Why are branded videos so important?
The content of your video is of course important, but it is not as important as being completely on point when it comes to your brand. Having a strong brand is hard to achieve but absolutely imperative. This ensures your audience knows who you are and what you are selling straight away. You only have to see an advert containing the colour purple. Then, you immediately think ‘Cadburys’.
So, how do they get such strong branding into their videos? Well that’s where we, as video makers, can help. Embracing a company’s brand guidelines is something we really pride ourselves in. We understand the value of branding and always keep it at the forefront of our minds when creating graphical content.
When we are sent a copy of a company’s brand guidelines, they are often meticulous 30-page documents. These documents explain fully every possible way you can or cannot use their logo, font, colour palette and accompanying graphical elements. However, they tend to overlook the key element for us — how to apply their brand within video or animation. So, that’s where our experience comes in. We turn simple brand guidelines into something visually dynamic.
A couple of tricks we may use are showing your logo throughout the production and subtly displaying it at poignant moments. We might animate it too. It can also be turned into an animated ‘sting’ at the start and the end of the video. Thus, it is the first and the last thing the viewer sees.
Creating an animated lower 3rd (showing someone’s name/job title etc at the bottom of the screen) is also a great way to lift a production. It gives information in a non-static, visually interesting way.
As the lines between video production and animation become more blurred, the inclusion of complex graphics in the videos we produce has risen. Thus, adding an animated logo at the beginning is beneficial. Overlaying footage with motion graphics and adding animated text are great additions. All of these help tell your story and underline key messages.
Adding other brand elements such as the font and splashes of the company’s colour palette continually throughout the production all help to reaffirm the brand identity. Next time you see a video for Cadbury, you’ll see the subtle elements that they add in (all based on the above) that make their branding as strong as it is. However, the main thing that makes their brand so strong is consistency. Their colour is that constant purple. Their tone of voice is consistent, and their logo never changes. All of these subtle things mean that their message is repetitive. Therefore, you, as a viewer, recognise it.
To help our clients keep their brand strong and consistent when it comes to video, we have often created brand guideline packs for them. These detail how to keep consistency when they/we use their fonts, logos, colors, etc. This ensures continuity continues and keeps their brand strong.
Now this is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to branding in video, so if you are thinking of using video to promote your brand then please get in touch – we’ll talk you through it!
