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News, project launches and thoughts from our team.
Our Top 4 Tips for Better Brand Video in 2023!
By now we’re all aware that video is the most powerful tool in your toolbox when it comes to capturing that ever-elusive audience – whether it’s new clients, customers or stakeholders. Here in Canada, we have a social network penetration rate of 89 percent, making us one of the world’s most connected online populations. So as we move into the new year, it’s a great time to take a closer look at your social media presence and consider how your brand video content is performing, and how you can keep it consistent and engaging – but most of all – drive results for whatever outcome you’re looking to achieve.
To help you maximize the impact of your brand videos and even go viral, here are our top four tips for crafting better brand video content in the upcoming year.
Tip 1 – Choose your Channel
When it comes to crafting great brand video content, the number one thing you need to consider is your audience. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook all have their own unique demographics, styles, and creative constraints, so it’s important to take some time to research, and choose the platforms that are most suitable for your brand and your goals.
A few stats to help you out. If you’re looking to reach a younger demographic, TikTok is an excellent choice – the social media juggernaut is now the #1 app among Gen Z, or 18-25 year old consumers. But don’t count it out if your ideal customer doesn’t fall within those demographics – 1 in 5 adults over 35 are now TikTok users as well, and growing.
If you’re looking for a more professional and long-form video presence, YouTube may be better suited for you. With 1.7 billion monthly users, YouTube is the world’s second most-visited website. Sports, kids, music and gaming content thrive on the platform, as do how-to videos.. With a third of all internet users watching a tutorial video each week. That being said, the vast majority of YouTube’s viewing audience is between the ages of 18 & 34, skewing slightly male. Keep that in mind when planning content for this channel.
Instagram is the top social media platform for ROI, engagement, and lead generation for sharing marketing videos – and its stories or reels features can also be great for creating fun, short videos that quickly engage with users. Instagram has a wider audience reach, with most users falling between the ages of 18 & 44.
And finally, the mother-of-all social networks – Facebook. Great for reaching a broad audience, Facebook is the most popular social media network for men and women aged 35-44. If you’re looking for a slightly more mature audience – this is the place to be.
Tip 2 – Keep It Short
In the age of digital media, attention spans are shorter than ever. Consumers are used to receiving a lot of information quickly, so you should make sure your brand videos are concise and to the point. Shorter videos will also help you reach more people, as people tend to prefer watching shorter clips over long ones.
Every network has different ideal lengths for video engagement, but one thing is crystal clear – when creating a video, be sure to focus on one message or idea and make sure it’s communicated quickly and clearly. Don’t try to cram too many points into one piece; instead, spread out your content across multiple shorter videos if needed. Keep your video short and sweet, and don’t forget to include a call-to-action at the end to drive conversions.
Tip 3 – Figure out your Funnel
Creating a sales funnel is an important part of any marketing strategy. A sales funnel is a way of visualizing how your customers move through the buying process and can help you better target them with the right content. When it comes to video content, using different videos at different stages of your sales funnel can maximize engagement and increase conversions.
At the top of your funnel, use videos that focus on building awareness and introducing your brand and product. You could create a brief promotional video or even a fun animated explainer video that gives potential customers an overview of what you’re all about.
As prospects move further down the funnel, you can use videos that focus more on driving conversions. This could include customer testimonials, product demos, or educational content that dives deeper into your product and its features.
Finally, at the bottom of your funnel, you could focus on using videos to drive repeat purchases and loyalty. This could include special offers, discounts, and rewards programs. By tailoring your videos to each stage of the sales funnel, you can effectively reach your target audience with the right message at the right time.
Tip 4 – Go Live
Live videos are a great way to engage with your audience and show off your brand’s personality. They’re also easier and faster to produce than edited videos, generate more engagement, and allow you to get more content out quickly and consistently. People are also more forgiving of imperfections on live videos because they know the video is being produced in real-time. You don’t need to worry about lengthy editing processes or finding the perfect soundbite; just hit record and go!
There you have it! Our top 4 tips for better brand videos in 2023. We know that creating content can be overwhelming, and we’re always here to help. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or start a conversation with us about your next brand video project! And good luck with those 2023 goals! If you keep these four tips in mind when crafting your annual campaigns, you’ll be off to a great start.
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#WednesdayWisdom: Behind-the-scenes with Apple & Spike Jonze
One rabbit hole that clients fall into is assuming that video is a snap to make because it’s so simple to watch. You sit down, press play, and an entire world unfolds before you. Savvy marketers, though, will make it a point to understand the amount of work that goes into making a fantastic video so that they can intelligently spend their marketing budgets, and get the most bang for their buck. Knowledge is power, and video marketing is no exception.
Of course, if you’re the world’s richest company, you know that great video marketing takes high-caliber creative and a killer crew. At Apple, their marketing team spends millions of dollars on video – hiring choreographers, Hollywood directors, top-shelf dance talent and a crew of set designers to launch their latest product. Of course, the results are simply amazing.
This behind-the-scenes film of the making of Apple’s Spike Jonze-directed campaign for the HomePod is a great primer on what goes into making truly original, creative piece of video marketing – in this case, a short film. And while you may not have their budgets, knowing the creative (and budgetary) constraints you’re up against is half the battle!
Take a few moments and enjoy this educational look inside a high-budget shoot for this week’s #WednesdayWisdom :)
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PROJECT LAUNCH: INVIS & Mortgage Intelligence
When you’re a national brokerage with teams in hundreds of Canadian cities, how do you even begin to capture the spirit of the hard working brokers representing your brand? In the case of INVIS/Mortgage Intelligence, the answer was simple. You go to them. With a camera crew in tow.
Over the summer of 2016, the Double Barrel team was thrilled to film across Canada, documenting the passion and the people behind the INVIS/Mortgage Intelligence brand. In one of our most ambitious documentary projects to-date, we filmed in six provinces and seven cities, capturing the camaraderie that makes INVIS/MI truly unique. From wineries in Kelowna, to line dancing at the Calgary Stampede, from charity golf tournaments in Niagara to boat cruises off the Halifax harbour. Through it all, what stood out the most was an overwhelming sense of community and caring. Brokers that truly care for their clients, and each other, working exceedingly hard to ensure their happiness.
Double Barrel is thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with Invis/Mortgage Intelligence, documenting this beautiful country and their world class teams from coast to coast to coast.
This completed piece screened at the INVIS/MI annual gathering, to rave reviews. And it’s easy to see why! Invis Mortgage Intelligence has successfully built the only true full service brokerage in Canada, attracting top brokers that are continually diversifying and developing their craft to deliver the best support possible. That’s something to cheer about.
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PROJECT LAUNCH: Hamilton Code Clubs
Hamilton Code Clubs is a trail-blazing program that sees industry mentors introduce local youth to simple software computer programming, through a blend of interactive and hands-on training. The ultimate goal is to teach students to develop a love for the subject and begin integrating code into the classroom in a fun and engaging manner.
For many students, this introduction can open up career pathways and 21st-century learning skills.
With the tech industry in Canada expanding at a breakneck pace, Hamilton Code Clubs represents a critical link between the classroom and the real world, with mentors working to spark an interest in our youth and develop our next generation tech workforce.
At Double Barrel, we know the importance of a solid education in digital literacy for our youth. That’s why in 2015, we worked to create the #HamOnt Forever Digital Literacy fund, a Hamilton Community Foundation administered fund that will distribute grants over the next 15 years for digital literacy initiatives in the Hamilton area.
This year, we are proud to continue that legacy by providing an amazing organization like the Hamilton Code Club with this recruitment video free-of-charge, to inspire the tech community to continue to grow and help ensure that kids are realizing the amazing career opportunities around coding at a young age.
If you’re in the software industry and keen to help out, you’re in luck! They’re in need of volunteers! If you’re interested in volunteering for Hamilton Code Clubs, contact experience@iechamilton.ca
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The Art of Colour Grading
by: David Capizzano
The process of adjusting the colour, contrast or overall look of footage is called colour grading, and it’s probably one of the most important steps in the production process. Despite this, if it’s been done well, you might not even notice it at all. Colour has a massive impact on how we respond to what we’re seeing on screen, and a good colour grade can bring out an entirely new set of ideas or thoughts which can be communicated to an audience, and with the advent of digital technology, the options for setting a look are almost endless.
But it wasn’t always this way.
In the days of film, directors and DoP’s would use a series of chemical baths and prisms to chemically alter the colour composition of the film after it was shot. They might have also used a series of filters on the lens while capturing the scene.
Before Roger Deakins used a digital colour process on the film O Brother Where Art Thou (2000) to achieve a dustbowl look, chemical timing was standard practice. Despite shooting in a very-green South Carolina & Mississippi, Deakins used a digital process to essentially remove the colour green from the film, resulting in a wonderfully bleak and magical depression era setting.
These days, the most common method of capturing footage is through using digital cameras. These cameras are incredibly powerful and capture images up to 6k resolution (5760 x 3700), however upon first glance, the footage you initially get doesn’t look fantastic, but there’s a very important reason for that. Like shooting digitally, these cameras capture video in a RAW format. A director or DoP might choose to shoot raw to ensure that they’re getting the most flexible footage possible. Later on in post production, RAW formats allow the DoP & Colourist to match shots effortlessly, adjust white balance with amazing specificity, and to recover areas of the footage which might seem too bright or dark.
So until the footage gets processed, it typically looks something like this:
By capturing the scene in as flat of a colour profile as possible, you’re ensuring the camera is collecting the maximum amount of data possible, offering you tons of latitude later on. Sometimes, a LUT (or Look-Up-Table) will be applied to the footage temporarily on set as the flat footage can be tricky to see through if you’re not used to it. This allows the client or viewers to get a “glimpse” of what the final colour process might look like.
On larger productions such as movies or t.v shows, a colourist will usually be brought on to work with the DoP to grade the footage using a control panel specifically designed for colouring software. This control panel is large, expensive, and requires incredible skill and knowledge to operate, so the process is usually reserved for bigger projects. Smaller projects can be graded without the use of such systems, meaning you can achieve great quality and professional results by using your edit suite, or a free version of the Davinci Resolve software.
Almost everything you’ve ever seen on t.v, at a theatre, or even online has been through some sort of colour treatment, but when it’s done well, it doesn’t draw attention to itself. Colour will continue to become an increasingly important step in the production process as more and more footage is shot using digital cameras, and the technology inside of those cameras progresses. Taking the time to go through this important step with your project could make the difference between something great, and something spectacular.
And hopefully, if it’s done well, your audience won’t have any idea it’s been done at all.
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5 Reasons Video Is Essential For Your Marketing Strategy
By Keith Jolie
This past weekend I was busy volunteering with the annual Polar Bear Dip for Habitat for Humanity in Toronto. Amid all the interviews, media interactions and watching around 700 people run into icy cold water, I was struck by the prevalence of video at the event.
One of my interviews with a larger news media company was via Facebook Live, and many of the dippers had GoPros strapped to them as they ran into the water. Those videos, shared by a significant percentage of the participants, have allowed the event organizers to market the excitement of the event to a very large audience and to grow the event year after year.
Video has grown to become in many cases, the linchpin of a successful content marketing strategy. While content marketing is a bit of an overused buzzword, the concept is sound. Marketing your business or organization involves engaging several channels in order to attract customers and as with traditional advertising, mediums like search engine marketing ( SEM ), social media marketing, and email marketing all rely on quality content to entice the customer to engage with the medium and for you to meet your marketing objectives.
If you’re not already using video as part of your content marketing strategy, here are five reasons why you should give it a second look:
1 – Critical Mass
Recent statistics gathered by Google pointed out that 53% of consumers on mobile feel more favorable towards companies whose websites feature video content. Video more than ever has reached a critical mass. It is expected by your customers, and much like a business or organization that doesn’t have a website, not having video content will soon be seen as a sign that your business or organization isn’t professional.
2 – Distribution Options Abound
There has never been a better time for businesses to embrace video as part of their content marketing efforts, and with both free and paid distribution options it also has never been easier. Any business can easily (and for free) create a YouTube channel to feature video content and videos can easily be embedded in your website, sales presentations and used as part of conference displays. About 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook. With both Facebook and YouTube (Google Adwords) offering complex targeted distribution through their paid advertising models, more than ever you are able to direct your video content to the most appropriate audience and measure the results.
3 – High Definition and High Speed is Everywhere
In 2017, high speed data is a reality on even the most basic of mobile networks and most newer mobile phones now feature high definition displays and sound that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago. This advancement has caused the global audience for video to grow exponentially. While high quality video looks best on the big screen, it is superbly suited for mobile consumption because it requires no user interaction and it can be shared easily. Video allows a mobile user to take in a large amount of information without having to scroll through lots of text or click through from page to page and the audience is definitely there. On mobile alone in an average week, YouTube reaches more 18+ year-olds during prime time TV hours than any cable TV network. (Google Think, 2016)
4 – It’s a Supercharger for your SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a constantly moving target with search algorithm updates being released frequently. Recent observations by SEO professionals agree that the inclusion of video on your website continues to have a very positive impact on how frequently your website appears in related search engine results pages. The benefits come from a few specific traits of video. First – multimedia content, and graphical (picture) content has for a long time had a positive impact on page SEO. Second, video content is sharable and social media shares are metrics that feed back positive SEO signals for your page. And third – properly embedded and encoded videos with script information expand the relevant keyword possibilities for any page that includes them.
5 – Buying Decisions Are Heavily Influenced By Video
The buying decision process in both the consumer and business to business markets has undergone a massive shift in recent years. Product and service information that was once only available from sales staff can now be readily accessed from a wide variety of sources including review sites, best of lists, and industry publications. For businesses and organizations, ensuring that your content is front and centre during that critical research stage of the buying process is more and more important. With 68% of YouTube users (70% in Canada) indicating that they watched YouTube content to help them make a purchasing decision, the importance of ensuring that it is your message that they receive in that video becomes even more magnified.
While video isn’t the only element of a content marketing solution a business needs to employ, there is a strong argument to be made that most businesses should be prioritizing video as part of their marketing strategy. To find out more you should also check out our video called “Why Video”.
Double Barrel Studios can offer your organization guidance as you consider video – give us a call, and let’s get talking.
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Double Barrel Podcast: Episode 2 ‘Why Story?’
At Double Barrel, we’ve had the pleasure of working with people from all types of industries.
They all come to us with a need – a new business or program or product they need to promote – and almost everyone recognizes the importance of telling a compelling story. Inevitably, though it comes time to put pen to paper – and that, my friends, is where everyone struggles. When you have so many things you need to say, how do you even begin?
Luckily for us, the craft of storytelling has been around for as long as we humans have roamed the earth. And over hundreds of years of refining of this craft, writers have developed a very clear methodology when it comes to keeping your audience engaged while still getting across the things you need to say.
In our SECOND installment of the Double Barrel content series, we’ll walk you step-by-step through this methodology, outlining the top 3 elements of compelling storytelling – so that you can be sure your next piece won’t fall flat. And don’t forget, we’re always here to answer your content questions. Feel free to drop us a line anytime!
Enjoy!!
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PROJECT LAUNCH: International Village BIA
Hamilton is a city in the midst of renaissance. Nowhere is that more apparent than the downtown core, where new businesses are emerging at a breakneck pace. A new company cracks open its doors seemingly every single day.
At Double Barrel, we live and work downtown too. So when the International Village Business Improvement Area asked us to help tell their story, we jumped at the chance.
Our challenge was substantial. First: to showcase the changing face of the downtown core. Second: to spur interest and get people excited to pop downtown to shop. Essentially, we wanted to get people out of their comfort zone and into these blossoming boutiques. Old habits die hard, and with so much going on for all of us on the daily, it’s just too easy to pass stores by. We admire the frontages but never actually venture inside, choosing instead to zip up to the cozy confines of our closest shopping mall.
Through needs assessments and working closely with the client, we developed the branded online series ~ My International Village. The friendly tone invites the viewer to come by and make the International Village their own. The consistent, broadcast style intro and extro let the viewer know what to expect in a style that is familiar, while each vignette focusses on a different shop and story. This allows the audience to build a personal connection to shops they might otherwise pass by without a second thought.
Overall, My International Village entertains and informs potential downtown shoppers. Through the content, the International Village BIA illustrates how the tapestry of the downtown core is changing. Every single entrepreneur has a story of their own to share, and a reason why for them – right now – downtown #HamOnt is the absolute best place to be.
Thanks to Susie Braithwaite and the International Village for inviting us to explore!
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Put Your Best Flick Forward
I was so thrilled to be asked to participate in Donna Papacosta’s Digital Communications Strategy class this past weekend at University of Toronto, Mississauga.
The students were enthusiastic, engaged and above-all-else excited to produce video pieces and test out their movie-making mettle.
I gave a presentation that went through the top tips I’ve gleaned over the past 14-or-so years of producing content, sifting down my time in print, radio, broadcast and digital to highlight some of the pitfalls and best practices to follow when determining your digital content strategy. In this case, focusing on video as a delivery medium.
From the Twitter discussions afterward it seems the class enjoyed my chat – so I decided to reprint those tips here for either students who missed marking them down, or for you – dear reader, should you be interested to find out more about how Double Barrel does what we do – and how you can implement some of those strategies in your own communications.
Enjoy!
- VOICE attracts AUDIENCE.
Develop your brand’s unique identity and voice early on – then use that to speak to folks who are interested in what you’re offering. - Controversy is GOOD.
A little bit of shock value can be a good thing. People are inundated with information and grabbing attention by shaking the tree a little can be a good thing. - Editorial is EVERYTHING.
When it comes to video – determine your editorial strategy early. Then use that strategy to ensure your dollars go as far as possible over the course of your year. Video is expensive to produce but it doesn’t always have to be – small pieces done effectively and consistently are just as useful as one $15,000 project a year. - VOICE & ENTHUSIASM trumps EXPERIENCE.
Getting into a new communication medium can be scary. You may feel unqualified or that you don’t understand enough about the production process to be effective. Stay true and hold fast to your own personal brand voice and enthusiasm will make up for the inexperience. - TALENT is CRITICAL.
From the outset of your project, reach out to the best talent you can afford. Finding great people to make something sing will pay off in the end, we promise. - Comedy is HARD. But HUMOUR goes a long way.
The pull to produce comedy is a tough one to ignore – especially since comedic videos do so well online. A badly done comedy segment, however, could harm your brand reputation. If part of your communications strategy includes making people laugh – refer to number 5 when it comes to casting, writing, filming and editing. You’ll thank me later! - DIGITAL is NICHE.
You know how there’s a million different kinds of toothbrushes at the grocery store? The same applies to content. Remember that the internet is not like broadcast. You can reach out to very specific niches and provide content that speaks JUST TO THEM. Done well, this means that you can target with pinpoint accuracy your ideal viewer. Don’t be afraid to dive deep on subject matter. - KEEP it SHORT.
Online attention spans are.. well.. fleeting. If you made it this far I’m impressed. Be ruthless in the edit suite. - BUILD on EXISTING AUDIENCE.
Lastly – when developing content look to people within your organization that already have a social media presence for talent. Are they active on Twitter? Do they blog? Do they have an active Facebook page? These are the things to focus on. Online content is churned more quickly than your stomach on the Tilt-A-Whirl.. you’ll need all the help you can get to reach as many people as possible when it comes to distribution.
