There’s no denying that video has been part of marketer’s toolkit for a long time. A two-minute video can tell a story in a way other types of content can’t – and have a better chance of holding people’s attention. B2B video content will only increase in value in the next decade as Millennials, a generation reared on video, are promoted to more business leadership positions.
Here are 5 top B2B video campaigns to inspire you into action.
1. Slack: ‘So Yeah, We Tried Slack…”
Slack’s 2014 video campaign made headlines in the B2B marketing world. In just 2 minutes 20 seconds, it does everything a debut video needs to do. It introduces the problem, explains Slack’s solution, and is fun and easy to digest.
The video takes the form of a mockumentary satirizing a real Slack client, Sandwich Video Inc. “I told them my company runs entirely on email and Dropbox and we were doing just fine,” says Adam, Sandwich’s founder. But as the next clip reveals, they aren’t doing fine. There’s no teamwork, meetings are held in the utility closet, and new recruits aren’t involved in the discussion.
“This wasn’t sustainable if I wanted my company to grow. Something had to change,”
Adam says. “So, yeah, we tried Slack.”
Through the remainder of the video, we see various Sandwich team members name their favourite Slack features, with the running gag that “Adam loves it” and “it makes Adam happy”. By the end of the video, the viewer knows exactly what Slack does.
2. Uberflip: ‘What the Heck is Uberflip’
Like the name suggests, an explainer video is a video that explains what a product does. There are two types of explainer video: live action and animation. Animation is the more common type, but live action offers the benefit of creating an emotional connection with the viewer.
In this video, the presenter explains Uberflip to various personas–such as a grandmother, Dungeons & Dragons player, and company executive.
It’s the constant analogies that make this video memorable:
“Imagine if you could make the perfect scrapbook for two-dozen grandkids in the snap of your arthritic fingers.”
“Your content is a legendary amulet stuck in Mount Cragadore. The audience reaches the summit. They pour the amulet out of the mount. Success! Sale made.”
“I found this platform called Uberflip which will help move our buyers faster through the funnel with personalized experiences designed to grab and keep their attention.”
3. True Influence: ‘The DemandGen Father’
It’s easy to see why True Influence (and partner Arc Media) won the 2019 Video in Business Award for exceptional video experience. This four-part video series uses scenes from the classic Godfather films to make its products more relatable. The best bit is they incorporated automated personalization to customize the video for each individual recipient. This generic example gives you an idea of how the campaign looked.
Most of the time, case studies are mid-funnel content targeting prospects already in the CRM system. But this case study from Salesforce targets the top of the funnel, i.e. prospects in the awareness stage of the buyer journey.
This video focuses almost exclusively on the client, Barclays Bank, with barely a mention of the seller, Salesforce. For four minutes, we learn about Barclays’ biggest pain points (brokers were complaining about a lack of communication and inaccessibility to the right information), and the solution (a single sign-on platform that centralizes all the information brokers need in the one place).
Salesforce is only mentioned at the end: “We need to partner with the best suppliers of technology and data solutions in the world. And that’s why we’ve chosen to work with Salesforce.”
5. Zendesk: ‘Relationships Are Complicated’
People have short attention spans, so the quicker you get your message across the better.
Zendesk manages to achieve this in just 15 seconds.
The video shows two people sitting in bed arguing over what to watch, followed by the tagline, ‘Relationships are complicated.” What does Zendesk do? It improves relationships between business and customers.
Concise. Relatable. Easy to understand. Zendesk’s B2B video ticks every box.
Video is Versatile
As these examples demonstrate, B2B video can take many different forms. Brainstorming ideas for your next video campaign? We hope these top five videos help inspire you to action.
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Top 5 B2B Video Campaigns to Inspire You into
January 21, 2020
Erin Cohen
There’s no denying that video has been part of marketer’s toolkit for a long time. A two-minute video can tell a story in a way other types of content can’t – and have a better chance of holding people’s attention. B2B video content will only increase in value in the next decade as Millennials, a generation reared on video, are promoted to more business leadership positions.
Here are 5 top B2B video campaigns to inspire you into action.
1. Slack: ‘So Yeah, We Tried Slack…”
Slack’s 2014 video campaign made headlines in the B2B marketing world. In just 2 minutes 20 seconds, it does everything a debut video needs to do. It introduces the problem, explains Slack’s solution, and is fun and easy to digest.
The video takes the form of a mockumentary satirizing a real Slack client, Sandwich Video Inc. “I told them my company runs entirely on email and Dropbox and we were doing just fine,” says Adam, Sandwich’s founder. But as the next clip reveals, they aren’t doing fine. There’s no teamwork, meetings are held in the utility closet, and new recruits aren’t involved in the discussion.
“This wasn’t sustainable if I wanted my company to grow. Something had to change,”
Adam says. “So, yeah, we tried Slack.”
Through the remainder of the video, we see various Sandwich team members name their favourite Slack features, with the running gag that “Adam loves it” and “it makes Adam happy”. By the end of the video, the viewer knows exactly what Slack does.
2. Uberflip: ‘What the Heck is Uberflip’
Like the name suggests, an explainer video is a video that explains what a product does. There are two types of explainer video: live action and animation. Animation is the more common type, but live action offers the benefit of creating an emotional connection with the viewer.
In this video, the presenter explains Uberflip to various personas–such as a grandmother, Dungeons & Dragons player, and company executive.
It’s the constant analogies that make this video memorable:
3. True Influence: ‘The DemandGen Father’
It’s easy to see why True Influence (and partner Arc Media) won the 2019 Video in Business Award for exceptional video experience. This four-part video series uses scenes from the classic Godfather films to make its products more relatable. The best bit is they incorporated automated personalization to customize the video for each individual recipient. This generic example gives you an idea of how the campaign looked.
Generic PersonaBase Personalized Video from True Influence on Vimeo.
4. Salesforce: ‘Barclays is a Trailblazer’
Most of the time, case studies are mid-funnel content targeting prospects already in the CRM system. But this case study from Salesforce targets the top of the funnel, i.e. prospects in the awareness stage of the buyer journey.
This video focuses almost exclusively on the client, Barclays Bank, with barely a mention of the seller, Salesforce. For four minutes, we learn about Barclays’ biggest pain points (brokers were complaining about a lack of communication and inaccessibility to the right information), and the solution (a single sign-on platform that centralizes all the information brokers need in the one place).
Salesforce is only mentioned at the end: “We need to partner with the best suppliers of technology and data solutions in the world. And that’s why we’ve chosen to work with Salesforce.”
5. Zendesk: ‘Relationships Are Complicated’
People have short attention spans, so the quicker you get your message across the better.
Zendesk manages to achieve this in just 15 seconds.
The video shows two people sitting in bed arguing over what to watch, followed by the tagline, ‘Relationships are complicated.” What does Zendesk do? It improves relationships between business and customers.
Concise. Relatable. Easy to understand. Zendesk’s B2B video ticks every box.
Video is Versatile
As these examples demonstrate, B2B video can take many different forms. Brainstorming ideas for your next video campaign? We hope these top five videos help inspire you to action.