Businesses use videos to share and communicate ideas with stakeholders of all kinds. The goal of these videos, their target audience, and their overall tone can differ dramatically.
Branded videos and corporate videos are two types of video content that can get a little muddled. After all, aren’t all videos generated by a business corporate—and aren’t all videos generated by a brand branded?
Not quite; these are terms of art that mean very distinct things. Let’s take a closer look at both branded and corporate videos, then compare where and when they might be used:
What Are Branded Videos?
Branded videos are sales videos of a sort—but unlike commercials, they’re not trying to sell a product.
They’re trying to sell a brand.
Branded videos are often subtle, feel-good videos that tell a story about the brand. One of the best examples of branded content in recent years is the Nike “You Can’t Stop Us” ad; it’s not actually selling a new pair of Nike shoes or products. The ad is inspiring—and in the end, all of that inspiration is tied back to Nike.
Day-in-the-life stories, sponsored events (which make up a huge portion of Red Bull’s marketing strategy), origin stories, a customer testimonial video—all of the above can make excellent branded videos.
A brand video, of course, works best if you’ve already got a well-established brand identity—but if you’re looking to build your brand identity, it can work wonders, too. Conjure the feeling you want to be associated with your brand, then tie your brand to that feeling; when it’s done right, customers will be reminded of the feelings you’ve inspired every time they interact with your brand.
What Are Corporation Videos?
Corporate videos are quite different from branded videos. Corporate video content is less focused on creating a feeling and more focused on transmitting concrete information. This information can go to any number of different shareholders. Corporate video production encompasses a wide range of different categories, including:
- Training Videos
- Onboarding Videos
- Product Explainers
- Investor Presentations
- And more
The target audience for these videos is more specific than the target audience for a brand video, the video content is far less vague. The goal is to efficiently transmit relevant information to relevant stakeholders.
What Is The Difference Between Corporation And Brand Videos?
In short, a brand video seeks to evoke an emotional response, whereas a corporate video seeks to inform stakeholders on a topic relevant to them. This means the video production process for brand videos and corporate videos is fairly different. This table illustrates a few of the differences in style and substance:
Feature | Branded Videos | Corporate Videos |
Primary goal | To inspire | To inform |
Distribution | Broad (across social media) | Narrow (restricted to target audience) |
Tone | Creative, emotional, story-driven | Formal, serious, information-driven |
Audience | General public | Specific stakeholders |
Approach | Subtle | Direct |
Both of these styles of video can bolster your video marketing efforts—even though corporate video content and brand video content differ dramatically. All you need to do is answer this question: Who are you marketing to, and what are you marketing to them?
Use Mainspring To Help You Decide
As a corporate video production company, we offer both branded video and more traditional corporate video production services. Whether you’re making training videos or telling your brand’s story, we can help.
We handle every element of the promotional video production process, from coming up with ideas for your corporate video content to post-production and distribution.
Our corporate production services are available to businesses throughout North America; check out our dedicated pages for Toronto video production and video production in Ottawa to learn more.
Whether you’re promoting your brand, a product, or your quarterly earnings—choose Mainspring.