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Diversity and Inclusion Videos: Showcase Your Brand’s Values
Do you want to demonstrate your company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, either within your walls or in your community at large? If that kind of statement is part of your plans, video can be the perfect medium to send the message.
Video allows you to directly show off what you’re talking about, and let diverse members of your organization tell their own employee stories. It’s also a flexible form of communication. Your options range from internal diversity training videos to public-facing promotional clips and beyond.
Of course, as with any video project, it’s worth putting effort into planning your corporate diversity video. Your careful thought and pre-planning will show through on the screen and help your message get across.
What Goes into an Effective Corporate Diversity Video?
The key to effective, convincing and truthful diversity and inclusion videos is for them to exist as part of an overall push to create a culture of equity at your business. If your content shows evidence of concrete action to embrace diverse perspectives within your company and community, it can break through.
- Internal diversity videos are typically used for training and orientation purposes, introducing viewers to the company culture and presenting the brand’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion principles.
- External diversity videos can highlight positive stories in the business’s industry and community that represent challenges to ingrained and homogeneous narratives, as well as efforts to overcome biases and create a more equitable future.
Audiences want to hear that companies share their values — Storyblocks cited results showing that 77% of consumers shop with businesses that align with them on social issues. This means you can make a strong case for your organization by producing video marketing content that highlights different cultures and perspectives, but only if you’re ready to back that commitment up with your actions.
It can be challenging to produce content that affirms a commitment to workplace diversity if your company has not yet reached its intended benchmarks. As TechSmith pointed out, there are a few approaches available. When creating internal content about and for your workforce, it may be worth using your own employees on screen. Alternatively, when producing content specifically about your goals, you can also acknowledge your aims and aspirations around creating a diverse workforce through what you depict on screen.
Trace the corporate video production process on our blog.
How Does Behind-the-Camera Diversity Translate to the Screen?
What’s the most authentic way to tell diverse stories? The answer lies in hiring diverse storytellers. When your video team is made up of individuals who can honestly express the information in the script, that connection can show through.
Companies that have diverse perspectives in their production crews are well-equipped to break out of generic perspectives. With that said, the industry has historically been very homogeneous, which means running a diverse video production organization calls for a concentrated effort and intention.
Vimeo asked creative professionals how to build more diverse and inclusive crews for their production. Documentarian Veena Rao stated that it’s important to walk away from first-thought hiring practices, which can contain unconscious bias. Because the people who are typically picked for video positions tend to be white men, building a network that goes further takes effort.
Filmmaker Oge Egbuonu gave related advice, recommending an intentional search for a crew that can shape your vision of the finished product. In her case, this meant working with an all-female unit. Finding that group presented a challenge — more available candidates were men than women — but through “patience and research” she assembled her group. This effort proved that women in the industry do exist, though it sometimes takes time to find them.
Once your business begins working with diverse talent, you can create paths for advancement and continued success. As the team behind your video content becomes more equitable, the results on the screen stand to benefit.
Ready To Launch a Diversity Video Campaign?
When charting your brand’s future use of video, it’s worth prioritizing diversity both on screen and behind the scenes. For your company to stay relevant amid demands for content that reflects a diverse world, you can turn increasing diversity and inclusion into a conscious effort, something that will become an animating theme in your content.
There’s a simple way to scale up quickly and produce professional-grade video materials to pursue your diverse programming goals: by working with an expert third party. Bringing in experienced crews to create ambitious videos for your brand allows you to immediately make a mark, even as branded video becomes more complex and visually impressive overall.
For much more about diversity in the corporate video space, read our eBook.
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