Institutional video: why your company should invest in one

Learn about the importance of the institutional video and three basic tips for your company to have a successful production.

An institutional video is an audiovisual document that represents the image that a company wants to convey to the public. Be it through its history, products and services, numbers and achievements, culture and values, or even a concept for which it wants to be remembered. No matter the format chosen, the institutional video serves as a business card for an organization, reinforcing its identity and affirming its role in the market.

Are you thinking about or needing to develop an institutional video for your company? In this post, we will address the main points that involve the production of this material, what care is important at the time of planning, execution and delivery, and examples for you to get inspired.

After all, what is an institutional video?

The institutional video has the role of presenting a company. It is a resource that can be made available on the organization’s website, presented in meetings with customers, partners, and suppliers, or posted on social networks. This content synthesizes the company’s identity in a dynamic, visual, and easy-to-understand way. Especially because it uses a format that makes all this possible and that is widely used in the public’s day to day life: the video.

Showing the public what the culture of the company is, its beliefs, in short, opening the DNA of the organization brings not only more proximity to the external public, but also more proximity to its internal public, which can get in tune with the message and identify with what is being shown.

No matter what is being sold, the primary objective of creating an institutional video is to tell your target audience what your company is about, and bring them into your organization’s universe.

How important is an institutional video?

A corporate video is a truly compelling way to establish a connection with your audience, open up an opportunity to convert them into customers or fans, and create better impressions for your brand. But what is the best approach for this type of production?

In this case, it all depends on your company’s profile, your audience, and the message that will be conveyed. One way is to see the institutional video of your organization, or of a sector of it, as a short film that tells chapter by chapter the famous saga of the hero, or in this case, the saga of your company. You can tell how the brand came about, took shape, was clear about its objectives, consolidated itself as an organization present and necessary in its niche, and finally, what its plans are. In other words, what’s next, how it intends to position itself a few years from now, what are its inspirations to continue being important in the future.

Think of the institutional video as a great opportunity to shed light on your company’s culture and open the microphone so that the persona elected to represent your brand can tell a little more about itself, talk about its potentials, market positioning, and differentials to convince the public that its services or products really have something extra to offer compared to its competitors.

Going beyond the traditional

You can also break away from the traditional model and give your video a different twist. You can, for example, draw inspiration from a concept related to your brand and create a storytelling around it. Or base the script on testimonials from employees, partners, and customers. And what about making an animation? As long as your company’s personality and identity are clearly represented in the video, there are several avenues that can be considered.

And if the corporate video strategy works well for outsiders, it has to work even better for insiders. It is also a great tool to connect with the employees themselves, reinforcing the characteristics, differentials, and intentions of the company they work for. But for this to happen, it is necessary to be transparent. It is no use, for example, saying that the staff is diverse when it does not match reality. The internal public needs to identify with what is being said. Otherwise, the video can have the opposite effect and become demotivating.

Are you already thinking about the script for your video? Then pay attention to three basic tips that we will give you below to make a successful production!

Clarity and didactics are key

It’s time to lay your cards on the table – or at least almost all of them – and make it clear to the other players that you are not in the market for nothing. Showing clarity and awareness of your differentials demonstrates, not only to your competitors but also to your potential customers, that your company knows very well what its goals are and that it has a strategic plan to achieve them.

For this, your video needs to have a logical sequence of ideas, to tell a story that makes sense. A good script is essential for this to happen. It is worth investing in a specialized professional, communication agency, or video production company to help in this regard. After all, besides the need for the message to be understood without noise, this is a type of long-lasting material. Your company can use it for an indefinite time, until it is necessary to make a new version with updated information.

And if you need to address more complex topics or company figures, how can you make this information clear and yet attractive? At this point, a good tip is to illustrate these concepts by means of animated infographics. Graphics and animations help to simplify explanations and also to organize the ideas and processes themselves.

The right shot needs a lot of aim

If you have started to develop your institutional video without knowing very well for what purpose it will be used, it is good to stop everything and pay a little attention to this topic. First of all, planning is necessary. Be clear about the main results that will be expected with this video. This includes knowing who it will communicate with, what message it should convey, and how it should transmit it. All this work directly influences how your audience will receive this material. Even if this extends the production schedule, don’t be discouraged. After all, your production requires an investment in time and even structure, depending on the professionalism that you want to add.

Knowing this, it is necessary to put everything on the point of the pencil, a very important process in order not to start a project without knowing how to finish it. Start by stipulating the amount of money available to make the video, evaluate with your agency the deadline needed for production, be clear about the target audience, calmly examine the production script, avoiding that many changes occur during the project, study locations to make the shots, and all the details involved. This way, you ensure that there will be more certainties than surprises from the beginning to the end of the project.

For a professional result: work with professionals

Going headlong into the development of an institutional video, which in itself contemplates hundreds of details, is a mission that oozes complexity. Thus, requesting the services of a team of professionals experienced in the subject is far from being just a whim. This attitude goes beyond ensuring a quality result. We are talking about a real economy of time and money through optimized and accurate productivity, considering that this team is already a few steps ahead with expertise, experience, contacts, high-tech equipment, and even rentals.

At this point, it is important to keep in mind that this is a practically timeless material, which, if well done, can be used and reused for many, many years. Thus, the investment has a great cost-benefit, which allows the company to enjoy the content indefinitely.

Institutional video: examples for inspiration

We have separated some examples of institutional videos from different companies to exemplify everything we have talked about in this post. Check them out and get inspired!

HubSpot: the saga of the company

Remember what we talked about the hero’s saga? This video that HubSpot made to attract candidates to the company’s vacancies is a great example of that. In a creative and humorous way, the video talks about the history and culture of the company in an engaging narrative, with the participation of the employees themselves.

Airbnb: The Hosts Have the Say

Airbnb has made an institutional video aimed at those who want to become hosts. And who better to convey this message than the hosts themselves from around the world? In this example, the storytelling is composed by the union of testimonials.

Coca-Cola: Out goes the narration, in comes the animation

Sometimes a video doesn’t need a narration or interviewees. A well done animation can tell the whole story by itself. Coca-Cola did this to make the message dynamic and clear to the viewers.

BASF: storytelling guided by a concept

An institutional video does not need to follow the rule of telling the story of the company, its culture or its employees. It can have an inspirational tone, relating the company to a concept by which it wants to be remembered. In the example below, BASF talked about smart cities to show how the company is contributing to this scenario.