A video is worth a hundred charts

How many PowerPoint presentations have you sat through in the past six months? How many of them can you recall?

What about consumer footage you’ve seen recently: can you recall a face, or phrase? It’s easier, right?

This is no surprise. In 2016, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told investors, “we see a world that is video-first, with video at the heart of all our apps and services.” And we’ve seen the impact of that promise on consumer behaviour; the shift from camera shy to camera savvy; the increasingly high-quality, self-shot footage that fills our timelines and group chats.

As marketeers and strategists, we can harness this behavioural shift to better understand consumers; to get deeper into their lives and to share more authentic stories.

At Incite, we recognise video’s potential to deliver more impactful insights. And we follow five simple rules to create footage that is compelling and shareable:

1 / Make it easy: video needs to be a single click or scroll away; file sizes should be a minimal and footage stored on streaming platforms or internal networks

2 / Keep it short: ideally, 30-90 seconds max; or a teaser format that links to a longer video

3 / Be single minded: the story should flow with a handful of key messages at the end that viewers can easily retain

4 / Adapt for silence: subtitles are essential

5 / Quality over quantity: two or three short, well-edited clips tends to be most impactful