For five years, my business partner ran a video production company and spent his days trying to pitch businesses on online video, rather than taking their money for quick disposable, untrackable TV commercials. They consistently took the commercials and he continued to shake his head. He watched teenagers produce videos that businesses should have been making and continued to watch them get millions of views.
When we started our business almost four years ago, we combined his love for online video with my love for blogging and social media. However still, even with clients wholly on board with social media, we struggled with convincing executives that they needed and wanted video.
Why? Because video is seen as expensive, intensive and requiring a long-term plan. Bloggers and now-famous YouTube stars could produce videos with no budget and make thousands in ad revenue, but for some reason, businesses couldn’t. Or could they?
What turned executives around was the popularity of Vine and then Instagram Video. Suddenly, with just a smartphone and a few seconds, marketing departments were able to cook up quippy little videos with supportive customer comments in the hundreds and thousands.
Finally, video is cool, and it’s deemed valuable.
The 12 Video Archetypes of Successful Publishers
Publishers that may traditionally see themselves as better on paper can thrive in video!
If a 13 year-old kid with a webcam can bring in millions of views per video, so can any legacy publisher, especially one with a budget. The hiccup is that publishers tend to start with what they are familiar with: television. They think the production value of every video needs to be a work of art, when, in reality, the content of the video is what matters most.
We’ve analysed thousands of videos over the last several years and have come up with a series of video blogging archetypes that can be easily translated to business.
You may notice that viral videos aren’t on the list, and that’s because we don’t consider viral videos a “type” of video. There is no formula for a viral video, no outline to work with or audience to keep in mind. A viral video can be awkwardly funny, or intimately emotional. The only thing viral videos have in common is that they trigger a common, undiscovered emotion in millions of people around the same time.
Preview is a magazine trying and succeeding at viral video. The campaign, hashtagged #imapreviewgirl, featured a series of videos, including one called “How Not to Instagram” that evoked laughter when two girls stand by the side of a lake taking “selfies” and one gets devoured by an alligator. At the end of the video, the young woman’s alligator skin bag floats to the top and the screen reads “choose your bag wisely”.
Television studios have test audiences for pilots of their new sitcoms, but unless you plan to do the same, you don’t plan a viral video, they just go viral. These are the archetypes you can control.
1. How-to Videos
Recipes, crafts and construction projects are perfect for how-to videos which can be filmed at a desk, in a studio, or can use motion graphics. These videos are added bonuses to written articles and step-by-step guides.
Glamour has an entire series of how-to hair and makeup tutorials from creating braids to applying makeup like different celebrities.
Example:http://bit.ly/OT00km
2. Article Reviews
Every time a staff writer or contributing editor is approved for an article, ask them to participate in a video interview for the blog. With video conferencing and platforms like Skype, many amateur bloggers have taken to video interviews with great success.
Architectural Digest works with the people they interview to create full-length video editions of each story, until it’s neither just a video nor just an article, but both in their own rights.
Example:http://bit.ly/1hFJDBj
3. Article Animations
One of my favourite forms of video uses motion graphics to illustrate a story through a series of animations, instead of using video footage. It eliminates a travel budget and employee time while the motion graphics artist handles the whole process. With article animations, you can illustrate an entire article and create specific points more effectively, which will often include a voiceover of the article.
National Geographic creates extensive animated shorts, similar to infographics, to illustrate articles from the magazine.
Example:http://bit.ly/1dgdIX7
4. Screen Captures & Timelines
Fashion magazines have taken flack for over-Photoshopping images, so take a spin on that bandwagon by showing how you create different pages for your magazine. Some magazines have custom artwork created by designers for different articles, or create entirely new works of art for the cover. If the process of creating your magazine is interesting, capture it!
SportsNet is one magazine that has created several time-lapse videos of its graphic designer working on cover creations. There’s a lot of room for innovation in this video archetype.
Example:http://bit.ly/1hBmHn7
5. Issue Previews
Video bloggers will often create wrap-up and week-in-review videos that quickly run through everything they’ve posted in the week. A publisher can use this formula in a similar way by creating a video of your editor or your editorial team talking about the upcoming issue.
Wired creates issue previews by mixing music, video interviews and previews of different pages from the magazine to create videos that make you want to buy. In the video description, it includes copy to promote the day each issue hits the newsstand.
Example:http://bit.ly/1g4vRnW
6. Behind the Scenes
Whenever you have a photoshoot or in-person interview, grab an extra camera and shoot behind-the-scenes footage. Interview the model, artist or celebrity as an added bonus, and include funny bloopers from the shoot / interview.
Vogue does something like this that they call Vogue Diaries. Isn’t it funny that so many magazines have elaborate in-person interviews and photoshoots with celebrities, but it all ends up in stop-motion on a printed page?
Example:http://bit.ly/1pUAQzD
7. Event Videos
Publishers who host annual events will sell more seats by spending the money to bring in a video team to create an “experience video”. This is a video played to the tune of a peppy track that shows attendees smiling, asking questions and enjoying the event. It gives potential attendees a boost of energy that inspires more signups because they feel like they’ve been there. Interviews with attendees are an added plus.
Example:http://bit.ly/1fC8UOb
8. Event Speaker Interviews
Additionally, you might create videos from each session and turn them into individual blog posts. At the end of your event, you can have a series of take-aways from each speaker and a video of the session to go with it.
TED is one of the most famous examples of an event using video to give its speakers a video soapbox.
Example:http://bit.ly/1eJvcdT
9. Intramural Videos
There’s no formula for plain old-fashioned off the cuff videos. Want to personalise your brand? Walk around the office with a camera, talk to people, show their workspaces, cut it up into bite sized pieces and add a track to it. These videos can be some of the best content you’ll create.
The Atlantic is an example that does a fun mashup of first-person storytelling by its staff, supplemented with simple animations in order to explain complex topics in more simple terms.
Example:http://bit.ly/1n1u4ps
10. Promotional Videos
If you have experimented with all of the above, promotional videos can be a hoot and be some of the best, most interesting video you produce. Ask your marketing team to come up with one-liners that you can shoot in order and show customers why you’re so excited to release it so that they feel excited too. Show off the product, mix in your interviews, behind the scenes videos and screen captures to tell a story of how your new favorite product came to life.
Jamie Oliver has an entire channel called FoodTube on YouTube with recipes, interviews and how-to videos from different contributors in an almost magazine-like fashion. The intro video to his channel mixes in clips from all of the above.
Example:http://bit.ly/1fC9s0p
11. Native Ad Videos
Consider your advertising package broadened if you can begin to offer videos amongst your YouTube channel and within articles. It’s even better if you have an in-house creative team able to produce them.
GOOD has an entire section in its YouTube channel called “Partnerships” where they’ve partnered with companies like Levi’s to create interesting, watchable interviews and stories through video.
Example:http://bit.ly/1hYbsnl
12. Web Series
Many magazines have already begun to create popular, recognizable web series. Glamour has its series of how-to tutorials, and magazines like Preview have its #imapreviewgirl branding series. Fortune has a wonderful series called “My Breakthrough Moment in Leadership” that are intimate monologues by business leaders. TIME magazine has a series called “How They Train” which documents how different Olympians trained for the Sochi Olympics.
Example:http://bit.ly/1cnHQC2
Video has a number of benefits. Ad-driven publishers will reap their rewards quickly and easily through video ads. Additional income will come through promoted products and creative event promotions. More importantly, because it leads to revenue, video has a unique benefit of boosting loyalty through business transparency. Whenever you have a chance to put a face to a name, take that opportunity.
