Caffeinated Storytelling, Good Marketing

There’s so many people looking for work out there, you might be surprised to find out that many companies continue to produce recruiting videos to attract top candidates. Take a closer look and you’ll realize some of these videos can provide lessons in PR and marketing.

Look no further than Starbucks. The company has a video front and center on the career page at its website.

The video’s a bit long… nearly 10-minutes! I’m a big believer in keeping internet videos less than 2-minutes, but here I’m okay with it. People are logging on to the career page to learn more about working at Starbucks, so you have an audience that’s motivated to watch. You can get away with a longer video in those cases.

Anyway, the video is skillfully done. Starbucks presents itself as a “people company that serves coffee,” and the video lives up to that by simply introducing us to some of its employees.

The video also demonstrates a great marketing technique. It provides just enough information to wet your appetite, but doesn’t weigh you down with facts and figures. For example, a couple of employees mention “bean stock,” but we never get details about the program.

As an audience, we quickly surmise it’s some sort of equity rewards program. No need to give the details during the video. That would just break up the flow. As soon as I was done watching, I explored the website to find out more about bean stock.

Way to go Starbucks! By focusing on the stories, you enticed me to find out more on my own… and I’m not even looking for a job.

Seems like a good marketing technique to me.

–Tony Gnau

Money Savings Video Update

Yesterday’s post discussed why companies might want to consider updating their videos and how they can do it on a budget. Today I’m showing you an example.

The Warrenville Police Department had a recruiting video produced this past winter. The shoot happened to take place not only with snow on the ground, but during an actual snowfall. The video was needed right away, so the shoot went forward but with an eye on updating it once summer hit.

Instead of shooting a brand new video, the decision was made to simply replace the winter scenes with summer shots. In this case, a nearly shot-for-shot replacement was accomplished.

It meant a half-day shoot instead of a full-day, a few hours editing instead of a day or two, and it all added up to big savings.

Same great video, only updated.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO– Warrenville Police Video Splitscreen

Warrenville Police Marketing Lessons

We recently finished the Warrenville Police Department recruiting video, and their leadership did a lot of things right during the process that deserve mentioning. Here’s a few…

First, leaders identified a problem and developed a plan to deal with it. They want to attract the best and brightest recruits graduating from the police academy, and they decided to use the power of video to show them what their department is all about.

Second, they knew their audience. Graduating recruits are eager and looking for opportunities to put their new skills to work, so everything from the message to the music and shooting style were done with that in mind.

Finally, department leaders didn’t micromanage. They know they’re not marketing experts, so they put forth some basic guidelines and turned it over to some pros.

The end result… a video sure to appeal to the police recruits they’re chasing.

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: Warrenville Police Recruiting