It's no laughing matter

Mention "we should make a video" in any project meeting and it is usually met with either a lack of enthusiasm or with laughter, as if someone has just made a joke. This is mainly due to the perception that making a video will take a long time, require a large budget, cause disruption in the workplace and require a large budget (people usually mention this twice!) However, consider this... How many times have you visited a website to view a product or read an article, and then you have seen a 'watch our video' button at the top of the page? Then the first thing you have done is click the button to watch the video!

Video is a powerful tool

A video can be used for many things:

• Conveying a coprporate message
• Enhancing a training course
• Explaining a new product
• Getting attention at the beginning of a conference talk
• Showing scenarios in an e-learning package
• Enhancing a software support page with a 'how-to' video, showing step-by-step instructions

And contrary to popular belief, a video is fairly inexpensive to create and will probably get the most engagement (from your target audience) out of all of your communications products.

Full-motion-video or animation

For some requirements, only full-motion video will deliver the vision you have. This will require traditional shooting and maybe role-play/actors, with a greater post-production time to review and edit all of the footage. The result can be spectacular, but for a scenario-based video, it is usually easier to use animation.

Animation can capture the viewer's imagination much more than traditional video. On top of this, the production process can be much easier because you can have a huge cast of characters without requring a single actor, and you can create any scene/back-drop the imagination can muster, from an office environment to a disaster scene. Production times can range from a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the length of the video and the content required.

If you consider that nearly all of your target audience will be thoroughly used to watching videos on the Internet, you can begin to understand why the click-through rate of video communications is always significantly higher than nearly any other medium. Therefore, your message will reach more people and generate a higher awareness of your product/project/service/etc.