How much is a video worth?

Storytelling, Social Media, and Videos rank high when asking marketers about 'what works,' but to be honest, I don't believe a video is worth much more than anything else you may choose. As with anything else, the media is only a 'carrier,' and you pick the one that serves your purpose best. In case you chose video as you preferred media, it's not just a matter of being a "video." Mobile phones have great cameras and are being used by professionals as well as amateurs, but this is a brilliant example of why a video in itself isn't better. 

On Social Media, you are constantly bombarded with apps that promise you a 'professional' output, and you can add texts, use stock video, add music, and then you are ready to 'rock the world.' The democratization of video production has taken the same turn as design, in general, have taken over the past years. You can produce something that you believe will work, and who knows, maybe for some, it does? As an individual, it's fun and great to make something that looks better than the 'raw' film directly from your smartphone. 

If you use video as part of the marketing of your brand, your products, and your values, I believe you will have to create videos where both technical quality as well as the storytelling part, support your brand values. We are used to having brand manuals describing the usage of colors, logos, fonts, etc. but I don't often see brand manuals also including videos. 

With smartphones and even free apps, you can create pretty stunning results, and you can, therefore, most likely use video to underscore your brand - however, the storytelling perspective is where many videos lack. As you know, we are praising ourselves being good at this, but that isn't entirely true. The truth is, we have an extreme passion for what we do, printed products, the equipment, the people, the technologies, and with that passion can find stories that we are engaged with. If we were asked to produce a film about something completely different I am sure we would be as bad as any. Marketing people using video, therefore, have to understand the objective first. What is it you want to achieve and what means can support that mission.

As I have written about earlier the most significant issue, in my opinion, is that the measures for many marketing people are stupid. The Internet has, to some extent, changed everybody's mindset to volume, numbers, clicks, conversations, rather than focusing on the quality, the users, the branding, and more. If you are working with marketing where the objective is volume rather than quality (and I believe these two are each other's antagonists) you end up finding that 1-2 minute videos are more valuable than an 8-minute video. Both are wrong. If you only need a click, the shorter one may be the best. If you need insight, the longer one may be the best.

So to say that one of the other is right/wrong in my opinion simply don't make sense.

When engaging with a professional video production company, the even stranger thing is that often the short one is way more demanding to produce over the longer one. The short one has to deliver the message in a very dense message, and will often need to include elements that stand out. If you look at TV-commercials, these have changed a lot since they originated on flow-TV and what these often have in common is; being funny, have sexual undertones, deliver an offer you will find useful, have visuals that interact with your emotions, etc. The things that make you react are something that talks to your feelings. Kittys' puppies, Babies, have mostly way more clicks than grey boxes delivering stunning print.

Most videos produced today aren't intended for flow-tv. Videos are used on Social Media, on websites, at tradeshows (offline), etc. and with many marketing people pushing video, the videos have a way smaller level of engagement and interaction with the viewers, and many are already now looking into what's next. For some that is Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, etc., and that leaves you with one huge question.

What do you want to achieve with your marketing and your videos? If you're going to get clicks, your videos have to stand out, and you will need to talk to your audience in a way that ensures that click. You have to value whether the click in itself brings you more business or deliver a user to the next one in line - hint, is the quality and the lead at all worth chasing? Alternatively, do you want to teach, and engage with your audience on a more skilled level?

When INKISH was founded, I was told that long videos don't work. First of all - I don't believe that. I think that some people are not interested in spending a long time watching a too-long film all the time. I do think that some may never be really interested, but I also believe that sometimes people want an insight they can't get in 2 minutes, and I believe that the level of marketing noise that is all over in the world, open up for niches like INKISH where we deliver storytelling and technical quality at the level we believe is right for our audience.

The cost. Well, we for sure have fewer viewers than any film with kitties, puppies, babies, etc., but we for sure also have a way more qualified audience, and therefore we continue our mission bringing the stories that we believe are valuable to the industry. 

This article is probably too long for most marketers, so if you read this - thank you!

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Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash