A corporate film and its sub-forms are often seen as a modern all-purpose marketing weapon. Even so, we too occasionally advise clients against producing a corporate film when the budget, timing or goal isn’t right. We have put together 10 cases in which you don’t need a corporate film – and what you can do instead.
Contents
- When a corporate film is NOT worth it – and what you can do instead
- 1. You don’t have a distribution plan
- 2. Your company doesn’t need the internet
- 3. You are already at full capacity
- 4. Everyone in your niche knows everyone – regular customers, little competition
- 5. Your products/services are well known and self-explanatory
- 6. You have enough skilled workers and apprentices
- 7. You don’t have a (current) website
- 8. You have a very limited marketing budget
- 9. You don’t have a clear corporate identity
- 10. You don’t have time for a corporate film
When a corporate film is NOT worth it – and what you can do instead
An article on a film production company’s website about when a corporate film isn’t worth it? Crazy, right?
Don’t get me wrong, a corporate film is a powerful marketing tool. But produced and bought blindly, it can also cause problems, because in the end every advertising medium has to pay for itself – whether it’s an advert, Google Ads (then AdWords) or a film. As filmmakers and marketing consultants, we are surprisingly often the ones advising potential clients against corporate films, when we realise it’s the wrong time or that the wrong (too small) budget would buy something that can’t achieve the goals set in the end.
First: the different kinds of corporate film
To understand the arguments for and against corporate films, we first have to talk briefly about the many sub-forms of the corporate film. The term isn’t protected and is often used freely for the following sub-types too:
- Information films & explainer videos,
- commercials,
- filmed company presentations or introduction films
- recruitment videos,
- industrial films,
- product videos,
- and several others
In most cases, the term itself already explains the intended goal or content of the film.
“Professionally” is an important factor here, because self-made films (e.g. trainee projects) or temptingly cheap €1,000 offers on Google would lead to a far longer list of problems.
1. You don’t have a distribution plan
A good corporate film first of all costs a lot of money – and time, for preparation and research within your company. The time aspect is often underestimated, by the way, which is why it gets special attention again under number 10.
Whether it’s a corporate film, a magazine ad or a Google Ads campaign, you (or at least your boss) would like a clear financial return within a predictable period. Whether the goal is higher sales, a new product launch or recruiting new staff – none of it will happen if your film sits unused in your basement. Unless, of course, your basement is regularly visited by graduates, houses your product exhibition and has an incredibly cool online presence … This brings us to one of the biggest mistakes corporate film buyers make:
Every company film must be part of a campaign or be shown in places (trade fairs, the website, sales meetings, on-site monitors) where it can be seen by the right target audience.
My advice: clear goals & a usage strategy
A far more professional approach is:
Only with clearly planned usage can you put the real cost of a corporate film in relation to the campaign, goals and duration of use. A matching image brochure (e.g. with the company history or new direction), a new website or “behind the scenes” blog articles accompanying the corporate film can also greatly reduce the corporate film’s cost per viewer.
- Define the communication goal
- Plan a multimedia campaign
- Produce the corporate film
- Run the campaign including the corporate film
- Be more successful
2. Your company doesn’t need the internet
Location, location, location! Whether a regional supermarket, a trade business, a franchisee or a specialist shop: sometimes a perfect location is enough to keep a business successful for a long time. Your problem is more likely to be the growing number of customers buying online, or often rising parking charges, than a lack of corporate films. It’s important to examine each market situation individually to uncover undiscovered potential – or perhaps even dangers.
With the growing “threat” – or rather “change” – brought by the internet, companies that operate and advertise purely offline and locally have become the minority. Customers search on Google before they pick up a phone book. Even pharmacies, which once only needed a good location between the doctor, the bakery and the post office, are now threatened by the online market.
But think of the local undertaker or small shops in very rural regions. You could show a corporate film in the shop here too, but would it grow the customer base enough to justify the investment? Probably not.
My advice: see the internet as an opportunity
Step back from your company’s situation and examine carefully whether you really aren’t already losing customers to online campaigns by old or new competitors. If not, ask yourself what goal your corporate film is meant to achieve and whether and when the investment will pay off.
Today, anyone who starts small, without much marketing budget but with a lot of creativity, can become known beyond the city limits. Many business ideas that started small, whether street food such as personalised waffles or highly specialised organic delicatessens, have exceeded all expectations through clever use of social media. In some cases, what began as private marketing allowed small shops to grow into entire franchises and expand into Europe’s student and big cities.
- Just because you are offline doesn’t mean all your competitors are
- (Almost) all your customers are online anyway (especially on Google and social media)
- Check your situation regularly
- Think about how you could still benefit from the internet and, above all, from social media
3. You are already at full capacity
A company without competition, the good old entrepreneurial blue ocean – nobody is fishing away your customers, not a shark in sight. Or your company belongs to one of the industries currently being carried to record capacity by a boom. Great!
As long as the market has enough potential, you should first find and remove the bottleneck in your own company. Nobody is helped if you attract potential customers and then can’t deliver because of capacity constraints.
In your situation, you need a corporate film at most to convert even more prospects (careful: bottleneck!) or to find suitable skilled staff (which is actually one of the best reasons FOR a corporate film right now).
My advice: invest wisely and put budget aside
As Grandma always used to say: “Save in good times and you’ll have in bad.” So my (and Grandma’s) tip:
Definitely put a marketing budget aside for bad times – for example, for when financially strong companies discover your blue ocean or online start-ups change the industry completely (Uber, Airbnb). Many online start-ups were only successful until one of the big IT giants – Apple, Google, Amazon or Microsoft – entered the market and steamrollered them with its marketing budget.
- Produce a corporate film NOW, while you have the budget
- Produce a corporate film specifically for applicants and trainees, to plan ahead
- Build up a marketing budget
- Be prepared for changes in the market and your niche
- Plan ahead for economic downturns
4. Everyone in your niche knows everyone – regular customers, little competition
Your company operates in a small niche with only a few suppliers and few buyers – business relationships that seem to have existed for ever. Your growth depends on the growth of your few customers, whom you supply or who use your services.
Leaving aside topics such as recruitment or PR effects, a corporate film has little chance of recouping its costs here, or would need an unrealistically long time to do so. Corporate films age too!
My advice: open up new business areas
This goes beyond the topic of corporate films, but tying your company’s fate to a few large customers isn’t very healthy from a business point of view. The best example is the automotive industry, which, with the switch to electric cars, will change a large part of its suppliers or simply no longer need them.
Think about where else you could use your core skills – thinking outside the box and beyond your own horizons. Ideally, hold brainstorming sessions with creative thinkers who dare to voice even crazy ideas in front of their boss or client. Perhaps it’s also worth buying a start-up or two and integrating them for new business models. Then launch your new business area strongly with a corporate film.
- Be open to market changes
- Allow and enable innovation
- Look beyond your own horizons
5. Your products/services are well known and self-explanatory
Butchers, bakeries, bricklayers – traditional trades in particular don’t need much explaining to anyone. The business is based on walk-in customers, and potential apprentices (if they know you) know relatively well what to expect.
I still found this point difficult, because during my research and conversations with clients I came across a few problems. However self-explanatory the product: for potential apprentices, “traditional” or “well known” can also mean boring – these days every child would rather earn money as an influencer on Instagram or by streaming video games.
Then there is the problem of digitalisation, which is generally reducing walk-in trade and increasing Google searches. Google searches suddenly bring competitors within reach who traditionally operated several towns away. Business areas are changing too: electricians are becoming smart-home experts, and undertakers are offering burials in space or having ashes pressed into diamonds.
New market potential and entire business areas are waiting to be opened up. If traditional companies don’t do it, the next online start-up is guaranteed to.
My advice: question the old ways
If you want to still be around tomorrow, you have to question the old ways and consider whether you could even use software ideas to capture new data through old products (car tyres that measure the asphalt and sell the data to the authorities and construction companies?).
New business areas are opening up, and it’s the best time to act and secure your company for the future. With a modern mindset, attract apprentices, graduates or skilled workers of a quality you couldn’t reach before. And win customers you hadn’t even thought of yesterday.
- “Creatively rethink” your own products and services
- Address apprentices and skilled workers in a targeted way
- Become a pioneer in your industry
6. You have enough skilled workers and apprentices
Over the course of this article, one thing has somehow emerged: even if you don’t need a corporate film, you can always use it for recruiting. Of course, you don’t need that if you are one of the few companies in Germany without a skills or young-talent shortage.
If your company is well known and popular with employees and apprentices, you clearly have one less problem for the future. And if everyone can also understand and adopt your culture, your understanding of quality and your way of working with customers, you have done everything right as managing director or HR manager.
If no other area of advertising justifies the use of a corporate film, the return on investment will be hard to achieve – and, beyond a certain point, hard to justify.
My advice: train employees & shape the culture
Your company is popular with young people and there is no shortage of apprentices. Then, in your position, I would do everything to unlock the full potential of your “young talent”. Tutorials, training films and presentations of the corporate culture: quality standards, worst cases and best practices can be taught in a targeted way through films. Why am I coming back to a corporate film after all? Of course you don’t need a corporate film for this. A similar effect could be achieved with your own training material, books and magazines – but the effect would be much weaker.
For most people – and especially for the young generation – a film is far less “school” and much more “experience” than leafing through booklets. Interactivity and moving images are what the internet has taught today’s young people. So why not use that?
- Unlock the full potential of skilled workers and young talent
- Stage best practices and worst cases
- Make quality standards and corporate culture tangible
- Turn employee training into a highlight event
7. You don’t have a (current) website
This point is important, because not having a (current) website means that any corporate film you produce has fewer ways to be used and is therefore automatically more expensive to recoup. It also means your company wants to take the second step before the first. A website is your digital business card – that is where your advertising budget should be focused.
My advice: review your company’s priorities
It may be that, for your particular company in your individual situation, a corporate film makes more sense than a (new) website. But my experience is this: when there is no website but people are already talking about film solutions, there is a kind of knee-jerk activism at work. Perhaps a clear marketing or business plan for the future is missing. Perhaps you or your superiors have also closed your eyes to many analogue and digital changes and are now trying to put plasters on growing wounds. My advice: treat the cause, not the symptoms.
- Review your marketing goal and the measures to get there
- Check whether it’s worth investing in a new website or another online presence (e.g. social media)
- If appropriate, combine the relaunch of a website or social media presence with a corporate film
8. You have a very limited marketing budget
So much to do, so little money – we all know that. Setting priorities is the key to reaching your goal with limited resources. A corporate film is only as profitable as its reach and period of use allow it to pay for itself. And that means a corporate film should definitely be part of an overall marketing concept and marketing budget. Print and online media, but also use in sales presentations, trade fairs and client presentations, bring the film its audience.
But used correctly, every marketing tool can have an outstanding effect.
My advice: plan for the long term
Every marketing expense should be planned for the long term. A quick ad here and a few weeks of Google Ads there rarely bring the desired success. Depending on the industry, you often only feel the results of marketing activities six months later. With corporate films in particular, many people set themselves the goal of building an image. But an image is the impression other market participants and the public have of your company. Ideally, as many people as possible – not just a few – should understand your core values and principles. Depending on distribution and opportunities, that takes time – which you should take into account when calculating the return on investment.
- Plan for the long term (at least 6–12 months)
- Plan a mix of media and channels for your marketing
- Avoid knee-jerk activism
- Calculate the profitability of your measures
9. You don’t have a clear corporate identity
Not every company has to be a brand straight away. Still, you should be able to answer the question: what does your brand stand for, what defines you as a business, and why should customers buy your service or product? Whether skilled workers looking for a job, apprentices, customers or business partners – everyone cares who the company is and what values it stands for.
Without knowing who you are, it will be hard to produce a corporate film. Every time you roll your eyes at a corporate film, it is often because of superficial, interchangeable “standard” values, filler phrases or generic stock footage (the express train rushing past). All this shows that the company in question either “would like” a certain image without living it, or has never become aware of its actual values. A clear case of money thrown out of the window.
My advice: a clear image lowers costs
A clear image makes a company tangible and sets it apart in the market. It creates potential for identification among applicants and strengthens cohesion among employees (in hard times too). Employees are more likely to support tough cuts because they are fighting for a common goal.
With a clear image, you find the right employees who fit your philosophy, believe in your company and want to lead it to success. You need less advertising spending and can focus more precisely on detailed messages in campaigns when “the big picture” is clear to the public. Once the mindset in your company is clear, the remaining puzzle pieces fall into place, and the company culture you live may even develop a momentum of its own.
Ideas and suggestions will suddenly come from within the workforce (if the boss is willing to listen). Customers and applicants will get in touch with you on their own initiative. And all because you know who you are and what defines you.
- Develop a corporate identity (with your own employees and/or the help of an agency)
- Bring your employees along
- Turn your employees into fellow campaigners
- Choose the right tools to communicate your image
10. You don’t have time for a corporate film
Last but not least, one of the most important but often underestimated points: time.
Your time is precious. And a corporate film (or any of its sub-forms) is not a product you order and get delivered to your door the next day without giving it another thought. And I don’t just mean the 2 to 5 shooting days on site.
Most film production companies see themselves as service providers who work out your goals in brainstorming sessions, define your image and develop the right marketing approach. Scouting, talks with departments or other agencies involved and possibly even interviews with employees are important to give the filmmakers a comprehensive picture of your company. Because only someone who understands you can really convey your image and identity to the outside world.
Last but not least, your employees should be present and relaxed during the actual shoot – and may even be needed for it, so production downtime is possible.
My advice: work with professionals and weigh things up.
Not having time often implicitly means that you have more important or other things to do – or at least rate the competing topics as more important. You know best what matters most for your company right now.
I don’t want to persuade anyone that their corporate film is more important than X, Y or Z – that’s not my place. But if you find, partly after reading this article, that a corporate film is one of the (most) important tools for your success, then use good time management by and with professionals to make it happen.
It is often not necessary for the head of the company to accompany the film production company at every step. Appoint a project manager within the company who is closely familiar with the image campaign and can make design decisions for you. But the film project should never become a matter of indifference to you, otherwise it becomes pure luck whether the end product pleases and really helps.
- Set (time) priorities based on your marketing goals
- Be aware of the actual time involved
- Allow for production downtime or at least lost productivity
- Work with professionals
- Delegate project management and, if necessary, decisions
- Don’t schedule the shoot in a week with other important appointments or project deadlines coming up.
