Video is the content leader in today’s digital landscape and the cornerstone of a fully integrated marketing strategy. 

Video captivates audiences in ways other content formats simply cannot, driving engagement and fostering greater connections with audiences through its deep storytelling capabilities, ability to convey emotion and dynamically showcase messaging.

The rise of video marketing

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, video content has become the most consumed online media, with brands and video marketing agencies leveraging the medium’s capacity for engagement to capture users’ attention and increase the time spent on their channels. 

The average retention rate for videos is 54%, while 91% of people say they have watched a video to learn more about a product or service and 82% say they have been convinced to buy a product or engage with a service through the medium.

This has concurrently given rise to the democratisation of video creation technologies, enabling users of any skill level – from casual social media users to specialist video content marketing agencies – to leverage its capabilities

This has led to a digital landscape saturated with both user-generated and professionally created content, meaning now more than ever, producing high-quality video is paramount to cut through the noise and engage target audiences, especially when delivering messaging around key services to your communities.

Our approach to video

This ability to make an impact starts and ends with the video production process, which we have developed at Liquid to great success as we have expanded our capabilities as a video content agency.

Our recent work on the domestic abuse awareness campaign, Inform Women, Transform Lives, showcases the power of video content in shining a light on important social issues.

This global initiative, launched by The Carter Center, a human rights charity founded by former President Jimmy Carter, aims to inform women about their rights and connect them with vital services. The campaign focused on highlighting the help available to women experiencing domestic abuse, particularly through coercive control.

Supporting The Carter Center and Birmingham City Council as a specialist video content agency, we developed an integrated marketing campaign to raise awareness of the early and often hidden signs of domestic abuse affecting women in Birmingham. 

This campaign featured a powerful short video that visualised the impact of coercive control on women in the city.

Pre-production

Entering the pre-production stage of development, we hosted stakeholder engagement workshops to determine how we would visualise the campaign’s messaging in a way that was cognisant of the sensitive subject matter and culturally aware, considering the multitude of ethnic backgrounds that make up Birmingham.

From these workshops, we developed scripts and storyboards that conveyed the campaign messaging through a narrative that followed four women in different stages of their lives, all going through variations of coercive control and domestic abuse, with words and phrases that are indicative of coercive control.

Words and phrases indicative of coercive control can be seen animating around the actors, with the video concluding with each woman bravely deciding to reach out for support and call the Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid helpline before displaying the necessary call to action.

The scripts and storyboards act as our guide to the production and post-production stages, setting out all creative and technical decisions, including lighting and sound design, camera setups, shot selection and additional elements such as motion graphics.

To assemble a multicultural cast, we reached out to our local network of drama companies and educational institutions to cast actors who were representative of the city’s population

Working with Film Birmingham and the local authority, we secured permits to film on location within the city, giving the film a realistic sense of place, while we also built sets within our media production suite in our offices.

Production

Entering the production phase, we liaised with all relevant parties to coordinate the shoots.

We used a single camera to create a sense of intimacy between the viewer and the actor, bringing the viewer into the oppressively intimate space of domestic abuse with the character.

Our in-house director coordinated each shot and worked with the talent and camera operator to execute the script.

Post-production

Post-production saw us assembling the footage and designing the sound. This included creating the soundtrack, recording the voiceover and producing sound effects to add to the audience’s immersion in the video. 

We utilised a cold colour grade to enhance the atmosphere and act as a narrative device that amplifies the sense of hope at the end of the video as the character calls the Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid helpline.

Our motion graphic designers produced bespoke text motion graphics based on the campaign artwork to add the “voice” of the abuser into the video alongside the coercive control slogans and created the call-to-action animations that close out the video.

The results

The overall result was an emotive and empathetic video that was directly responsible for 39.6% of all traffic to the campaign website.

The video also achieved 6,000 organic impressions across Facebook and X, with an additional 750 views of the campaign video on YouTube.

As the campaign demonstrates, the video is indispensable in a fully integrated marketing strategy, offering extensive reach and unparalleled engagement through its unrivalled storytelling ability.

Looking to leverage the power of video in your own marketing and branding? As an experienced content creation agency, we have all the in-house expertise needed to plan, shoot and develop your next video project. Get in touch today!