The power of corporate video storytelling

Corporate video isn’t about your company – it’s about people

The problem with most corporate videos is that people fall into the trap of thinking it’s about the company – big numbers, shiny offices, global clients. Let me tell you, it isn’t.

It’s about people, plain and simple.

Viewers want connection. They want to look into the eyes of the person on screen and feel something. Viewers see a face on screen, and they form opinions, make value judgements, but most of all they listen. Viewers see a shiny office building on screen, or a revenue graph and they feel… nothing.

Big numbers might make for good thumbnails but it’s all relative. What’s enormous for one company is microscopic for another, so relying on lots of zeros to attract attention in the contentsphere is risky.

So, when planning content, we always tell comms teams, “it’s not them (the company), it’s you (the people).” Make it personal. Carry the message using the most engaged and passionate advocates your company has, regardless of whether they are “official” spokespeople or not.

There’s a rut spokespeople slip into when they’re talking “company” rather than personally. You can almost see them go a bit dead behind the eyes. Perhaps lack of belief, perhaps over-familiarity with the talking points, but it comes across as hollow -and viewers are perceptive.

If you want to talk about the qualities and achievements of your company, find the people who own those achievements and embody those qualities and put them in the video. That way you create something which has authenticity and engagement.

Facts, figures and headlines make good fireworks, fleetingly attracting viewer attention. But if you want engagement, trust and recall, you need to connect with audiences on an emotional level.

At the centre of the most effective corporate video stories are the “lean in” moments. This is the part that stops you scrolling, takes your attention away from the other screen and generally punches through the noise.

At CNN, I worked with a long-standing business presenter called Richard Quest. Each story had to have an “Ooh missus, look at that” point or he wasn’t happy. It was a valuable insight. You lean into content which resonates and connects with you, the viewer.

At the most basic level, this is the campfire thing. Our ancestors gathered around to share stories, painted by words, that fired the imagination. Long discussion of bushels of wheat and ears of corn would probably have sent the crowd dwindling.

So, our job in an era where everyone has their own, personal, unlimited campfire is to create narratives that people respond to – stories that aren’t buried under jargon and complexity, which appeal to our ancestral desire for narrative and emotional connection.

Bringing the campfire into the boardroom is most important with financial services content, where content is all too easy to shortcut as the snappy presentation of numbers.

To fall into that trap is to fail the audience twice over:

1. By assuming that the numbers in themselves tell the story, and
2. That the why and the how are less important than the what.

Brands and companies need to be humanised. They need to be explained and understood. Because only once you understand something, can you begin to trust it -and building trust is the holy grail of pretty much any interaction.

This is important because for as long we’re in charge of making decisions (before the AI robots take over), emotion and perception will remain as important a part of the decision-making process as cold hard logic.

Corporate video storytelling opens a window so much wider than just the issue under discussion.

We get to see the people – do we relate to them? Are they believable?
We get to see the premises – is this a serious, established business? Do we value what they have to say?

All this combines to form the holistic opinion of them that then drives subsequent behaviour.

In Hollywood, Christopher Vogler’s 1992 seminal tome The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers has influenced a generation of screenwriters.

If you’re not planning on penning the next Marvel blockbuster, I’ll summarise it in two sentences. There are eight character archetypes and twelve steps in the hero’s journey. Now, this may seem like overkill for corporate video producers – but there are lessons to draw.

When I get around to writing “Mythic Structure for Corporate Video” for case study videos, we’ll only need two archetypes:

– Hero (Client)
– Mentor (Agent of change e.g., Consultant)

and three stages: challenge, solution, transformation.

But it’s still a story and it still needs to take the viewer on a journey, complete with an engaging emotional arc.

Authenticity is the name of the game and that means your real people on camera. No clever AI clones, no actors (unless it’s a scenario or training video). Just real staff, executives and ideally customers.

Because while we’re expecting you to say how great you are, it’s got so much more impact when coming from your clients and customers.

I caught up with a former client recently who had been getting very excited about the prospect of shifting fund manager updates onto AI avatars and shared the early results. Not only was it more effort having to create the script for the avatar, but the on-screen performance was strangely distant – think Parker Posey’s Lorazepam-popping Victoria Ratliff from White Lotus Season 3 (just not the same without Jennifer Coolidge by the way).

One of the biggest shortcomings in video planning is the focus on what people say over what people see – prioritising bullet points (the interview) over B-roll (the visuals).

Lesson 2 at the BBC (after the human stories point) was “Say it, see it.” The visuals and the spoken narrative need to be in alignment. It doesn’t work, for example, to have a client quote up on screen while the voiceover is talking about something different.

A picture tells a thousand words. In terms of storytelling effectiveness there is simply no substitute for original, relevant visuals. In terms of engagement weight, they each carry 50% of the load.

From a producer’s perspective, getting compelling visuals is also one of the most creative and enjoyable elements. We get to use our imagination, fly drones, commission graphics – all in the service of telling your story more effectively.

Every film, every TV series, every documentary – they are all driven by conflict. This doesn’t necessarily mean physical confrontation. This is conflict as obstacle to overcome and it is entirely applicable to corporate video.

There’s a problem. Overcoming that problem has been difficult and required determination and willingness to change. We earned the solution. Showcasing the before and after and the transformation the organisation has had to undergo – that’s what the audience is drawn to.

Let me share the example of an Investor Relations platform we produced a series of ten videos for.

As a “software & service” operation they needed content to:

• Demonstrate professionalism and credibility to clients
  • Show testimonials to save arranging references
  • Convey company culture to attract job candidates
  • And – unexpectedly – reassure an overseas buyer considering an acquisition

They were bought in December for well over £100m, and the videos played a key role in reassuring the board of the acquiring company. When someone asks me what the ROI of video is, I’ve got an answer now: “In the right circumstances, well over 4500%.”

Some of the strongest opportunities for compelling narrative storytelling can be found amongst Professional Services companies – Management Consultancies particularly.

The turnaround / transformation work they do lends itself perfectly to video case studies. You’ve got adversity, challenge, enlightenment, achievement, and often humour.

These interviews can get emotional, especially with people whose companies were facing the abyss. That authenticity and passion comes across on-screen and leads to a simple trigger in the viewer “I could do with a bit of that in my company.”

One consultancy client told us the videos we made were the most clicked (and dwelt on) pages of their website.

• Facts attract clicks, emotion drives watch time
• Use storytelling structure – beginning, middle, end. Challenge, solution, transformation.
• High-quality production builds credibility – bad lighting or editing distracts.
• Use real people – employees, clients and partners are your best storytellers.
• Align your story with brand values – consistency creates deeper impact.

There we have it – that’s my guide to the power and possibilities of corporate storytelling.

Good corporate videos touch the soul. They connect, engage and inform with an authenticity and resonance that lifts them from passing content to moments that are remembered and acted upon.

If this connects and resonates with you, give us a call and we can take your brand on its storytelling journey.

Mahne Creative Media www.mahne.com is an independent specialist media production agency operating. We pride ourselves on the quality of our storytelling. We unlock the heart of the story to connect and engage target audiences through video, podcasts and training. Mahne Creative Media is the content producer management consultancies turn to when they need to stand out from their competition.