We are beginning a series on commercial archetypes that can help you decide what might be best for your company when taking that first step toward video advertising. The first type to think about is Traditional Branding. Now, just because the word ‘traditional’ is in the title does not mean that your commercial has to be boring or expected. There are elements that all traditional branding commercials share, elements that make them effective. The ‘extras’ that a company like Point7West brings to the table can make a traditional branding commercial into a lasting and enduring ad campaign.

Let’s discuss some of these main elements - and see how your company might fit within these parameters. Let’s use an example for reference: our recently completed IW Club Dining commercial for the City of Indian Wells.

Establishing a Branded Look and Feel

Has your company never done a commercial before? Is this the first time your business has entered into a branding exercise, where you are seeing how something as simple as your logo can translate into a complete, well-thought-out brand? Well, this is where a traditional branding commercial shines. Allowing your customers to see your trusted name in ‘lights’ is the first step to legitimizing your brand as being truly serious about communicating with them. Logo animations, colors, fonts, music, scripting - all of these elements tie together to make a cohesive look for your company, and help tell the story of what it is all about.

For the IW Club, we have a branded look that we’ve been developing for some time, which includes minimal typography and colors. We also chose specific music and voice that fits into their lively and upscale branding, all coming together to form a familiar, yet fresh look that locals come to know and expect.

What can your company do for its patrons?

Making your services or amenities clear is not always the top priority, but if you’re thinking of this commercial as an extension of your brochure, website, or business card - this may be something that should be included. Sometimes the services are implied, and the focus should be on other areas of your brand, such as your uniqueness or the passion behind the work. However, a concrete sampling of services can be more attributed to traditional branding.

For the IW Club, we shot all the experiences one can have while dining here; from seeing the high-end food, to the indoor/outdoor atmosphere, to romantic dates as well as gatherings of friends, all with fantastic service. We want the viewer to be able to know the kind of restaurant they’d be choosing, both visually and audibly.

How long do you plan to use the commercial?

This can be a tough question to answer in the short term, but many companies create a commercial they intend to use over longer periods of time, whether new TV campaigns come or go. Others create a new commercial for every holiday, sale, or reason. Will this be your ‘go-to’ ad, meant to stand the test of time? Or is it going to be be the ad of the season? A long shelf life is most often the attribute of a traditional branding commercial.

With the IW Club, we chose a time of year to shoot the commercial when our models could wear clothing appropriate for any season, and when the outdoor shots looked temperate (not too hot or cold!) We stayed away from mentioning specific menu items, or employing sales graphics that would expire after a short time, allowing the client to use the commercial over a longer term.

A traditionally branded commercial goes a long way toward getting an atmosphere, as well as information across to potential customers and clients. It’s a struggle for any company not to want to put ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ into a traditional branding commercial, but that’s where Point7West comes in. We’ll guide new and continuing clients alike toward honing their message into an effective commercial that will be remembered. 

Check out the IW Club Dining commercial in its entirety here. Look for Part 2 of our series, a profile on Concept Driven Commercials, in the coming weeks.

We are creators of videos of all kinds, but our focus has always been what we call ‘the image film’, or the corporate video people WANT to see. This can take various forms, but the kind of format we often work with is interview-driven. What does it mean to have a video that is interview driven? This is a video that is unscripted, that thrives on the stories of the real people that are on fire for the company they belong to. Digging up real stories from the people who live them, and then weaving them into a cohesive multi-layered story - that’s what we love to do!

There is an art to this. Finding the story that makes a business unique often takes an outside perspective to achieve. It’s more than just asking the questions to a random list of people and hoping for the best. There’s research, conversational interviewing, and editing with an emphasis on content - all of these things come into play when making successful videos featuring interviews.

Research: This is something we do with our clients and that we ask our clients to do for themselves as well. The answers to what makes a great story might not be in the obvious places. Discovering the right talking points for an interview translates into and effective interview dialogue. Research also includes finding the right people to be interviewed. Although the CEO might be the first choice for an interview, that person might also be terrified of the camera! A mid-level employee with great people skills and a passion for the business might be a better overall choice. A good interviewee might also be shy in real life but have an extremely intuitive camera personality. Finding these things out prior to the interview day is all part of the research.

Conversational Interviews: This is not an interrogation, but it is, in its own way, an investigation. We’re there to get to the heart of the story, and getting the interviewee to deliver the most natural and effective response they are capable of is our highest goal. How is that achieved? Again, this is an art, not a science. By having a conversation with the interviewee, and having that conversation flow into and become the interview, we find we can often get a great result. It also helps the person we’re talking to ease into the interview and reflect on what they’re saying. We’re also dogged about getting the response we need to get the result we’ll need in the edit of the piece. We may ask questions a few times, or re-phrasings of the same question, to elicit the type of answer that will work best. Other times, it’s just nice to have options!

Editing for Content: The editorial process is a multilayered one, and the workflows tend to be as varied from editor to editor as the artists who inhabit them. We have a workflow that we’ve used from the time we solidified our creative team, and that stability has helped us create consistently solid videos. Step one of this workflow is editing with an emphasis on content - period. Although we always edit with the finished video in mind, the content is really the backbone of a good video. Pouring through each interview to find the moments that really count, and thinking of how each person’s narrative will tie together, makes for a well thought out story.

An interview driven video that can show off your people telling the story of your own business - it doesn’t get much more genuine than that. Although it’s a format that doesn’t work for every business, it’s a format that we’re drawn to as storytellers. To take a look some examples of our interview-driven videos, see Lynchburg College or Prime Time International.