Devo
With the staccato burst of an electric guitar riff played over a Warhol-esque photograph of an astronaut on the moon, the era of short-form video as a marketing vehicle was born at midnight, August 1, 1981 on MTV. Make no mistake, music videos (and the investment in creating them) weren’t just entertainment: they were public relations, marketing and sales rolled into one. When a video worked, an immediate and lasting image was created, word-of-mouth took off and records sold. What more could a marketer ask for?
Fast forward to today, and what’s old is somewhat new again. An increasingly effective way to deliver and consume information, the short-form video as a marketing vehicle isn’t just new again, it’s necessary. So why are so many corporate videos so bad?
When MTV changed the face of the music industry (much as iTunes has more recently), I was on the cusp of my teen years – ripe for the picking in terms of impressionability. I was in a group that wanted to be impressed upon – a marketer’s dream. Certain videos were exceedingly good at bringing you on board as a fan of a particular band or artist. I believe there are very clear common denominators among those videos that marketers can learn and benefit from today:
- High production value (not cost, a point I’ll address)
- Deliberate, purposeful direction
- Good editing
- Content aligned with delivery
Sounds expensive? It’s not. As unlikely as you might think, the music videos of the 1980s will show us how.
Be Yourself, but Don’t Be a One-Hit Wonder
The Fixx
Being budget-conscious with both my own money and that of our clients, I invest in proven things that stand the test of time. Whether it’s a thought leadership piece, an annual state of the company monologue or a one-on-one Q&A, if you’re going to bear the time and expense of creating a corporate video, it’s important to get it right, not only so it has the immediate desired effect, but also because it will live forever on the Internet – where content takes on something akin to the life of Lestat. And who knows, one video could become three shorter ones leveraged on three different web platforms – something singer Morrissey, then of The Smiths, may have unwittingly predicted when he sang, “…reissue, repackage, repackage.”
But as with anything from previous decades, many videos just haven’t stood the test of time and many more weren’t very good to begin with – this point made, of course, with the benefit of hindsight.
So for the creation of today’s corporate videos, what can we learn by looking back at examples of what aired on MTV during its early heyday?
Quick sidebar: I’ll admit to unashamedly heavy bias, but it would be too easy to mention Duran Duran, whose videos consistently outclassed most others of the era. In looking back at the relationship between Duran Duran and MTV, it can be argued that one thrived off the other and vice-versa: the channel made the band and the band made the channel. (There’s another post here about how platforms and brands can work together for mutual benefit, but that’s for another time.)
But most bands and their labels didn’t have the kind of budget Duran Duran was afforded for shoots in Antigua (for “Rio”), Sri Lanka (for “Hungry Like the Wolf”) and France (for “New Moon on Monday”). Similarly, today most companies don’t have “Rio” budgets and definitely not “Thriller” money. But you can get a lot done with very little. And unfortunately, you can also go woefully off course.
Duran Duran aside, let’s take a look at two videos that paint a vivid picture of what we can learn – both the useful and the to-be-avoided – from early 80s-era MTV. Regardless of the popularity of the bands behind them and/or the songs themselves, consider the videos for The Fixx’s “Are We Ourselves?” and Devo’s “Whip It.”
“Show Me, Show Me, Show Me How You Do It”
The Cure
With just a couple adjustments, the video for “Are We Ourselves?” looks like it could’ve been made yesterday. Beautifully shot, it shows high production value, deliberate and purposeful directing, great editing and a strong connection between content (the song) and delivery (what takes place in the video). And with exception of the aerial shots, the budget was likely conservative (no special effects here).
On the other hand, the video for “Whip It” is firmly entrenched in the time period from which it was spawned. That video might as well be permanently time-stamped, “Made in the 80s.” While the song itself has more than paid off in terms of longevity, the video is among the worst of what many 80s videos became known for – zero (and sometimes comically bad) connection between content and delivery. I’m still trying to figure out what “Whip It” has to do with dude ranches. It has been about 30 years, so the world may never know. It’s as if the director said, “Okay, fellas, just kind of do your lip-synching thing on this here Wild West ranch set and some weird stuff will happen around you.” Today, for a corporate video, that would be like telling the CEO, “Okay, we’re going to start rolling. Just sit there and say the lines.” You have to do more, and it doesn’t have to break the bank. And if you don’t have the budget to shoot on location, “try-y-y-y-y not to fake it.”
Regardless of your specific goals, to assure your corporate videos are effective, here are a few easy, no-cost tips:
- Match the tone and style of your delivery with the content of the message
- Use a tripod (obvious, but overlooked) and do multiple takes from different angles; use the best cuts from each angle
- Do a test run and assure the sound and lighting are on the mark
Of course, these tips offer just a step in the right direction. To increase the chances of success, ask some questions about what you’re working on. Will your corporate video be immediately embraced? Will it stand the test of time? (And, please, will it run about as long as your average three-minute pop song? That’s one thing that, thankfully, hasn’t changed since even the days of Elvis.)
There are 15 references to 80s cultural icons, songs, bands, entities, etc. in this post. Can you spot them all?
Thanks to Andrew Ruotolo, our in-house video specialist, for some of the insights found here.