The future of branded video content? Let your brand take a backseat.

Written by Max Hamilton, Creative Producer

When it comes to branded video content, the desire to pepper the piece with brand mentions, product names and services is only natural. It feels like good value for money, doesn’t it? More mentions, more exposure.  

Not quite. In fact, the opposite can be true; mentioning your brand too early or too many times can lose your audience entirely.  

This is because people respond best to real, human emotion. The films, songs, adverts and TV shows you will remember most fondly are the ones that made you feel something. A brand or product mention can disturb the connection you are developing with the audience. There is a better way to get your point across... 

THE RULE OF 15
 

We’ve done a lot of research around attention and one of the key things we can share with you is that 15 seconds is a magic number.  People who watch a video for 15 seconds are far more likely to watch through to the end. We’ve also found that brand mentions are some of the most common times for an audience member to switch off and stop watching the video.  

Because of this, we always advise clients to avoid any mention of the brand or campaign messaging in the first 15 seconds. These precious seconds at the start of the piece should instead be dedicated to grabbing and retaining the audience’s attention.   

That said, we tend to avoid direct brand mentions altogether if they aren’t a key part of the narrative or a necessary piece of information. Of course, it depends on the type of story you are trying to tell. If you’re going to mention your brand explicitly in video content, consider why you want to do so and whether it will serve the narrative of the wider video.  

STILL THE MAIN CHARACTER

So, how are you getting value for money out of a video if your brand, products or services aren’t being mentioned overtly and consistently? Well, the brand can still be the main character in a video without necessarily having a role. Our work on the Specsavers’ Best Worst Team series is a perfect example. 

Most videos will have a subject. It might be a person, a team, a dog, a city, a community, a project – anything. The brand will usually then want to position itself as a force for good within that person or thing’s world: rebuilding a clubhouse, getting them into employment, connecting them with their partner. The brand represents a positive change in the world but doesn’t actually need to be in the content to get that message across.  

The audience would much rather hear from the person being helped than those doing the helping, and perhaps counterintuitively they’ll build a closer connection with the brand in the process. The brand will also avoid coming across as if it’s just showing off for social media clout – an important consideration. 

HOW DOES THAT WORK THEN?

Take our client, Specsavers. They sell contact lenses. What is a contact lens? It’s an impressive ocular device, but ultimately it’s a small, transparent piece of plastic. However, if you’re a mountain climber, sports player or busy parent, a contact lens is something that facilitates your hobby, chores or passion. You can’t play rugby in a pair of glasses, but your contact lenses allow you to. Instead of telling your audience how they can get contact lenses on their high street, how easy they are to put in and how cheap they are, you can tell a story about someone losing touch with the sport they love (due to their deteriorating eyesight) and then rediscovering it through contact lenses. That is much more powerful. 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

You’re a bank and you’ve helped someone get a mortgage for the first time in their life. What is the story? Is it the APR rates, the length or the monthly repayments amount? No. It’s the person who gets to live in their first home, what they do there, how it makes them feel, how they decorate it, how they have more space, get a dog, open a studio, bake more or start a family. People will care about the ins and outs of mortgage rates, but all you need is for people to think of you first when they consider mortgages and remember how you positively impacted that person’s life and how that made them feel. That will mean more to them coming from member of the public than the Director of Mortgage Services at Bank Company Ltd. 

AND THAT’S A WRAP

There are myriad things to consider in making a video successful, and of course there are exceptions to the rules laid out above. The key thing to remember is that a brand doesn’t have to – and shouldn’t – be omnipresent in a video. Think about how you want your brand to make someone feel, then work from there. Just because you’re not in the band, doesn’t mean you’re not in the band.