How do you organise a company Christmas party in a pandemic? Or a client jolly for that matter? Who knows – we’ve certainly all had enough Zoom quizzes to last a lifetime. The usual festive channels of engagement with staff, customers and prospects are out of the window this year. Yet conversely now more than ever, businesses need to talk to the people who matter about what’s happening in their world.
Vital do’s and don’ts of corporate Christmas video
A company update PowerPoint probably isn’t going to cut it this year, but a corporate video can have a big impact – whether you’re talking to your team, customers or other stakeholders. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest we’re watching more online video than ever and a carefully considered company video can connect with people emotionally, share information and good news effectively, and leave people with a good feeling about your brand.
So how do you go about creating a great seasonal video? Let’s start by covering off what not to do. Avoid lazy cliche at all costs – do we want to see your white, male CEO sitting by a roaring fire? No thanks. Loads of graphics charting success and blind positivity in the face of a global crisis? Probably not. If you remember nothing else from this blog post please remember to never, ever ‘Elf Yourself’ – it’s not clever, it’s not funny and we’d all had enough of it by Christmas 2007.
I could share some terrible examples here, but you get the picture I’m sure. It’s far more useful to focus on how you should approach corporate video production at this time of year. With this in mind, here are five things to consider:
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- Who will be watching?
It sounds obvious, but think about who you are creating this video for – the messages will be different, or at least shared in a different way, for internal and external audiences, for existing customers and new prospects. It might be worth creating different versions of the same video depending on your audience.
- Hit the right tone
Never before has tone been more important. Just look at how carefully the slew of festive ads currently landing in our lives are treating the subject of Christmas. We won’t know what shape the festivities will take this year until it’s nearly upon us and it’s a difficult time for people who are missing their loved ones. However, it’s also still Christmas and we’re British and don’t like moaning, and we could all do with a bit of light relief. It’s a tricky path to navigate to say the least. To get this tone right in a short company video is a tall order, but hit the right note and your audience will appreciate you for it.
If you need some inspiration, I think Coke has nailed it in terms of getting the tone right this Christmas.
- It’s always emotional
Never forget that a successful corporate video will always appeal to the viewer’s emotions. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling fluffy slippers or industrial machine parts, you are ultimately still selling to people who have hopes, dreams, worries and ambitions. Regardless of the subject matter, a good video will tell a story that people will engage with emotionally. Once this has happened, they’re far more likely to retain important information that you’ve shared, and importantly they’ll also retain a good feeling about your company.
- The challenge of content
It’s time to think creatively about your video content. Time is short, the rules are changing regularly, and you’re unlikely to have a lot of existing content from the last year, as most of it has been spent working from home. But what about user-generated content? You could ask your team to record their highlights from the last year, and use this to produce a Christmas video message for customers. Homemade is on-trend right now after all. Alternatively, animation doesn’t have the same constraints as filming – it can take you anywhere and tell you anything. Or perhaps you have some vintage film footage you could repurpose and overlay with an up to date message?
- Format
Think about your content marketing strategy in terms of channels – where and how will you share the Christmas video? Do you need shorter cuts for social media? Or additional ‘behind the scenes’ footage to share on LinkedIn Stories? There’s a lot to consider, but one great piece of video content can be cut and reused in a multitude of ways.
Above all, remember that it doesn’t need to be a big, complex job to produce a great Christmas video. It’s an entertaining, engaging and effective way to get your message across at a time when face-to-face contact is off the cards. It might cost less than your average client shindig as well. We still don’t know what Christmas will be like this year, but let’s hope if nothing else that the company Elf Yourself stays firmly quarantined.
It’s not too late to create a Christmas corporate video for 2020 – Get in touch if you’d like to have a chat about it.
