Business casual video

Here in the United States, there has been 15-year trend to so-called business casual clothing in the workplace.

My first job, in New York in the 1980s, required me to wear a suit and tie with polished shoes every day. At that time, "casual" (for men) meant that after 5:00 you could loosen your tie. When I lived in Japan in the late 80s and early 90s things were even more formal (you could only loosen your tie while drinking beer late night).

Casual Fridays started as a parallel to the dot-com boom on both coasts in the 1990s, quickly became casual every day and spread to the rest of the U.S. partly led by Dockers, a clothing company.

Business Casual Video

My friend Cliff Pollan, CEO of VisibleGains has started talking about what he calls business casual video. I love this description! I’ve shared the idea at meetings recently and the idea really resonates with people.

The concept is simple. For decades, corporate videos have been stiff and formal. They cost tens of thousands of dollars and take months to produce.

Some classics of the formal video genre include:
- Slickly produced corporate overview video example
- In-studio lights and makeup “customer testimonial” video example
- Product manager explaining her amazing new offering example

When the subject of video is discussed at companies, people immediately think EXPENSIVE and DIFFICULT because they are thinking formal.

But if you think business casual video, all of a sudden videos can be low or no cost and can be completed in a day or even in an hour.

I am a big fan of something you can film yourself with an easy-to-use Flip or a Kodak camera. Anyone can post to a video sharing site and then embed the resulting video into your site.

As easy as putting on a pair of khakis.

Here are a few styles of business casual video:

Interview. When you're on the road, you can film an interview with someone interesting such as this one I conducted with Allan Schoenberg, Director of Corporate Communications for the CME Group about the use of Twitter, real-time news and how he works with the media. Yes, Allan is wearing a coat and tie. What makes this a "business casual video" is that I filmed it myself (for free) in HD quality using a camera that costs less than $200.

Answer a question. Film a bunch of short interviews at a conference and have them professionally edited like What makes you a true geek? from Dice.com, a job search site for technology professionals.

Mini-documentary. I filmed about two hours of video over about a week during my recent book tour. I then developed an idea for a story I wanted to tell with the video and had an editor put it together for me.

Video doesn't have to cost tens of thousands of dollars. You can do something yourself for free or for very low cost. But like that transition from wearing formal clothes to work to putting on a polo shirt, it might feel sort of "not professional" at first.

This Shirt is Business Casual by Attaboy Designs on café press.

Disclosure: I am on the advisory board of VisibleGains

Comments

[Hayden Sutherland]

David
I think you're right in that there is now a growing trend for using less professionally made video for business and marketing communications purposes. I believe this is partly down the ubiquity of the video camera (built into every mobile device these days) and the acceptance of content in a less-than-polished format. It perhaps originates from the growth in personal / non-business video from shaky online clip submitted to YouTube every second, through to feature films such as The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity (which showed how scary and realistic cheaply-produced video could be).
If you add to this the fact that PC’s and Mac’s now come with basic digital video editing software as standard, its not hard to understand why there has been such an increase in business casual video and there's no doubt that this format is here to stay.
Hayden

[David Meerman Scott]

Hayden -- I think you're right that consumers posting YouTube videos helped drive this. But many companies are still resistant because they think "self produced" means "not corporate."

[kate]

David - I think the issue is also relevant because the last people consumers trust are the corporate voice. This type of video is more believable because third parties are involved (more likely to be believed) and because it's a move away from the old school content of me me me and push marketing. Great post.

[Jtpedersen]

Reading through Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner's upcoming book, "The New Social Learning," I think they nail another reason behind BCV.

We naturally are more trusting, give more credibility to, videos that aren't highly scripted, highly polished. We take them to be 'more real.'

Watching a video of the CEO that's taken with a personal vidcam, spoken from notes or from the heart (not highly scripted) just 'feels' more credible.

Also, having major video productions, like SciFi's Battlestar Galactica series, has further driven acceptance of 'BCV.'

Cheers,
JT...

[David Meerman Scott]

Kate - yes, consumers have been trained not to trust the overly corporate approach. Great point.

JT - Yes, excellent thought here. When something is unscripted, it feels more real and people engage.

Thanks for jumping in.

[David Siteman Garland]

David - You know how I feel on this one (since this the entire premise of my business/show, haha).

I love the casual video revolution. Another way of putting it is: authentic video or social video in the respect that it is designed to be sharable, spreadable and real as opposed to contrived/fake.

[David Meerman Scott]

David - "casual video revolution" - good phrase.

[Matt Gentile]

Great post David. We just started filming in-house for our conference promotions and I conducted interviews with our agents at our Top Agent conference last year. Great content and a great take-away for our agents and brokers. Keep up the great work.

Best Regards,

Matt Gentile
Century 21 Real Estate

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks for jumping in Matt. I think these ideas are perfect for your agents!

[Mark copeman]

Hi David. Love this concept of business casual video. One of the reasons I left my previous organization (which I founded!) was because of their attitude to spending on video production.

A 400 x 300 px flash video suddenly needed a $10000 studio hire and a make up artist. Ouch.

I actually think there's somewhere in between the simple point and shoot and the Hollywood production which was the reason The 8.45 Club format was born.

Like anything in this world video is just another way to grab attention and at the end of the day, it's the content that really matters!

Best wishes
Mark

[sewa mobil]

Nice article, thanks for sharing.

[David Meerman Scott]

Mark - you're right. Something in between herky-jerky and super slick is the goal.

[Ian]

Hi David - do you feel that the acceptance of 'business casual video' has a lot to do with the way Social Media has been embraced - i.e. stripping off the corporate image and getting down to conversation?

'3rd person' web content is disappearing being replaced by the "we" or "I" dialogue, therefore people are more accepting of a more casual approach?

[David Meerman Scott]

Ian - I think that your right - it may be part of it. But I think the wider trend to casual workplace is also a factor.

[Teicko Huber]

I think this is a great post. Do you have any tips or resources in regard to getting started? Also, there are a lot of manufacturing and equipment companies out there whose audiences are not as accustomed to receiving information in this format. How do companies make this cultural shift?

[David Meerman Scott]

Teicko - you might check out these two books: 1) Get Seen and 2) Beyond Viral (disclosure - I wrote the foreword to both.)

Any video can be embedded into a web site. It does not require going to YouTube or another site.

[mags]

Hey great idea David, I work in pubishing and I will be putting Business Casual Video to my bosses!

[Diannaoneill]

Hello David,

Great post and comment thread! I manage a corporate digital team and we were formed in part to move toward less formal video. As other commenters point out, this is driven by the need for authentic comms that engage on an emotional/familiar level rather than hard sell via an old-fashioned top down voice. Social media requires you to be immediate, intimate and real and I think you're simply seeing that trend reflected in the kind of content that now gets and sustains attention. Yours are also great tips on how to get started. Another tactic that helps interviewees dip their toes in, is to shoot interviews two ways: the first formal and on message, the second deliberately more relaxed with unscripted follow up questions from the interviewer. This "take two" often gets you smart, natural conversation that still hits the talking points. The interviewee can then see how effective he/she is and has the option to use the business casual approach. Excellent term.

[David Meerman Scott]

Diannaoneill - I love your idea of "take two"! Thanks so much for sharing. Makes total sense for those getting started.

[bob james]

I prefer the term "do it yourself video" for these things. And at the risk of seeming like a fussbudget I'll say that, like all "empowering technologies," DIY video can lead to some pretty scary outcomes. What's next, business casual annual reports?

[Tendering Software]

Any video used for marketing business purposes should be excellent and professional. I think most of us have used you-tube for this purpose but i think "Business Casual Video" must be given a chance..