27 Oct Best Tips for Commercial Video Production

Commercial video production can prove to be tricky. It is easier for companies to follow trends and things that have proven to work. What happens is we end up with a lot of commercial videos that seem suspiciously similar to each other, which makes it difficult for a company to stand out from all of the noise.

Here are my tips for standing out for your commercial video production needs:

Know your brand and your story

With the explosion of social media, the general public (in my humble opinion) really gravitates towards videos that have an “authentic” feel. They want to feel personally connected and therefore invested in your brand. The audience likes to hear about trials and tribulations, why your company is important to you, and what your company stands for. Picking a commercial video production company that you feel comfortable with who is committed to bringing out that authentic self is key. This may mean several in-person meetings to chat about the goals of the video and to refine your company story.

Know your audience

After you’ve identified your story, it is crucial to understand the audience your company is trying to target because this audience will have a distinctive taste for certain types of media. Though a great commercial video production company can help to guide you to identifying media requirements that appeal to a particular audience (for example length, style, tone), as a company you should know your audience the best. It is pertinent to come in with some marketing research handy.

The great thing about online video is that you can spend a little less o broadcast quality (since it’s only for web) and create multiple different types of videos to help you experiment and find what works best and yields the highest return on investment.

Identify your culture

This goes hand in hand with knowing your brand and story, but knowing the culture of your company will really help a commercial video production company identify the tone and mood of your videos. Is your company quirky, like an Alamo Drafthouse? Or is your company very corporate and highly polished like a Dell?

Spend time in pre-production

A great commercial video production firm knows that the more time that is spent planning upfront before production, the more smoothly production will run, and the higher probability that the final production will be exactly how your company envisioned it. In pre-production, spend time doing the market research, writing a good script, storyboarding, selecting music, setting branding guidelines and more. In my opinion, this process can take 2-3 weeks.

Set rules for communication

Part of the planning process is making sure the company and the commercial video production firm has set solid communication guidelines. These include setting specific target dates for deliverables, review dates, and more. After these guidelines are set, BOTH parties must be religious about adhering to them.

In my experience, the projects that are least successful are those where the client expects the commercial video production company to adhere to guidelines, but are happy to bend the rules on their side without understanding that this will affect either the target deadline or the final deliverable quality. Make sure to provide feedback in a timely matter so that the company has ample time to fix and make changes but still hit the original deadlines. Communication is key.

Don’t be afraid to do something different

Most importantly, be open as a company to listening to the vision of the filmmaker. Hopefully, you selected someone through extensive research of their portfolio and you liked the style and quality of their portfolio because it matches your company’s ideals.

If you’ve done your research and feel like you’ve picked someone who matches your company’s vision, then you should trust that the commercial video production company will and can deliver something in line with your company goals. Don’t be afraid to trust the commercial video production company’s vision. It is great coming in knowing exactly what you want, but be open to hearing suggestions and new ideas. Filmmaking is a collaborative event. The best content comes from a melding of the best of both worlds.