We’ve never been totally satisfied with the term branded content. It’s classic ambiguous marketing jargon which does very little to explain what it is, what it does or how/why to use it, so here are a couple of our thoughts on the value of branded video content.
Generally brands appreciate that producing video content for use on their website to improve SEO or drive engagement on social media is a good idea. It really is; Google massively favours websites that offer video content because it knows that searchers value this form of content. Apparently video is 50 times more likely to get higher organic page ranks than plain text results, so you get a great deal of value out of a having a video of any quality available for your prospective customers.
However, video in itself is not engaging enough for the modern audience. With 300 hours of footage (and rising) being uploaded to YouTube every minute, viewers know that there’s more entertaining content a click or two away and won’t sit through a video that does no more than tell them your brand values.
Branded video content is the answer to this. At Dead Ready we think of branded content as editorial style videos where emphasis is placed on entertaining or informing your target audience with content they would choose to watch, and not forcing your brand down their throat.
Consider this video from Mr Porter. Despite being a menswear retailer, the video makes no reference to clothing and focuses on providing information that they know their target audience wants – in this case, how to cook a steak. The audience consumes the content and associates the brand with their own lifestyle which leads to positive brand associations and eventual sales.
So when considering your next video production, the first thing to consider should be “what does my audience want to watch” and not “what do I want to tell them.” Once you have this premise, you’ll find it easy to subtly connect the content with your brand, even if it’s just about simply using your logo at the beginning and end.
Thinking this way is a subtle switch and a great way to refresh your approach to video production and can often lead to some really exciting and creative video. Get in touch if you want to learn more.
