The video results that really surprised us

26 Apr 2021 Clients

We’ve been in the video marketing game for a while, so it takes quite a lot to shock us at this point – we know what works best on each marketing platform, and follow the tried-and-tested marketing rulebook to get the best results.

But sometimes, we break the content rules… and it pays off! Here are a few examples of times when we’ve tested the boundaries of expected consumer behaviour, with unexpected results:

1) The extra long video blog (featuring Sunjay’s mum)

When we recorded this video blog, we thought that we might be pushing things a bit – it’s 4 minutes long, and sat on a social media platform which is notorious for short attention spans and fast scrolling.

Normally, we’ve recommend using short and fast-paced videos on social media, to capture attention before you’re lost in the scroll.

However, with over 1,500 views and counting, this post took off! We also know that people watched all the way to the end of the video (thanks to a few comments on Sunjay’s ‘seductive wink’…).

For B2B educational videos, we’ve found that the ‘keep it short’ rule for social media has gone out of the window. If you’re genuinely adding value, and creating content that appeals to your audience and teaches them something new, then people are willing to listen.

With this particular video, we took the time to make sure that the video is constantly novel, and now what you’d typically expect from a LinkedIn video, to keep people curious enough to watch more. The video opens with Sunjay on the phone to his mum discussing petrol station logistics, and features plenty of cutaways and off-beat references to keep the viewer’s interest piqued.

2) The ad disguised as an influencer vlog

When we’re creating a YouTube ad, we’d normally aim to capture attention and get our message across ASAP, before the viewer hits that ‘skip ad’ button.

But when we worked with Imaginatal on a video ad to promote their ultrasound scanning service, rather than creating an ad to be played before a YouTube video… we created an ad in disguise as a YouTube video.

We worked with a local influencer to create a vlog-style video detailing her visit to Imaginatal, designed to look and feel like organic YouTube content.

This five-and-a-half minute video ad performed extremely well, earning a 12% interaction rate (the average is around 9%), with 136k impressions, and 16k engagements. It sits so naturally alongside non-paid YouTube videos that people were happy to watch the ad, as the content fits with the type of video our target viewers were looking to watch anyway.

While this type of long-form content wouldn’t have worked as well as a Facebook ad, on YouTube it blended in seamlessly.

3) The short and snappy Christmas special

Christmas is notoriously the busiest season of the year for advertisers, making even the loudest message disappear in the sea of festive noise. For this reason, the trend with Christmas adverts is to be unusual, unexpected and far longer than your average ad.

We went against the grain with our Christmas campaign for British Corner Shop, and gave people classic Christmas shots, with a sprinkling of festive magic – and kept things super short and simple.

Designed to appeal to Brits abroad, the content uses Christmastime nostalgia and the tastiest of festive foods to attract young families looking for online food deliveries.

This went on to become the top-performing ad for British Corner Shop’s Christmas campaign, with the snappy ads capturing attention (and clicks) on the fast-scroll of the Facebook news feed.

So there you have it! Three times we’ve tested the boundaries of conventional wisdom, and it’s paid off.

To see what a great video strategy could do for your business, book a chat with us today.