7 Ingredients Behind The Best Company Culture Videos

The Best Company Culture Videos

1. Great videos tell great stories

Most company culture videos project what upper management thinks about the company, instead of how average employees see the world.

While management will have pre-selected narratives you'll  have explore in your company culture video, you should always find honest personal stories to flesh it out.

Starbucks found its real employee stories in one of their awesome corporate videos. Shifting between various points of view, the coffee company highlighted grounded stories to flesh out what Starbucks corporate culture is.

If your client wants a recruitment video that highlights unlimited vacation time, that’s a no brainer. But having an employee articulate his or her own experience (“I took time off to go on a trip with my daughter”) takes a corporate video to the next level.

Since you often only have a little bit of time to shoot in a workplace, it’s important to have general plot lines before you head into the shoot.

In the same way, you’d use a location scout, send a team member ahead of shooting to interview some employees and managers.  Store your reports in a cloud-based space next to your shooting schedule. In StudioBinder, these are the same place.

Once you've imported your screenplay, and broken it down, just move around your scene headings to create a shooting schedule. A call sheet will automatically generate for your company culture video shoot.

If you want more on the breakdown process, check out our post on how to break down a script.

company culture videos

2. Slick transitions make a video pop

The best recruitment videos cover a wide range of topics. In the same company culture video, you have to cover the details of a health care plan as well as what type of coffee is available.

Without careful consideration for transitions, your company video ends up a series of jagged cuts between scattered points.

BambooHR, however, made transitions the cornerstone of its company culture video.

Using a photograph to mince points together, the video has a natural flow to it. And it’s not that hard to achieve at your own agency.

By storyboarding your shots in StudioBinder, you can turn setting up a camera and clicking record into an elegant and smooth process. You can hand draw storyboard frames. Transfer those ideas into a shot list, and then go back draw up finalized storyboards.

Or you can do both at the same time in StudioBinder, where your storyboard frames are created with your shot list for easy customization, revisions, and slideshow tool for clients.

best company videos

3. Use talking heads and voice over

You can’t get around employee interviews, or “talking heads.” After all, people watching recruitment videos are looking to recruit...themselves...for your company?

Yeah, that wasn't perfect.

But talking heads don’t have to look blasé. By only using talking heads to establish a speaker, the voice can allow for a more visual experience than Linda in HR.

In this recruitment video, Apple corporate culture is perfectly balanced with footage of the machines that power the company.

company culture videos

4. Best recruitment videos have heart

If your company culture video doesn't have heart, its run time will feel six times as long. 

But what is heart in a company culture video?  For startups, heart can be the story of why it was formed. It can be why employees love waking up and clocking in every morning.

But passion doesn't’ have to come through stories of employees, it can come through the company’s mission.

In this recruitment video for the UCLA Police Department, heart comes through the mission. While not exactly a company, this engaging culture video derives its heart from carefully placed text that extols the virtues of the department.

As you create your own company culture video, be sure to cover not only the benefits of working, but also the purpose as well. To help, check out these 8 takeaways from some of the best explainer videos out today.

recuriting videos

5. Highlight funny culture

HR can be funny.

Yes, yes it can be.

Twitter decided to go over the top and with graphics out of the 80s (that’s a compliment). With such lines “Boy I wish I didn’t already work here, so I could apply for job.”

Taking a spin on the classic talking head, they cut mid sentence from a HR guy.

At their core, all company videos are pretty much the same. But putting a twist on the classic lay down of information, Twitter created something goofy you can write home to Ma and Pa and Sparky about.

Just because the company’s video can be cheesy and funny. Don’t forget to make the call sheets you send your clients professional.

That could be bad.

...very bad.

Learn more about call sheets here. 

recruiting videos

6. Effective videos feature video songs

Do you have the voice of an angel? Do you someone named Angel?

In this Zappos video, its employees harmonize to a catchy jingle that you can't help but tap your foot to. In this bit-size song, not only is the Zappos culture explained, it's made digestible.

Creating a company culture video like this  does require more planning than showing up and filming.

The secret to coordinating a music video like this is having a clear production calendar.

In StudioBinder, you can divide your production into song brainstorming, recording, and then production in the production calendar. 

And, at any stage, you can add participants to easy schedule either office co-workers, professional artists, and your crew where they need to be and where.

the best company culture videos

7. Feature specific core values

Most core value video clips feature the same thing, open culture, free perks, teamwork. Yahooo.

Finding specific core values is what takes your company culture video to the next level. Out of the all the company culture video examples, this one may be the most important.

Hubspot takes this very seriously. Its values are always stated as simple actionable takeaways. They avoid the generic and hone in.

HOW TO CREATE A COMPANY CULTURE VIDEO THAT DOESN’T SUCK

• Tell real stories
• Use slick transitions
• Turn talking heads into voice overs
• Have heart and purpose
• Find the funny culture
• Write recruitment video songs
• Make your core values specific