Authentic Brand Videos are Worth a Thousand Words to Millennials
Authentic brand videos can prove the brand-worthiness claims you have been trying to tell with words, which is key for customer acquisition in general, and with Millennial customers in particular.
Authentic Brand Videos Trump All Other Kinds of Content
Visuals of all kinds outperform text, and even boost the effectiveness of text-based content, based on data from Xerox.com:
- Colored visuals increased people’s desire to read content by 80%
- Color makes content 39% more memorable
- Color increases recall and attention spans by 82%
- Color improves comprehension by as much as 73%, and improves learning and retention by 78%
- Color improves brand recognition by as much as 80%
And those are just the benefits enjoyed by adding color to content. When you use video, you increase those benefits exponentially by adding interest, engagement, motion, story-telling, insight, humanity, etc. According to Buffer.com, websites with video:
- Draw as much as 3x more monthly visitors to content with video compared to other content
- Get site visitors to spend 88% more time on the website
- Increase organic search traffic by nearly 160%
- Improve conversions by as much as 85%
- Increase customer confidence by nearly 60%
Attract More Millennials with Authentic Brand Videos
Huffington Post writer and Millennial consumer Matthew Tyson explains, “Millennials don’t trust advertisements. Only about 1 percent of millennials claim that a compelling ad influences them. The rest are almost naturally skeptical of advertising. They think it’s all spin, so they don’t bother paying attention.”
Based on the premise that authenticity, not advertising, is the key to attracting Millennial customers or winning over corporate Millennial buyers, Tyson advises that there are four things brands must do:
- Communicate – specifically, communicate effectively and consistently across social media
- Be transparent – Millennials (and younger generations) have been bombarded with ads across devices since they were old enough to play their first video game or grab mom’s iPhone and they aren’t going to fall for copywriting spin
- Relevance – namely relevant to the issues, values and concerns that matter to this generation
- Prove that you care – actions speak louder than words and must precede them in order for Millennials to believe your brand is authentic
Those 4 Plus 1 More Vital Ingredient for Authentic Brand Videos
Authentic brand videos require those four elements (effective communication, transparency, relevance and social conscience) but they will still fall short if they fail to do one thing: Entertain.
By a margin of 6 to 1, Millennials said they preferred fun and entertaining content to news and information, according to a Moosylvania study. The study, based on 3 years of researching Millennial consumers, revealed that connection achieved through entertainment transcended the rest for consumer validation. Three things that characterize the most effective content are:
- Making consumers look good
- Making consumers feel good
- Entertaining the audience
Not only do Millennials overwhelmingly prefer to engage with brands via entertaining content, they also want to contribute to it. The study “found commonality in the application of “co-creation.” In other words, Millennials are participating in the brands and curating, as opposed to just consuming advertising.”
Our Recipe for Authentic Brand Videos
Our approach to client videos always starts with their story. We don’t want to get all the video opportunities in our market, we want to get all the video opportunities that come our way RIGHT. This is one of the reasons we were so proud to partner with a regional Pierce County fire and rescue department on a multi-video project making the case for a large-scale taxpayer funded bond issue.
The bond required over 60% voter approval and was passed with a margin of just 160 votes. Not only is the bar for passing a bond measure set high, it came just months after a HUGE property tax increased imposed on these same voters by the state legislature to increase funding for schools.
Knowing the impact of video, it’s highly likely that our videos accounted for the margin of passing, and more, as we told the story of this department and visually conveyed the needs through videos that spotlighted the district as a whole, and those of the individual fire houses in the region.
We’ve made authentic brand videos locally for the fire and rescue district as well as local dentists, salons, mortgage lenders, home builders and other entrepreneurs. With each one, we start with planning and scripting so that when the time comes to actually shoot video footage and take photographs, we can capture all of the needed content and let the businesses truly shine through.
The second way we support clients is through education. For some solopreneurs and small businesses, paying for video production isn’t yet possible. So – while we are more than thrilled to shoot client videos and tell brand stories, we are also in the business of educating and equipping clients so that they can confidently shoot their own brand videos, selfies and webinar-type recordings.
We would love to be part of your story – please reach out if you have any questions about our Seattle – Tacoma – Bellevue videography services, or any of the other marketing services we offer.
