Fact: second-hand embarrassment can be just as powerful as a great corporate video. Choose your talent wisely…
All the most successful internal and external videos involving on-screen people have one thing in common — the right talent. Get this detail wrong, and you might end up with a situation as awkward as Brittney Spears in Crossroads. Yikes…
Unfortunately, most marketers have no idea how to handle hiring talent. We get it — it’s not like they teach a class on this sort of thing! So we decided to create a quick guide for you. Read on to learn about your talent options and how to choose the right talent for the type of video you plan to shoot.
Top Two Talent Options
In most instances, you have two options when choosing talent for your corporate video. You can either recruit internally and get employees or organizational leaders to star in your flick, or hire professional outside talent. Each option has it’s pros and cons, and your decision will depend entirely on what type of video you’re shooting. This is right about the point where marketers tend to get stuck. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons for each:
Hiring Outside Talent
ThePros
Obviously, they’re professionals! Strong acting skills will give your video the edge it needs to take things to the next level. Here are some other reasons why hiring outside talent may be a desirable option:
Talent agencies provide several choices and the freedom to hire the exact look and personality you want. Click here to see what information a standard talent agency provides.
Paid actors/actresses have been trained to memorize scripts, read teleprompters, take cues and direction, etc. These things are much more difficult than they sound.
Professional talent has experience. They’ve been on camera before. They understand that hours can sometimes run longer than expected, and they exude the right amount of on-camera confidence.
Outside talent is dependable. They’re in it until the project is complete, which may be important for organizations who are worried about employee turnover.
The Cons
There’s a flip side to every coin…
Hiring outside talent is expensive. It may cost you anywhere from $50 an hour to $500 — and trust us, you get what you pay for.
Hiring outside talent is a bit of a hassle. You need to worry about terms, contracts, scope, union versus non-union, etc. It can get very overwhelming very quickly.
Paid actors/actresses aren’t familiar with your organization or it’s products or services, which means you lose a degree of authenticity.
Because professional talent isn’t trained in your industry, they may struggle with technical terminology, and you may need to pull a subject matter expert from their job to oversee production.
Recruiting Employees
The Pros
Recruiting your employees to star in your video is incredibly convenient and a lot less intimidating than dealing with a talent agency. Here are some of the other reasons why employees may be a desirable option:
When messaging comes from people within the company, it’s far more authentic and audiences tend to trust it.
Organizations are more than just logos and elevator pitches. Using your own people is a powerful way to showcase the brand’s true personality; the workforce behind the products or services.
Your employees know all the ins and outs of your feature product/service. Especially if the topic is tough, they will exude more confidence than someone who is a stranger to your organization, its processes and its offerings.
Recruiting employees as talent for your video is cheap! Maybe even free! You can ask employees to volunteer, or incentivize participation, which will save hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The Cons
Of course, there are also some draw backs…
Organizations must handle employees with care when recruiting. Candidates need to look presentable, be personable and well spoken, be knowledgeable on the subject matter and be someone who will build credibility. If an employee volunteers and does not exhibit these qualities, you risk inciting an HR headache.
Employees may feel like they can perform on camera, but once all eyes are on them — they could freeze up, look stiff and present as uncomfortable.
Because they aren’t experts at reading teleprompter, memorizing scripts or improvising, employee talent may require 2 or 3 times the number of takes to get things right.
When to Hire Outside Talent and When to Recruit Employees
Now that you have an overview of all the pros and cons for each talent option, which will you choose? It all depends on your end communication goals.
Hiring outside talent is best when your video involves heavy dialogue, prepared lines, or super tight deadlines (as working with an inexperienced employee tends to take more time). You should also consider hiring outside talent if you can’t find the right candidate(s) in-house for the role. For example, if your workforce is older, but you want to attract more young professionals, you may consider hiring professional talent in that demographic for something like a recruiting video.
Tip: To help make videos featuring outside talent feel closer to the brand, recruit employees for B-roll footage, especially if B-roll doesn’t involve any talking parts.
Recruiting inside talent is ideal any time money, time or authenticity is of concern. Without a doubt, you should go with inside talent if your video is conveying important internal information. For example, a merger/acquisitions video, or a video that showcases your “about us” story, like this one. Employees also work well in recruiting videos. Check out this one for Starbucks. The other scenario that is best staffed with internal employees is a product or service feature. This is especially true if the product or service is challenging to explain. Your employees know best and will appear more confident whereas outside talent may struggle and look unnatural.
Who’s Responsibility is it to Find & Prepare Talent?
It sounds like a lot of work finding the right people for your video. We won’t coddle you — it is. But there’s good news. If you work with a video marketing agency, it’s their job to handle all the talent-scouting for you. If the partnership is right, your video marketing agency will encourage you to be as involved as you want. Play a heavy hand in the hiring and preparation of your talent, or take a back seat and let your video marketing agency do all the work for you. It’s their job, and (bonus!) they already have rapport with the best talent agencies in town.
The same goes for preparing talent. Your video marketing agency will know what instructions to provide professional talent so they show up to the shoot with the proper attire, makeup, hair, etc. Likewise, if you choose to recruit employees, your video marketing agency is experienced with helping non-professional actors/actresses look the part. In either case, dress will depend on the type of video you’re shooting. If it’s an important internal communication — professional is the way to go. If it’s a product feature, or new product/service demo — a more casual look may be appropriate. Again, your video marketing agency will know which look best fits the video based on what your end communications goal is.
If you haven’t partnered with a video marketing agency, your creative team will be responsible for all of the above. We recommend a panel of creatives to weed through auditions and collaborate on who to choose and how to present them in the video. Because selecting the right talent is such a critical detail to get right, we want to stress the importance of taking your time and thinking strategically about your selection.
To prove our point, we’ll leave you with these exquisite examples of bad corporate video talent. Check them out here!
Fact: second-hand embarrassment can be just as powerful as a great corporate video. Choose your talent wisely…
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