Essentially, all communication is
designed to explain something so as to educate, persuade or entertain. So with that in mind, I thought I’d not
assume the term is self-explanatory and take a stab at providing an overview of
what is specifically meant by, but perhaps more importantly, what can be
accomplished by a good explainer video.
The holidays are coming up, so let’s
think ahead to when you will be in a conversation with your cousin who always asks
you, “So what do you do for a living?”
It seems that the last time you answered this question the response
didn’t take, so here you are answering the question again. “This is who I am, this is what I do…”
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just
have a video on your smart phone so that every time someone asks you that
question, you have a perfectly produced response so that with the touch of a
finger you can let the video do the talking, and provide the most concise and
memorable explanation? A video calling
card, if you will.
That’s the purpose of an explainer
video, and it’s growing in popularity. People are no longer need to wait to sit
in front of a computer in the quiet of an office or home just to learn about
your organization.
More often, they’re accessing
information on their mobile phones, and if they’re really interested, they may
dig a little deeper using other mobile pad devices or laptops. Given the time and places people use these channels,
reading may be too inconvenient. So that
500-word written descriptor on your home page just may not always work for the
location of your audience.
Enter the explainer video.
Explainer videos are typically one- to
three minutes in length; they provide a solid overview of what your
organization does, how it operates, where it operates, who it serves; and they
are most commonly accessed via the Internet on home pages/landing pages and
social media. Gone are the days when the
primary purpose of a video is to be kept on a shelf until it is inserted into a
player.
Explainer videos can be developed on a full
range of topics, so if your organization has five affiliates, two offices and
serves four different constituencies, there’s no reason not to consider
explainer videos for each.
One thing to remember, because the
medium is video not paper, don’t be too reliant on just the words. Video offers many ways to use visuals – real
and animated, moving and still, graphics and other tools and techniques – to
tell your story.
