My 7-Step Process for Employer Branding Portrait Films
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Are you in marketing or communications, and planning to produce or outsource an employer branding portrait film?
Then follow my 7 steps to make strong employer branding portraits.
For over 10 years, I’ve helped companies tell real stories about their people at work.
In these short films, employees talk honestly about their jobs and what it’s like to work at the company.
These videos give a behind-the-scenes look at your workplace and values. They help attract new talent, build trust, and make your company feel more human.
Many companies share these films on their career pages or use them to drive more visitors there.
Should Your Employer Branding Film Drive Traffic or Hold Attention?
Typically, there are two starting points when initiating the process: should the films drive traffic to a landing page or retain traffic that has already found its way there? Even if the film can do both, which is priority one?
Retaining Traffic:
For the Swedish Armed Forces, we created four personal portraits: four pieces, each two minutes long, in-depth films about four recruits experiences within the army.
To make them more contemplative, they were filmed in slow motion, and we used a calm, floating camera which allowed their unique stories more space. These films were intended to retain people on the landing page for those who had already arrived there.
Check out all four films for the Swedish Armed Forces - Click
Driving Traffic:
Now compare this with a film for ManPower.
This film was designed to drive traffic. Since it needed to stand out in the feed, we featured Amelie, who is into bicycling, and chose a shorter format of 20 seconds. It was more dynamically filmed and edited in comparison to the Swedish Armed Forces.
7 Steps to Plan and Produce an Effective Employer Branding Film
Below are seven steps to follow and reflect upon. In all the employer branding portrait films I've been involved with, the conditions have varied. Regardless, I try to follow the same steps.
Who should we make a film about?
It’s about finding a balance between people who want to take part and people who have a story that is both interesting to hear and watch.
During the recruiting phase for upcoming films, you want more people interested than the number of portraits you plan to make.If you plan to make one portrait, try to have at least 3–5 good people to choose from.
You don’t want two films to look the same or tell the same story. If you are making many portraits, you need diversity.
So, write a short project description, send it out in-house, and start checking interest among people at your company 🙂
Once you've chosen which participants to proceed with,
Contact them again and do another round of interviews to see if they are a good fit.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to involve the director, producer, or filmmaker who will later film them.Look at film references together to agree on the style and what you want to achieve.
At this stage, start looking for visual elements in each person’s work and daily environment.Many people do interesting work, but much of it happens in front of a computer. Filming a screen is often not very engaging. So ask yourself: Is there another way to show the story that is more interesting to watch?
Do you need approval?
Do board members or senior leaders need to approve the people and scenes you plan to film at this stage?Time for the real interviews.
If possible! A small trick that can help - so far, you may have only met online and gotten to know each other a little. When you know this is the person (or people) you want to film, try to meet in person and record the audio. This audio can later be used as the voice-over for the final film.Doing this before filming helps you plan what to shoot and adjust the visuals. It also means you don’t have to record both video and audio on the same day later.
If you want tighter control over the answers and already know what the person will say, you can record the audio on the shoot day. But if you want more honest, natural, and experimental answers, it’s better to do it before filming.
Organic Spread
If the participants can tell their stories in their own words, they are more likely to share and support the film.
Edit the audio-interviews from step 4 to include the best and most real responses.Review all the planned scenes
Review all the planned scenes with the finished interview (voice-over). Check if the scenes you plan to film are still needed, or if some need to change?Plan for filming!
Try to visit all the places you plan to film before the actual shoot. This helps you plan what works best on-site. Even with a great voice-over, a film needs good visuals because some people might watch without sound. The film team or producer knows how to create good visuals.
Three Quick Tips to Consider
SUMMER
Wait for the right season. In Sweden at least, we consider ourselves a summer country, so while a summery film can be shown year-round, a wintry film might be perceived as a temporary campaign. Unless your brand is associated with winter, I would generally recommend waiting for spring-summer-early-fall.ORGANIC SPREAD
You increase the chances of organic distribution of the films, i.e., the employee wanting to share their own film, if you have followed the seven steps and allowed the person to express themselves in their own words.
This is also how you create a unique film.AGREEMENT
What happens if a participant leaves their job after the film has been released? It would be wise to draft some form of agreement about what happens in such a scenario.
Want to see more?
Want to see more?
I’ve picked some of my favorite employer branding portraits here:
https://www.anderssonmattias.com/employer-branding
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