Showcase your company’s culture with interview-style videos

We’re big fans of mixing and matching video styles in order to better market a company and its services, which is why we can’t get enough of the ever-versatile, interview-style video. In a world where we are perpetually glued to our screens, a face-to-face interview lets audiences look straight into the eyes of the people who work at your company, or into the satisfied customers willing to sing your praises for everyone to hear.

Get ready to take connecting with your target audience to the next level.

What are interview-style videos?

The name is pretty self-explanatory. Interview-style videos can feature clients, employees and executives, or can be used as smaller segments of a bigger production like a documentary video. These types of videos give audiences a firsthand account of what it’s like to work for—or be a customer of—a company.

Your interview style video can be housed practically anywhere on your website. The “about us” page of a website could work, to a specific product or service page, and don’t forget to add it to the body of an email. The goal is to place this video where you believe your audience will be.

Types of interview style videos

Interview-style videos can be done one of two ways. The first is what we call a “talking head video,” consisting of one person, looking straight at the camera, and talking to it. Think Michael Scott telling the camera about the time he injured himself by stepping on his George Foreman Grill. Classic talking head technique. You can also go a more traditional route in which two people are sitting down together for a Q&A. This format can vary from one person asking the other all the questions, to an open conversation between them both.

Why are interview-style videos effective?

When you let the voices and personalities of your customers and employees tell your company story, you give the audience—and especially those who may be coming to a website for the first time—a taste of the culture of your business and what draws people to it. Take a look at Saucony’s take on the client testimonial. (Spoiler alert: It’s a happy customer telling a personal story about his running evolution, while wearing Saucony’s shoes.)

Hello, video storytelling genius. The point of these videos isn’t to ask generic questions that provoke rehearsed answers, but rather to get people thinking about your brand as something more than a logo. The more thoughtful the interview, the more likely it is to resonate with potential employees, prospects, and returning customers.

Why are interview-style videos worth it?

When it comes to interview-style videos, you really have nothing to lose. Not only are they easy to set up, the footage is incredibly versatile, easy to edit, and can be used for voiceovers in basically any type of marketing video. Simply put, when you take the time to put a face (or two) to your brand, you win.

Bottle Rocket Media works with Centro

What better way to tell the world why Crain’s Chicago Business named your company Number 1 Best Place to Work in Chicago for four straight years, than to ask your own employees what they love most about coming to work every day? That was the approach we took with Centro’s company video, and the responses had us casually browsing the careers page of their website. Centro’s CEO is running an amazing company, with culture serving as his compass. The employee testimonials speak for themselves, and the setup we used let the interviewee look right into camera, giving the whole production an intimate feel.

If you want to learn more about interview-style videos for business and why they’re the perfect gateway for companies new to video marketing, we want to hear from you. This is the perfect way to start building out your video library, and we would love to show you the ropes.