And yes, I know many companies have brand guidelines requiring their logos be placed at the start of a video. Here it goes: Don’t Start Your Videos With Your Logo Why am I so adamantly against leading off with your logo? Because the best advertisers know that you only have 15, 30 or 60 seconds to tell your story, sell your product, capture the viewer, and merely showing your logo isn’t going to cut it. In a nutshell, when you do a search and Google deems a video appropriate for your search, Google will put that video front and center and point you to the exact time in that video that seems the most valuable to you. (Notice Google is suggesting the viewer skip over the logo intro to get right to the meat of the video.) If You Must Include Your Logo, Don’t Make it the Focal Point Below is an example of what I mean. Place Your Logo After You Have Your Viewer Hooked Introduce your logo after you’ve hooked the viewer. In fact, I think doing this will help your brand more than starting with the logo. You probably spent a lot of money having a high-priced company put your logo into motion. Heck, put your logo eight seconds into your video, but I urge you to go against everything you’ve learned and not start your video with your logo.
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Branding and logos are important. I get it. I recognize many brands solely based on their logo… Under Armour, Dairy Queen, Facebook. And yes, I know many companies have brand guidelines requiring their logos be placed at the start of a video. So, what I’m about to say might not be popular amongst marketing professionals. In fact, I’m going to be downright controversial. I don’t mean to disparage anyone or any company. I’m not singling anyone out. Here it goes:
Don’t Start Your Videos With Your Logo
Why am I so adamantly against leading off with your logo? Because your viewer’s time is precious and their attention spans are short. You can’t give them any reason to stop watching. According to Vidyard, you have eight seconds to capture your viewer’s attention. If your logo is 5-7 seconds of that, you’ve already lost them.
Time is valuable. Think about your favorite online or television commercial, there’s a good chance it doesn’t start with a logo. Why? Because the best advertisers know that you only have 15, 30 or 60 seconds to tell your story, sell your product, capture the viewer, and merely showing your logo isn’t going to cut it.
Get Right to the Point
What do I mean by this? Skip the usual “intro, key message 1, key message 2, key message 3, conclusion” model and simply include the first key message. If you have another key message, make a second video. Who else agrees with me?
Google. That’s who.
If you haven’t noticed, Google is getting better and better at understanding the content contained in a video. In fact, Google recently rolled out a search engine result that recommends a suggested video clip right in the result.
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