According to growth platform HubSpot’s research, upwards of 50% of consumers want brands to produce video over and above any other type of content.
Time after time, video trumps emails, social imagery and blogs when it comes to promoting a product launch. There are many reasons why video is an effective medium and this blog sets out our top five reasons why.
Why Are Product Launch Videos Important For Brands?
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Cross Channel Exposure
Videos create a more unified marketing campaign
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Generating A Buzz
Seeing a brand come to life in a video is exciting
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Controlling Your Messaging
You decide when and how to highlight important features
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Creating A Personal Connection
Consumers still like face-to-face interaction when making a purchase
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Engaging Your Audience
Invite them to share their experience of your product with others
1. Cross Channel Exposure
As we come out of Lockdown, it will become easier to merge in-person events with online exposure, increasing the reach of your campaign. Consistency across your branding and activations is key, and a product launch video can link up all the strands of your campaign to send out a united message from your marketing teams. And video content is the gift that keeps on giving – you can recycle it to use across:
- Social media – clips, montages, interviews or explainer videos
- Your website – embed your video into blogs and newsletters
- PR – upload your video to YouTube to provide an interactive resource for journalists to include in articles
Loire Valley Wines took a mobile approach to their campaign, touring journalist and influencer houses for a bespoke sampling experience of their products. They created video content to share across their social media channels, check it out:
2. Generating A Buzz
A punchy video will really fire up social media channels and give your online following a fear of missing out! You can let your audience know when and where your next pop-up giveaway will be, with a cheeky preview of what’s coming to town.
Whether your campaign is centred around free sampling, competition give-aways or doorstep drop-offs, you can put together a video of the highlights to share the joy and evoke excitement around your product. Make sure your video creates a great visual impact – this can be done by using an aspirational location for the backdrop, eye-catching outfits for your promo team or a colourful promotional vehicle for your activation.
Check out this video from Gymshark, who surprised lucky competition winners with doorstep drops from a huge branded double decker bus!
Discover how to plan a great doorstep promotional campaign
3. Controlling Your Messaging
A product launch video doesn't always have to be event focused. You can incorporate the whole development journey, from the initial planning to launching the product: Where did the idea for the product come from? What problem was it solving?
Check out this video from Apetito, describing how they pivoted their business during the pandemic to continue to reach out to their customer base:
In the run up to your activation, you can film short teaser snippets, like the initial arrival of a box of your new product at the warehouse… and save the big reveal for the main feature!
Your website could feature a product launch timeline to evoke anticipation, which can be shared on social media. For extra excitement, you can build up an audience for a live stream of your product launch which can then be uploaded to your website and social media channels. Don’t be afraid of putting your process on film – if things don’t go quite to plan it will add authenticity to your video, and be an ice-breaker.
4. Creating A Personal Connection
Eye contact and the spoken word can evoke desire, trust and excitement, so much more powerfully than the written word. That is why positive human interaction when making a purchasing decision is more successful than impersonal forms of marketing. A video can be produced with your target audience in mind, so the end result is tailored to ideas they can relate to and want to associate with.
Check out how Jax Jones used an ice cream van to reach out to his fans and launch his new album:
5. Engaging Your Audience
With a product launch video, you can take the opportunity to get instant feedback from your audience. You may be telling everyone that the product is great, but what’s more powerful than you audience also saying great things about it? Create content around your audience trying out the product, then capture their reactions and feedback in an authentic way. Your video, featuring delighted customers, can create food, shoe or even car envy that can win new customers and put the seal of success on your campaign.
Do you want to see a campaign video in practice? Here are a couple of our favourite video ideas to help inspire you!
We loved this Pai Skincare retail pop-up, showcasing their latest products, complete with personal consultations.
So with all this in mind, how can you get started with product launch videos?
- Brief your production team on what you’re looking for. Use storyboards featuring the key things to highlight about the product or your launch event. Not every product launch video needs a script to read from, but you do need a loose structure to tell your story.
- Ask your social media team for the maximum length of videos and dimensions required for different channels, i.e. square for Instagram, so you’re all set for editing.
- Make sure you’ve got a fun or quirky backdrop. Whether you’re doing a stationary city pop-up, on the road for a nationwide tour or cooking up a storm in your own food truck – use the backdrop to help tell your story.
If you’re looking for support with video content for your next product launch, get in touch! We provide video and photography services to support our vehicle hire campaigns to capture launch events.
Not sure how a vehicle can help you launch a product? Click below to download our eBook: “How to use Promotional Vehicles in Product Launches” and find out how!
