Planning matters

A few days ago I was listening to an interview with Sir Jeremy Isaacs about the lasting qualities and the enduring legacy of the TV series, ‘The World at War’. One particular caller commented that his son had learned more about the Second World War by watching this one TV series than in the entirety of his primary and secondary education.

This is true in my own educational experience; I’ve learned more about the world by watching the likes of TED Talks and VSauce than I ever did in school, college and university.This isn’t surprising. Moving visuals are in our DNA, hardwiring our brains to pay attention and quickly understand things that move and make noise, allowing us to pick up visual data 60,000 times faster than we can process something as visually complex as text.

In my previous blog about the use of infographics, I quoted the old saying, “a picture speaks a thousand words”. Not surprisingly, Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research wrote a report back in 2008 claiming that if a picture is worth one thousand words, then one minute of video is worth 1.8 million.

Video communication allows us to keep the visual complexities of text to a minimum and allows the more visual aspects that video provides to convey ideas quickly. Visual story telling isn’t anything new, we have been doing it ever since we started painting on cave walls. Visual story telling is very visceral, triggering an emotional response.This emotional connection can be a powerful communication tool, especially to businesses large and small. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell something, teach something, align someone to your vision or just wanting to create an emotional connection, video is the ideal tool.

Here at NLP, we have recently launched our latest video promoting our digital offer. Not only does it showcase what digital services NLP’s Graphic Design Team can offer, but also provides a perfect example of the quality and complexity of video communication we can produce.

In a ’white paper’ published by the technology company Cisco, it is predicted that by next year, 69% of all consumer internet traffic will be video. Cisco are far from alone in this predication, as I struggled to find any similar predication about internet trends that doesn’t cite video as a rapid growth area.

So videos such as NLP’s are fast becoming essential for any business. Forrester Research for example found that a web site is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results if it includes video.

The sheer quantity of internet video success stories borders on the stuff of myth and legend. Take last year’s Sainsbury’s Christmas advert about Mog the Cat which reached over 30 million views on Youtube. Now, I’m not saying that NLP’s video, or others we produce have the potential to be viewed millions of times, however it does demonstrate the power of video to boost awareness. By engaging with viewers optimally, a message is more likely to be shared with others, and the viewer will spend longer interacting with a business.

NLP’s Digital Team can produce a range of digital material, including animated video, to help communicate messages, including the benefits of a development scheme. This, according to my research, could provide a platform, for it to be watched and shared by a far greater audience than traditional printed methods.