Brand videos can drive significant conversions for your business, but only if executed effectively. According to the State of Video Marketing 2021 report by Wyzowl, “More than 80 percent of people admit that they’ve been convinced to purchase a product or service by watching a brand’s video.” This highlights the influence and potential that brand videos can have on consumer behavior. For insights into creating powerful brand videos, check out brand storytelling videos, explore our video marketing services, and visit Mosaic Media Films for more information.
Brand videos focus solely on promoting a product or service, creating valuable content that resonates with your audience and reflects your business’s core values. The best brand videos balance showcasing your offerings and providing entertaining, engaging content that connects with a specific niche audience.
To aid you in directing your next creative concept, we’ve curated five brand videos worth emulating according to their creative approach to content. These brand videos introduce a unique entertainment factor and put amazing content above blatant sales pitches. Let’s go!
1. Google’s “Home Alone Again”
Whether you’re a big movie buff or a casual holiday viewer, you might have most definitely seen or heard about the 1990 holiday comedy classic Home Alone featuring Macaulay Culkin. The movie presents Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old child who ends up spending Christmas all alone in his Chicago suburb home after his family goes on a holiday, leaving him behind.
In 2018, Google resurfaced this classic, bringing back Culkin as an older version of his character, Kevin McCallister, for their brand video, which was almost 30 years after the original film’s release. The video involved a techy spin on the original Home Alone storyline, where Kevin was shown utilizing Google Assistant while at home by himself.
It was a hotbed of pure nostalgia for many viewers. The simple fact that many people still love and remember Home Alone made this brand video shine. Google also carefully attempted to reshoot scenes as they appeared in the original movie. It would have been easier to show Culkin in a brand new modern home using Google Assistant, but instead, they opted to stay true to the film’s long-standing legacy. This displayed the respect Google had for the source material, making it appear as a more relatable brand.
Whether trying to use a pop culture reference like Google did or include an old product, nostalgia is a fantastic way to connect with viewers; your audience will recognize and bond with it. Consider your audience’s age range and try working with a pop culture reference that will instantly make them recognize and connect to your brand video.
Tip: Tap into reminiscence. The positive emotions triggered by these memories will leave your viewers feeling warm and fuzzy.
2. Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches”
Dove tugged at the viewers’ heartstrings with their 2013 brand video, “Real Beauty Sketches.” It featured FBI-trained forensic artist Gil Zamora creating two portraits of women — one based on the subject’s description of oneself and the other on a stranger’s description. The results were hugely different.
The portraits based on a stranger’s observations turned out to be more accurate and more beautiful depictions of the women. Meanwhile, the pictures based on the women’s perspectives were way less flattering.
There’s an exposure to the video that renders it emotionally compelling and raw. The idea behind Dove’s brand video was to show people that “you’re far more beautiful than you think.” A lot of people could relate to this feeling of insecurity. While creating your brand video, focus on themes that you feel will emotionally resonate with your viewers. The goal is to ensure that the emotional element you choose to concentrate on feels more authentic and less or not at all exploitive.
“Real Beauty Sketches” also feels like a short, well-crafted film independent of the Dove brand. There are no set rules around your brand video to be packaged in a definite way to resonate with your audience. It’s good to experiment with topics and highlight beautiful stories around your brand values, just like Dove did with redefining beauty.
Tip: Don’t hesitate to explore real issues in your industry and try to connect with your audience authentically.
3. Match’s “Match Made in Hell”
In 2020, Match introduced dank humor to the forefront with their brand video about Satan and the year 2020, which was personified as a young woman going on a romantic date and falling in love. They do weird activities like sitting in an empty arena while Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” plays in the background or hoarding toilet paper.
What makes the fun element in the video is the fact that most people universally regard 2020 as a terrible year. Match tried pushing comic boundaries to create a brand video that humorously concludes 2020.
Apart from being funny, Match’s video was timely and relevant. The video was launched when 2020 was coming to an end, and people worldwide reflected on what bad a year it was. Introducing brand videos focused on current news can gain viewers’ interest since those events are currently in conversation and fresh in their minds.
Keep a grip on the pulse of current news to create brand video ideas. Don’t take the effort of hopping from trend to trend with your videos, rather, pay close attention to the collective global consciousness on the news and social media.
Tip: Stay relevant and timely by being updated about the recent trends in your industry. Consider how events occurring worldwide might align with your brand.
4. Zendesk’s “I Made Dinner”
Being a customer service software company, Zendesk created its 2016 brand video to display the complex nature of relationships through a funny dinner-based skit involving a deep-sea diver and an astronaut.
An astronaut conversing with a deep-sea diver initially feels awkwardly off-brand for Zendesk. But, on the inside, it works because it illustrates the complicated relationships and communication issues, which are the common pain points for people working in customer service.
As such, the astronauts and the deep-sea divers have nothing in common with Zendesk, but the relationship aspect does. Simply because your brand is involved with a SaaS product doesn’t mean the brand video must take place at a business meeting or office. You can be extra creative by focusing on a key facet that your product or service solves and showing it to the viewers interestingly and unexpectedly.
You do not need to limit yourself to a single brand video. “I Made Dinner” is a part of Zendesk’s “Relationships Are Complicated” short series of multiple 15-second clips presenting the same characters in different scenarios. You can create more opportunities for your audience to see your brand through multiple videos. If the audience likes what they see in one video, they will likely click on others in the series and engage with more of your content.
5. Dissolve’s “This Is a Generic Brand Video”
Dissolve, a stock footage and photography company, took a new approach in their 2014 brand video by integrating some stock footage into their comic video. It presents stock footage while a narrator tells the audience they’re looking at generic content.
Dissolve’s video proved they aren’t earnest about themselves as a brand. They weren’t hesitant to address the fact that they are into creating stock footage for brands, and the video successfully manages to be pretty funny with no actual business context.
Dissolve worked into another clever element in their brand video by shooting it with their stock footage. It’s a sneaky way of showing off their biggest offering without explicitly stating it. Video is a perfect medium to show the value of your product or service by having the visuals speak for themselves.
Just like Dissolve, never be afraid of poking fun at your brand. Doing so displays that your brand has a human side. Not to mention, the audience is more likely to be receptive to your brand if you can make them laugh.
Tip: Don’t take yourself way too seriously. “Brand” doesn’t need to shout ‘boring’! Try exploring ways to include a little fun and humor in your concept.
Boost your content’s creativity by creating in-house videos
Adopting creativity is an essential part of making brand videos, especially if you want them to shine through the crowd. Ensure you have a strong sense of your brand values and an in-depth understanding of your audience. And then, let the ideas flow by taking inspiration from the brand videos mentioned above!
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Mark Wonderlin is the visionary founder of Mosaic Media Films. He is passionate about crafting creative business videos that captivate and convert. Mark and his team stand out by creating visually stunning videos and ensuring they align seamlessly with the client’s broader marketing objectives.