short online marketing videos that feature a narrator who concisely explains and educates users on your product or service.

There’s definitely a debate on whether explainer videos are exclusively animated or not. Saying this, our take is that it can also be live-action, a whiteboard style or a blend of any of these. What’s important is that the video doesn’t just convey a brand image but explains some aspect of your business.

These videos are really effective when nestled on a site landing page as viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.

The benefits of explainer videos

• Increases conversions – it’s a great way to attract and engage your audience. Know that customers are 64 percent more likely to purchase from you after watching an explainer video.
• Alleviates demand for customer support – explainer videos reduces the customer’s need to contact customer support by no less than 47%! This also improves your brand loyalty, as providing quick and easy solutions for your customers increases customer retention.
• Shows you’re customer focused – video content, especially when explaining a topic, is the preferred medium. The furious pace of modern living, endless social media feeds and inescapable ad consumption has decreased the population’s attention spans. Your job isn’t to make your audience sift through 5,000-word articles when you can explain it in a fun 5-minute video. Make your company a joy to interact with.
• Multiple functions – there are so many different utilities that an explainer can be used to build your brand. Harrison, in a Forbes article, mentions the following explainer video categories, which we’ve expanded upon below.

Types of explainer videos

These are the most common explainer videos that we make for our clients:

• Benefits video – this is the show and tell video, a chance to prove to prospects the value that your brand can bring to them. These feature well on a landing page and can be repurposed for social media marketing. Win-win!
• Testimonial videos – brand loyalty is crucial, and showing that you have plenty of it really bolsters your company. This speaks much louder than a written review, as this takes satisfied customers a few seconds to draft. A testimonial video shows that your customers are willing to spend a couple of hours in their day to help out your brand. You’ve clearly done something right if this is the case!
• FAQ videos – These videos answer all common questions and save time. The beauty of this – and we do it with our own clients– is that you can add more content when new questions pop up for your customers.
• Demo videos – slightly different from “how-to” videos as it gets into the finer details of your product/service.
• “How To” videos – perfect when launching a new product or service. Not only does it show your customers how to get the most out of your product/service, but you can also highlight your support catalogue to potential customers.

Best explainer videos examples in 2020

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Expertise
At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. A good crew are usually worth splashing the cash on. Most corporate and educational videos only need a small crew consisting of a cameraman/director and a sound man.

Location/ Production Time
Can the shoot be completed in a day or will it take longer? Will the crew have to travel? Are there expenses associated with the location? All these things need to be considered when choosing where to shoot in order to keep the costs down.

Equipment
Even the quickest video can required a lot of equipment. Most videos will need the use of at least one camera, lighting and sound equipment. Most cameramen worth their salt will provide all this on the day.

Editing/Graphics
A short 2-3 minute video can take up to 3 days to edit and ensure a clean cut finished product that is interesting and eye catching. Some videos many also required graphics, for example; subtitles or a company logo.

Length of Video
The duration of the finished video is one of the major factors that can affect the cost of producing a video. It will determine the length of the shoot as well as the length of the edit. The shorter the video, the quicker it’s made – the cheaper it will be to make!

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If you would like to join the team, we are regularly looking for the following roles to be filled:

– Camera
– Camera Director
– Production Assistant
– Production Manager
– Editor

If you are interested in one of the above jobs and want to your name to our database, email a cover note and a cv to jobs@videoworks-london.co.uk

We look forward to seeing your talent!

Team VideoWorks

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Here at VideoWorks, we are interested in our business and other businesses. One of the perks of the job is that we are able to enter other businesses and see how they work. From that vantage, we have seen how video has helping to improve businesses! Internal messaging within a business can be complicated and getting everyone on the same page almost impossible. Video production can do this and that’s why training videos are a growth area for us.

Every company worth their salt needs a professional development strategy. Producing a video or a series of videos to help your employee’s professional development or inform them about big changes to their workplaces (we won’t mention Brexit) is a fantastic way of informing them in a visual manner. Since the alternative would be face-to-face meetings, video production to share important information to employees is cost-effective. 

Training video production is also such a fantastic tool because employees are more likely to remember and respond to the training delivered via video. The videos can also be accessed whenever the employees need to and can be re-watched in the workplace or at home. One of the great benefits is that so much training is theoretical but video production and dramatisation can transform the theoretical into reality and multiple types of scenarios and examples can unfold to illustrate an important point.

If incorporating a trainer into the video, it is far cheaper to film the trainer an distribute internally than for the trainer to visit the various locations a business might have. INstead of on-going training costs, a video would require a once-off payment. Get in touch with London’s leading video production provider now for a competitive training video quote!

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