Corporate Video: It’s Back!

I get the Video Insider newsletter regularly (with all my other newsletters) and it usually has good stuff in it. But I never felt compelled to respond to anything in it. Until now. This article took me by surprise: Online Video: Redefining How Businesses Connect With Their Customers

I’ve been doing “corporate video” for toooo long. And this article was like deja vu. Where they got the “redefining” thing I have NO idea. Here’s the comment I left.

I sit here stunned.

“Corporate Video” has been around since video and TV began. It was on film before that. It’s not new and neither are the applications you describe. The change is in the distribution network (inter/intranet) and the practitioners. Corporate video departments were all the rage in the ’70s and ’80s. Some still survive. MCA-I is a professional association (at mca-i.org), as is cmma.org that represent what’s left of the corporate video folk.

“Corporate broadcast network”s were the original sneaker net, then came closed circuit, then satellite delivered. Now, IP delivered.

And now, instead of former TV producers or photogs moving “downstairs” to work in the “studio”, the practitioners are business people in marketing or corp comm or training who have the cheap tools to make video happen.

But making it happen is not enough. The bottom line is the same as always. Video has be effective, good and credible. The Blendtec videos started out very simply but have gotten more sophisticated (produced by video professionals) over time. Coke and Mentos was not some kid with a camcorder.

Anyone can pick up a camera, but few can shoot and edit something that someone else will feel compelled to watch and take action upon. Remember desktop publishing and a kazillion fonts per page? Or websites and the scourge of frames? Fast forward to today and name on one hand, out of the millions of videos posted to YouTube that you remember the title of.

Quantity does not equal quality. Fast – Good – Cheap: choose two still applies. Stick to your core business and hire a professional. The alternative is to spend time away from your core business having “fun” and get questionable results.