The Value of Show, Don't Tell
Expressing Excellence
Over the passed few years we’ve had the good fortune to create corporate videos for some very high-profile, successful, and influential high tech companies. During that time we have learned a number of significant lessons about how video should be used as a central piece of a larger, more focused outward-facing communications strategy.
Here is our first, key lesson:
No matter how loudly we holler about our greatness, no one will take our declaration seriously. That is unless we can find a way to show them instead of simply telling them.
Companies have used white papers and published research for years to quantify their claims of bigger, better, faster, smarter, and these are extremely powerful tools, because they show a company’s willingness to stand behind their claims in writing.
But what we’ve found is that video allows companies to express their excellence, illustrate their cleverness, and make concrete their concepts, strategies, processes, and vision. By showing a facility, whether it’s a data center, a store, or a field where produce is grown, viewers have the opportunity to see and hear the story that makes a company unique, and by association experience the company’s individual commitment to excellence. Video is about emotion, and as the saying goes, you sell with emotion, and close with intellect.
Here is our first, key lesson:
- Excellence is extremely difficult to express credibly. Corporate video allows companies to express their unique commitment to excellence from within the organization as a powerful complement to third-party validation and client testimonials.
No matter how loudly we holler about our greatness, no one will take our declaration seriously. That is unless we can find a way to show them instead of simply telling them.
Companies have used white papers and published research for years to quantify their claims of bigger, better, faster, smarter, and these are extremely powerful tools, because they show a company’s willingness to stand behind their claims in writing.
But what we’ve found is that video allows companies to express their excellence, illustrate their cleverness, and make concrete their concepts, strategies, processes, and vision. By showing a facility, whether it’s a data center, a store, or a field where produce is grown, viewers have the opportunity to see and hear the story that makes a company unique, and by association experience the company’s individual commitment to excellence. Video is about emotion, and as the saying goes, you sell with emotion, and close with intellect.
January 17, 2013
Melissa Ress, Executive Producer