New technologies and a new language culture had turned the corporate video into a modern, appealing and versatile instrument of communication.
And its costs, compared to its astonishing results, are very reasonable! Despite all the truths and the evidences about the most astonishing technological novelties, nothing had yet been invented that can charm, involve and excite the audience of a convention as much as the “old” corporate video. The lights dim, the video starts and, once again… it’s cinema… beauty!
Is the audiovisual old? Absolutely not! That’s because the latest techniques and technologies gave it a new modern drive that makes it more emotional and effective than ever. And that’s not it: they also made available “special effects” that, till a few years ago, were a prerogative solely of the greatest productions.
Also the languages to which the public got used to thanks to cinema, TV, advertising and new interactive media are now evolved and the audiovisual can and has to consider these changes. A long presentation video, stuffed with film footage, data, charts and texts read by a voice over is old, boring, absolutely not emotional and transmits these same features to the Company. Why being deliberately harmful against one’s own image?
To obtain an effective and successful communication, the video production has to focus on the information that the video has to convey but also (mainly?) on the emotions that need to be aroused . An interview to a manager or to the Head of Marketing, for example, must be realized taking special care of the camera techniques, as the ones of the quality TV journalism to which we are now used to.
Enough with the fixed frames and the boring blah-blah: it is now better to use short and effective sentences, almost headlines, shoot in charming location while moving, with a fast montage, different contents, zooms on details, scenes where the product is used, evocative scenes and especially images/metaphors with a high symbolic content. Graphic and setting have to be inspired by the brand and the product, its colours, lettering and packaging… in a word, everything needs to work to the construction of a strong brand identity.
The choices are endless, from a high stylization to 3D opening credits, to animation (creation of fun cartoon characters with which the audience can identify). These technologies are now accessible at a low cost thanks to programs such as Flash, After Effects, etc.
Synthesis and selection of the information
A long list of all the data is almost always useless. It is better to highlight the most important ones and to give space to the people. A manager writing a percentage on a billboard, underlining it with a marker or an arrow, draws more attention and is better recalled than an anonymous full screen lettering. Human presence is more empathic and communicative. A friendly and expressive face (which even the toughest manager has!) is to be preferred over images of machinery, assembly lines or plants. At the end of the day, we are brought up to confide in people, not in objects.
When it is possible, it is of great utility to have a storyline because, since childhood, we are charmed by well told stories. A big part is here played by the abilities of the production team to convey images through a narration. From “Carosello” onwards, all the TV advertising used this “Tale Philosophy”, sometimes with amazing results that are still well rooted in the collective memory.
Do not hesitate then to ask a creative contribution to the director and the producer: creating stories is their job.
After the shooting, during the editing, technology gives a fundamental help thanks to the special effects. Cinema uses plenty of them. Nowadays the simulation techniques can turn the real into fantastic and the fantastic into real. A journey in a land of fantasy is always an unforgettable experience and that’s what a brands live on.
Last but not least: the hall. Technology is once again on our side with increasingly big screens, high definition, luminosity of the projectors, stereoscopic vision… up to 3D cinema, that offers such a real experience to let us really feel “inside” the scene, a part of the story.
And technology evolves everyday. For example, today the most amazing applications for the hologram technology are available and they are already been used by some fashion brands during their shows or by automotives on the occasion of the presentation of their new models.
The use of the latest technologies fills the public with enthusiasm, improves the brand image and collaborates to the success of the event.
It’s exactly like cinema. And audiences are all the same: If we want to efficaciously talk to it we have to know that the way to get to the people’s brain passes through their hearts and emotion.
In other words, an audience wants to be entertained. Always!
