Breaking Up with Video Clichés: 3 Major Red Flags
⚠️ Disclaimer ⚠️ We’re guilty of falling into these traps, but we do our best not to.
🚩 Lazy Scriptwriting
Please, no more “easy-to-use”, “robust”, and “now more than ever” (basically every pandemic-era video). Honorable mention for, “revolutionary”, “game-changing”, and “disruptive”. These corporate cliches give everyone the ick, and with ChatGPT (or a thesaurus for that matter), there is no excuse. Instead of relying on tired clichés, aim for clarity and creativity in your messaging. Let's ditch the marketing jargon and embrace authenticity.
Hot Take: A video script shouldn't be your boilerplate messaging word for word. Things come across differently when said vs read. Our team starts by listening to a discovery call between one of your best-performing sales reps and a new prospect. We want to learn from the conversations that we know are working. What is the tone, phrasing, and product story that makes for an successful call? We now have something more authentic and sincere to build on.
Oh and, if we can say it shorter, or simpler, we should.
🚩 Sh*tty Stock
Office B-Roll is over party! There’s nothing more distracting than cheesy, generic stock. Let’s face it, people watching your video might be in their pajamas at home, or working remotely in Fiji. Yes, some are in the office, but I bet they’re not pointing at laptops in slow motion. Again, this is about authenticity. We pride ourselves on our ability to select stock that not only looks good but is consistent throughout the entire video.
Don’t get me started on this leaning over the shoulder move.
Who actually has whiteboards like this?
Take Workpatterns, where we didn’t have the budget to do a live video shoot, so we found a great stock library that had lots and lots of options. With the same models throughout, we could tell a story with a real arc about relationships.
This is a great way to showcase a product use case and not have to start with "Meet Bob" (cue animated explainer). We also color-graded the footage with purple hues to further reinforce the Workpatterns brand.
🚩 Force Feeding UI
While it's essential to guide viewers through your product, bombarding them with unnecessary buttons, dropdowns, and menus of full product screenshots can distract from the overall message–especially if it’s supposed to be “easy-to-use” (wink emoji). We aren't saying you shouldn't have UI in there, we know the Product Team really cares, and so do we! In fact, all of our B2B SaaS videos, we debut the platform at least once. The difference is, prioritizing flow to tell the product story. Opt for a simplified and stylized UI so the important features you want to highlight don’t get lost on the viewer.
Less is more. Sometimes abstracting copy can help simplify UI and tell a more effective story.
You should plan for TOTF video to live with your brand for 12-36 months. So, what happens when the Product Team rolls out a new update that changes the menu size, font, or colors? By slightly abstracting the UI, you’re also future-proofing your video investment.
Okay, that’s all the tough love 💔 for today!