Branded Content Video Company in Los Angeles, West Coast & California
Branded content is a relatively new area of digital content production that has only recently popped up in the advertising and marketing field, and is one that many people and businesses have not been taking advantage of. In simple terms, branded content is a method of interacting and engaging with your brand’s audience in a way that isn’t invasive, as customers nowadays tend to reject traditional ‘selling’ methods due to the over-saturation of such advertising in the digital sphere. Instead, customers tend to select brands based on personal, more emotional connections, rather than basing their choices on who has the loudest voice.
People have started to realise the importance of branded content in modern day advertising, and so there are many branded content agencies in Los Angeles that specialise in this form of digital content. By letting the customer in and engaging with them on a personal level, brands can offer their audience an ‘experience’ rather than a sales pitch, which will help both audience and brand develop a connection. As a branded content agency in Southern California with a profound background in both video production and commercial TV advertising, Beast Los Angeles has a broad understanding of how to best approach and develop branded content video productions.
Branded Content Video
Here at Beast Los Angeles, we have over five years of experience producing branded content videos; one example of branded content we have created is this video we worked on for Simba Sleep, which piggybacked the 2020 Glastonbury 50th anniversary weekend. This accomplished two goals which can be important for your branded content: representing your brand and reflecting current issues.
Our process can begin from an existing brief, or even simply an idea that can be built upon to make something bigger. We often like to collaborate with other branded content agencies, where we support and offer insight into the creative direction and execution of the project in order to produce the best content for the project type and budget. We are also happy to team up with small start-up companies that are looking into starting their own branded content video productions, and will take the time to get to know the brand and work on a story that will ultimately result in a top-quality branded content video.
Preferably you want your content to be new and fresh, so brainstorm and think of something you can do that no other brand can, you also have to determine what fits your brand, so ask yourself if there are any current issues you are passionate about and want your brand to represent. Perhaps take a look at what has worked for similar brands in your niche. So if you work in the beauty industry perhaps look at what Dove do, they produce stories that show people exactly what they stand for and support. Another great example is Red Bull as they produce stories that represent their love for sports and risk. Now this does sort of contradict our previous point about keeping you content new and fresh, but see if you can put a spin on these ideas to make it fresh.
Focus on story
Focusing on story in your branded content is the best way to appeal to potential consumers, people love to hear stories, it can help build an emotional connection with your audience. This is a great way to get some more sales, the key is though to make sure you include your product in the story, not as an obvious product placement but subtly put it into the story in a way that fits well. Let’s look at a good example, like we previously mentioned Dove use branded content to tell stories about women and touch on female empowerment, their campaign “Real Beauty” features a video that shows women that while they may not perceive themselves as beautiful, they are, they do this by having the women describe themselves to an artist who then draws them. After this they have a stranger describe the women to the artist and they draw another picture of the women, the two photos are drastically different as the strangers don’t focus on tiny insignificant things that the women do when talking about themselves. Dove does well in this advert as they hit the right nerve and really get across their statement that everyone is beautiful. They also make sure to include product placement but it’s not particularly noticeable, all it is a little dove logo in the corner, and then a link to the full video on their website at the end of the clip. The ad was incredibly successful, going viral on youtube and starting a conversation which directly led to a boost in sales for Dove.
Make it relatable
When creating branded content video you need to make sure it’s relatable, if you’re telling a story, include characters that relate to your target market because people like to buy off of a brand that they relate to so making sure there’s that connection to your audience is imperative to making sure that your content works. Brands like patagonia do this well, they know that their main audience would be adventurers, so they produce a documentary following adventurers on their travels, the adventurers are all wearing patagonia, so people watching the documentary see that and it influences their decision. So when making your content make sure to take a look at your main target demographic and make sure it relates to them and their hobbies.
Focus in on the benefits of your product
When creating branded content, you need to make sure it paints your product or service in a good light, that’s obvious and should be a key factor. Now some branded content, especially branded content videos sometimes don’t actually include the product, case in point our previously mentioned Dove video, but they still find a way to focus in on the benefits of the brand, in our example they do this by implying dove is a positive brand that wants to empower women and people love that, hence why there was a boost in sales from that video. But if you do want to include the product in your video then that’s fine, it can and has worked for many businesses, you just need to make sure it done right, branded content isn’t technically an advert for your brand, as like we’ve mentioned you are focusing more on a story or current issue, so you can’t plaster your product all over it, you need to make sure its included subtly. A perfect example of this would be a campaign from the university of phoenix called “a career outside of football” which follows the story of Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, as he studies a college course online, while not only playing in the nfl, but caring for his mother with cancer and raising his children. This story highlights that fact that you can be travelling all over the world and have other more important things to do but still have time to get a degree from their university which is the biggest benefit of their online course service.
So there you have it, there’s just a few tips on how to create high quality branded content without a branded content agency.
