If you run a business, big or small, you know how important it is to have a strong brand identity and distinct branded video content. All of these will have a direct impact on your company’s success (or failure!).

A brand identity is what defines who you are and why you exist… and impactful branded video content is how you reach your target market and beat your competitors.

The truth: It’s crucial that you have strong branded video content if you want your business (and brand) to survive. In addition, remember that your content also needs to be versatile enough for future purposes.

Your brand’s visual identity is just as, if not more, important than your brand identity. Think about it; all I have to do is say Apple, Wendy’s, Burger King, or McDonald’s and you’ll instantly have gray apples, red pigtails, flame-broiled hamburgers, or golden arches on your mind.

That is the strength of a striking visual brand identity. People quickly establish the association in their heads when they see your logo, image, or even your colors, and they’ll never forget!

Once you’ve established your visual brand identity using graphic design, you can consider using motion design, video, and photography to elevate your brand.

Ready to skyrocket your business to new heights?  

What is Branded Video Content?

Making up 82% of all consumer internet traffic (a 15x increase in the last five years!), video has become the cornerstone of many marketing campaigns. 

HubSpot reports that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from brands they work with, and 72% would prefer to watch a video than read a text when learning about a new product or service.

What is branded video content?

Branded video content reveals a company’s goal, perspective, services, or goods as part of a larger campaign. It is content that tells your target audience who you are, what you do, and, most crucially, why you do it.

The goal of quality branded video content is to increase awareness and convert visitors to potential customers!

So… If video isn’t already part of your overall marketing strategy, now is the time to consider adding it; particularly when it comes to telling the story of your company through branded video content.

We know, we know… 

You’ve been nagged about video a thousand times by now.

But in all seriousness, video marketing isn’t a fleeting trend that blogs and influencers are touting for no good reason. The results of leveraging branded video content can actually be spectacular for those who put proper effort behind the cause!

​​So, use it if you want to convey a specific message while keeping your business in the background:

Deliver authentic and entertaining content that targets your prospective and existing customers. As a result, you’ll humanize your business and strengthen your brand voice.

Check out this real-life example of recognizable and engaging motion design:

Here is our latest work with Trade Nation, a company that provides investors with financial services and a trading app! 

We designed a combination of motion design and video for them in order to raise brand recognition, boost traffic, and educate their audience.

https://youtu.be/Bjr0aRne1JQ

Can you notice what’s interesting about their logo animation? 

• It is suitable for use on different color backgrounds and platforms! 
• This is a versatile motion design asset that serves as an essential extension of their brand logo
• In this day and age, all brands need a motion version of their logo in addition to their current design to maintain a consistent but engaging identity across videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2KDWVclnHY

Why It’s So Effective

When using video material, just like in this interview, it’s crucial to keep the branding consistent!

• Take note of how typography and important info are highlighted using carefully chosen and branded assets, such as this bespoke lower third animation

• This lower third animation was made by a motion designer; once generated, it becomes a reusable and editable asset, as well as adding credibility and value to the brand
• Regardless of who the company interviews or the topic of discussion, these assets may be utilized again to instill a sense of loyalty, connection, and awareness of the brand’s core values and messaging in viewers.

Video content like you just seen before is a fantastic way to show what your brand is all about, and keep your audience engaged without feeling like they are bombarded with ads.

However, it isn’t always convenient nor suitable to set up studios, audio, and lighting to pro. That’s where animation and motion design can be used and as before. 

It is critical that this adds to rather than distracts people from the brand. Why? Using the same color schemes and typography is essential at the most basic level!

• When it comes to motion design, however, greater attention to detail is always required
• For example, when Trade Nation uses motion graphics to illustrate their trading platform, they always use a white 3D model of a phone
• Their animated font also adheres to strict spacing and motion guidelines. Remember: consistency is key!

Another example of how motion design has been used to help their video approach is seen below:

This introduction is a motion graphics asset that we created for Trade Nation. It will be reused every month when Trade Nation releases their Vodcast (Video Podcast). 

It’s straightforward and concise, yet dynamic enough to make you remember Trade Nation’s identity and logo. It’s a great opportunity to educate, show their expertise and authority, as well as reaching new customers.

Why Your Business Needs Branded Video Content

Video is undoubtedly, unquestionably, unfailingly THE future of digital marketing and will set your brand identity head and shoulders above the rest. (Are we being clear enough on this?)

Personalized video helps to strengthen your visual brand identity in a one-of-a-kind way that’s authentic to your business. 

Scroll through your Facebook feed or search Google for any topic; you’ll be hard-pressed to find a post without a video or photo, and chances are you’ll find at least one video included in the links at the top of the search engine results page.

Why? Because videos and photos are what people want.

Branded video content, especially combined with motion design, is an effective way to boost your brand in the market and convert people into new customers:

• The science behind it? We are attracted to movements and colors
• The truth is – if you want to attract people’s attention, you must deliver, in a way that is engaging, instructive, and most importantly, visually appealing
• When people see online videos, the natural instinct is to stop scrolling!
• Even if consumers give their attention to your video for just a few seconds, that’s an opportunity to advertise your brand / get your message across

Need more convincing? Consider these six reasons:

Videos Bring You Closer to Your Audience

It’s the age of smartphones, video chatting, and social media. 

Using video content on mobile platforms will capture your audience while they’re already considering making a purchase!

Here’s how:

• Smartphones have brought digital marketing into a new generation
• This means businesses are now able to use video to reach customers on personal levels like never before: anywhere, anytime
• You’re literally in the palm of your audience’s hand, telling them about your service or your products while demonstrating how you can fit into their lives or their world!

Buyer Habits Have Evolved

Having videos on your site can increase conversions by 72% or more according to an article from Impact. 

How come? Our attention span has decreased dramatically.

And according to studies, the average viewer remembers 95% of a message when it is watched, whereas only 10% remembers when the message is read.

• Video content combines all different elements that make all the other forms of marketing effective: the visuals of pictures, the sound elements, and the info from text-based content
• People use their smartphones to browse products, gather information, decide which stores to visit, finalize a purchase without making a single click on a desktop or setting foot in a store
• Modern buyers are so used to video or photos that they simply don’t or won’t buy without seeing a product first

Videos Enhance Your Brand’s Legitimacy

High-quality videos go a long way towards establishing your brand’s legitimacy and presence. They are effective at showing (not telling) why your company is beneficial to customers. 

It allows brands to prove they are passionate and committed, thus bringing them closer to their respective audience.

• Once you’ve created a compelling visual brand identity, you can curate your videos and images to match your brand’s look and feel to send a cohesive message across all channels
• How does this work? It helps instill trust in the consumer!
• By swapping over-salesy content for branded video, you are in a better position to show (not tell) customers that they are “the real deal.”

Transparency is Relatable

Successful brands are using the power of video as a transparent way to educate buyers on products, announcements, and even customer service. 

• It’s much easier to engage with someone or something you can see
• A genuine product showcase in the form of a video is much more effective than a written review, which… Let’s be honest, someone can easily fake anyway
• It offers your brand a way to prove that you are passionate and knowledgeable enough for the gatekeepers (aka consumers) to let them in.

Search Engine Optimization

Video on landing pages is capable of increasing conversion rates by over 80%, and the mere mention of the word “video” in your email subject line increases open rates by 19%. 

90% of customers also say videos help them make buying decisions.

Here’s another statistic for you: Youtube is the second most used search engine in the world.

• Yup. That’s right. When we’re talking about the top search engines, their order goes like this: Youtube > Google > Huge Gap > Everything else
• Google and Youtube LOVE videos
• Furthermore, Google owns Youtube, so posting videos will also increase your search engine rankings
• A dynamic and engaging video gives viewers a reason to share your brand’s content with their friends and colleagues!
• A well-made branded video that is optimized for search will help you capitalize on this trend and drive more brand awareness, as well as more traffic to your site

Another bonus is you can start a Youtube channel for your brand and invite as many people to follow you as you’d like. When you post new videos, all of your followers are notified, keeping you and your visual brand in front of them at all times.
Video is within reach for businesses of virtually any size — team and budget alike. 45% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy in the next year. The perfect time to start is now.

What Makes an Impactful Branded Video Content?

All business owners today face a classic challenge:

How can a brand use unique content to share its message across multiple platforms and reach out to audiences WHILE still clearly capturing the brand’s voice, look, and feel?

Most businesses fail by creating a single batch of visual content that is shared across all social and digital channels, or by adapting the content to different audiences without consistency and brand awareness.

Instead, your brand should expand on its visual content strategy by creating a video brand identity system. The first and most important way is to ensure your brand identity, which combines the visual, mental, and emotional appeal of your brand and what it has to offer.

Read on to know more about the strategy!

Create a Strong Visual Impression

A systematic strategy is key to nailing down visual identity rules for your company in order to develop video content at scale. 

Why? The two most common problems brands run into are lacking content materials and keeping a steady online presence.

So how do you combat these issues? 

• Make sure you have plenty of resources to produce content for every platform. The more materials, the better!
• Maintain consistency, both in the frequency of uploading content and in the branding itself! Make your business a household name!
• To ensure that every project captures your brand’s specifications, create a concrete guideline
• Consider the cinematography style, lighting, palettes, graphics layout, music, and the tone of your brand’s messaging
• All of these elements strongly contribute to how your audience feels and reacts to your brand when viewing your content! 

Possess a Unique Voice

Many businesses lack a thought-out plan for brand messaging – they either do not know their basic values and why they exist, or they are aware but have not expressed this to their target audience. 

What’s the solution then?

• Figure out what you stand for and why your brand exists. These are the cornerstones that will help determine your brand’s voice!
• Effective branding ensures a consistent and identifiable feel to your company’s content
• And once your brand’s language and essence resonate with a wider audience, it becomes easier to grow and scale!
• In turn, this enables your team to have a better understanding of your target audience, brand personality, and core values.

Have Strong Standards

For easy brand recognition, every piece of content you put out has to follow a set of concrete standards. 

Here’s how to do it.

• Think of your brand identity standards as a manual or a style guide for your brand
• Gather samples of all the content your brand produces across all corporate functions – and take stock of the look and feel of each one
• Do they all point to the same brand identity? 
• Are all the designs, texts, and formats anchored to the brand guidelines?
• Each piece of content needs to abide by “rules of play,” where all future communications of your company are held to the standards and criteria established by the branded video content.

Having a clear vision and road map for how your brand voice should be represented will make all your future branding efforts easier and more cost-effective.

Consistency Across Channels

One aspect that cannot be overlooked is the multitude of platforms where your brand can be showcased: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. 

How do you use them to reach your brand’s highest potential?

• Each platform requires content that communicates your brand identity in a different form. 
• But it becomes a challenge when you cannot have the same video for all the platforms you work with and don’t have the budget to make a tailor-made video for each platform.
• So, videos should be tailored to the commercial opportunity that each platform provides
• Example: TED-Ed’s YouTube channel has 16.4 million subscribers and the channel has been viewed around 1.6 billion times – driving tons of traffic to their website
• Their secret? Consistency in identity: from the introduction to the tone of voice and motion design, it’s all synced and uniform. You will know it’s a TED content as soon as the video starts!

Video Content and Brand Identity

Let’s take a quick step back and think about what the word branding actually means… And how it can inform the process of creating an effective brand video AND your brand’s identity.

How is Your Brand Identity Integral to Your Video Content?

The best way to understand this is by looking at your business as if it is a person. It interacts with people on a day-to-day basis, it builds relationships, and it has its own personality and value. 

All of your daily interactions, such as customer service, social media posts, content marketing, and especially the video content you put out there — are what leave people with a lasting impression of your brand. 

Your marketing efforts as a brand should all have the underlying goal of becoming more recognizable, a goal which you can measure by studying your analytics for branded searches. 

That’s where branded video comes into play!

Why Videos are Integral to a Brand Identity

According to Inc.com, “46% of consumers said they have actually made a purchase after watching a branded video on social media, and nearly a third (32%) have considered doing so.”

The study also went on to say that, “79% of the participants agreed that online videos on social media are the easiest way to get to know a brand online.”

You can basically read that data like this: 

Brand Videos = Revenue + Brand Awareness!

Studies have shown that adding a branded video to a landing page can increase conversions by 80%. The data says it all: “64% of consumers say that watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchasing decision.” On the receiving end of that, “93% of businesses reported gaining a new customer as a direct result of a video posted on social media.” 

Using branded videos as part of your branding efforts will definitely pay off, but knowing and doing are very different things. 

And since this is likely new territory for you, we’re happy to lend a helping hand 🙂

How do you brand yourself or establish a brand? Read on!

Brand Identity Types

Before you start branding anything… 

You need to determine the type of identity you’re building because each one’s a little different!

There are three types of branding identity: 

• Business: This is the type of branding you’ll encounter when dealing with most businesses today – think Target, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Disneyland, and many more (as we’ve mentioned before!). As you think of each name listed, no doubt the colors, logos, or mascots of each will pop into your head. 
• Personal: You may not realize it, but everyone has a personal brand. Thanks to social media, we’re all building an online identity with every post, Story, and Tweet we share – the focus here is to differentiate yourself (the product) in the market so you can attain your goals.

Professional (career branding): The goal here is still to differentiate yourself from others, but with the aim to grow your presence in a certain professional field and increase your value in the eyes of a potential employer.

How to Create a Strong Brand Identity

As with everything in life, building a brand is going to take time and work. 

It may take some trial and error, but as you begin to bring your brand’s identity into harmony with a tone that works best for your target audience, you’ll find that things will really start to move forward. 

Without further ado, here are the three things to be implemented for a strong brand identity:

Know Your Target Audience

If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one! 

When you know who your brand’s trying to attract, you know how to present your brand effectively and where to distribute your content.

Remember the Three W’s!

• Who is your brand for? (To find the right demographic)
• What’s the purpose of your brand? (To find where your audience falls within the market)

Where does your ideal audience spend time online and offline? (To know where to distribute your content)

Make it Unique

To stand out from your competitors, think out-of-the-box and have a distinct look, tone, and style that separate your brand from the rest. 

Similar brands can’t compete when they can’t compare to yours!

• According to research, the average adult’s attention span dropped from a mere 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds in 2013!
• An unforgettable, distinct feel will ensure that people won’t forget your identity and presence
• Keep an eye on your competitors and see what “sparks” do they lack from their identity and content. What can be improved? Take notes and learn from them!

Engaging Content

Today, with the rise of motion design, using engaging content is pretty much the lifeblood of building a brand that stands the test of time. This includes the use of eye-catching animations and easy-to-remember logos. 

• Another benefit of engaging materials? People will advertise it for free! When they like your content, people are more likely to share it with their friends on social media. Win-win!
• Example: Check out these visuals we created for Trade Nation! Dynamic, bold, and bright, they grab your attention right off the bat.

Conclusion

Having a strong brand identity is vital to helping you stand out from the competition. It can help you to become more recognizable, build your reputation and, ultimately, get more sales.

The takeaway here is that branded video is an efficient and cost-effective way for you to create impactful, inviting content on multiple platforms. 

The guidelines we mentioned serve as a “video playbook” — a branding toolkit that leaves no room for uncertainty when it comes to producing and editing your content because they clearly outline the specs and requirements for each platform and a strategy for repurposing content to different platforms.

A branded video content system is something that requires a small investment upfront, but that provides a sustainable blueprint for all your video production needs. 

The result is saved time, saved money, and success in maintaining the overall look and feel of your brand.

Ready to Elevate Your Brand?

Shoot us a message – our team has got you covered from start to finish! At Motion Agency, we love to learn about new products, services, or businesses.

If you’re proud of your brand identity or you’ve got some videos or photos you’d like to show off, check out our plans or request a free video sample today!