Death to the Corporate Video

We recently declared the end of the one-size-fits-all video in B2B marketing. What should B2B companies do instead? In this episode of “Death to the Corporate Video,” we break down the three videos every B2B company needs to create a full video marketing funnel.  These three videos are perfect for brands just starting out with video marketing, or those looking to refresh that brand film from 2014....

We’re just over halfway through the year, and we’ve been noticing some common trends in B2B ads in 2022. Guy and Hope sat down to discuss four trends that you can jump on for 2022, and one that’s played out. Top 5 B2B ad trends for 2022 “Not boring” B2B advertising is the new normal. B2B brands are starting to use more celebrities in their ads. The word of the year for B2B ads in 2022 is “brand.”...

In a recent LinkedIn poll, 64% of respondents said their favorite commercials were funny. So why are so few B2B video ads funny?  Some people are scared. Others don’t want to take the risk. But lots of marketers likely don’t know where to start. On this episode of “Death to the Corporate Video,” Guy and Hope share six tips for using humor in B2B advertising. Read the tips below and listen to the e...

When the Umault team is preparing to pitch creative to a client, one of the questions we have to answer is “What’s pizza about this?” Answering this question will help you create better and more effective B2B content.  The pizza question was inspired by a revelation years ago about what content most resonated with readers of a company intranet. The answer, unsurprisingly, was pizza. Turns out ever...

Last week Guy and Hope attended the B2B Marketing Ignite USA conference in Chicago. The sessions followed several common themes, which illuminate the state of B2B marketing in 2022: You need to build a brand. Now. Building a brand is about more than revenue. It’s essential to attract the best talent. Brand building is your moat to protect yourself from competitors copying your features and benefit...

As B2B brands focus more and more on brand awareness activities, we’ve noticed that many of them do not have an established or consistent brand voice. They want to make more content, but lack the framework needed to ensure all the content has the same voice.  In this episode of “Death to the Corporate Video,” Guy and Hope discuss: What a brand voice is Why it’s essential for building B2B brand awa...

You know you’re an agency founder when you go to Disney World for spring break with your family and return with a deeper understanding of effective B2B marketing.  In this episode of “Death to the Corporate Video,” Guy and Hope discuss what B2B marketers can learn from Disney World, including: Get people in the right mindset to buy your product. There’s nothing wrong with giving people what they w...

One of the most common requests we get from prospects seems harmless. “Here’s a video ad my competitor has,” they say. “We want to make one of these for our brand.” This simple request has the potential to start the whole video engagement off on the wrong track. The most effective video ads do not have a lot of comps out there. It’s scary to make something new or to put your own spin on an ad form...

Much like the laws of physics, video ads are all subject to a handful of immutable laws. In our experience, all successful video ads have followed these laws. Break any one of them, and you set yourself up for failure. The 7 immutable laws of video ads You can't edit a bad idea to be good. And you can't edit a good idea to be bad.  All videos need to have a distribution strategy and a release plan...

Ah, a plain potato. Full of nutrients and yet so boring. In his book Alchemy , Rory Sutherland uses the potato as an analogy for hiring practices: It’s better to hire several people with complementary skills instead of one jack of all trades.  While reading the book, Guy was struck by how the same analogy applied to B2B marketing videos. Too many B2B brands are still making one video and hoping it...

In Wistia’s State of Video 2022 report , survey respondents were asked what new types of video content they planned to create this year. The number one answer was Original Branded Series.  Interestingly, only 7% of respondents had made an original branded series in the past. That made us start thinking: Why are B2B marketers suddenly interested in original branded content? And how does someone eve...

Yes, we know we’re already two months into 2022, but we have high hopes for this year. In this episode, we discuss our 22 wishes for B2B marketing in 2022. Read the quick list below, and listen to the episode for more details. Interested in our wishes for 2021? Revisit last year’s episode . Umault’s 22 wishes for B2B marketing in 2022 Stop thinking of making a video as a goal in and of itself.  Ev...

Super Bowl LVI was about the Rams, the Bengals… and the commercials. In this episode of “Death to the Corporate Video,” Guy and Hope discuss the best and worst Super Bowl ads in 2022, and what B2B marketers should learn from them. A few key takeaways: Keep it simple, stupid. You only have 30 or 60 seconds. Make sure you aren’t trying to cram too much in there. Say your brand name. Integrate your p...

Our plan for 2021 was to release a new video ad for Umault every month. We met the goal, but how did our campaign do? In short, spectacularly. In this episode of the podcast, Hope and Guy discuss our 5 key takeaways from a year of monthly video ads. Don’t make ads focusing on your competitors. Focus on your client’s competitors. Plan for the year of video ads upfront, but leave room to improvise....

Ideas are elusive. Where do great ideas come from? A bolt of lightning? A passing thought in the shower? Years of being immersed in advertising? When you work in marketing, you don’t have time to wait for inspiration to strike for every campaign. You need great ideas now. In this episode of Death to the Corporate Video, Guy and Hope walk through the Idea Generator 1.0, a distillation of our actual...

We talk a lot on Death to the Corporate Video about the importance of starting any video advertising project with a strategy. That strategy step works out your key messaging, target audience, video uses, and more. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a disappointing trend in B2B video marketing emerging. Brands are skipping doing their own strategy in favor of copying a competitor. To be clear, we encourage...

It’s a running joke in the production world that if something goes wrong on set, we’ll fix it in post. In other words, we can use editing or VFX magic to get rid of that plastic bag that blew behind a person’s head, or cut that take when your talent flubbed. But there’s one thing we can never fix in post, and that’s authenticity. If it wasn’t captured on the day, it won’t be in the final video. Wh...

After many years working in video, we’ve found that almost all effective video ads fit into one of three basic categories. They are either funny, beautiful, or make you cry. It may sound simple, but take a moment to think about your favorite commercial of all time. I bet it was funny, beautiful, or made you cry (or it may have checked multiple boxes, like one of my favorite ads ). The thing is, th...

Most marketers, especially in B2B, want to get the most out of their video production budget. One of the most common questions we get when a client has a limited budget is, “Can we just write it?”  In this episode of Death to the Corporate Video, Guy and Hope break down why that is the absolute wrong question, and what brands should do when they need to trim video production budgets. The answer is...

Paul Cash, co-author of Humanizing B2B , believes that B2B marketing has lost its humanity. We can say “lost,” because, yes, it used to have humanity. In the early days, B2B marketing was done by knowledgeable, expert salespeople who made real connections with their customers. Then came the internet, minimizing the role of the salesperson, and over time the humanity leaked out of B2B. What we’re l...

B2B marketers are often dealing with tight budgets. To stretch their marketing dollars, they decide to make one video that can be used across the sales cycle. One video for the home page. Use it again for social media. Use it again in sales presentations. The problem with this approach is that it completely ignores the fact that prospects at different stages of the customer journey need different...

Recently, we posted a new video on our LinkedIn page called “We need to talk.” It tells B2B marketers to be bold with their creative advertising. A viewer left a comment: "The challenge is convincing your executive team." He’s right. Many marketers and agencies can come up with amazing ideas, but then can’t get the boss on board. We’ve found that one of the biggest challenges that B2B marketers fa...

Everyone always wants to know the secret or the top 4 steps to getting the best work out of your agency. As we planned this podcast episode, we originally wanted to give tips or tricks to get great creative work. But as we sat down to talk about what we’ve learned from our best work and our best clients, there was only one common denominator: Trust. The only way to get the best work out of your ag...

Most B2B marketers love to draw a solid line between B2B and B2C marketing, and pretend that never the twain shall meet. Smart B2B marketers, on the other hand, peek over that wall to find practices that work and can be adapted for their marketing and advertising. TV commercials are considered firmly in the realm of B2C, but there’s a lot that B2B marketers can learn from the best practices honed...

Most B2B videos start with a marketing team saying, “We need a video!” There’s very little discussion in the early project stages about where you’re actually going to put the thing beyond “our website” and “YouTube.” Making a video is only step one. Step two is distribution. You need to make sure that people see your beautiful new asset. These eight tips will help you develop a distribution plan f...