Digitalisation and the explosive growth of social media have led to an explosion in the possibilities for companies to use video. Via various channels and in various forms, they deploy video for internal and external purposes. As corporate communication has evolved into a conversational model, video deployment is more often part of a broader process of cross-media production and activation. Until now, there has been little knowledge about the design, distribution and activation of corporate videos and about the perspective of its audience. This research will fill in this gap by examining the formal differences (e.g. narrative structure, genre, length, image format...) and differences in activation from a two-sided perspective:
- The guidelines and criteria that companies/producers use when modelling and activating video (company's perspective)
- The requirements that recipients have concerning corporate video (recipient's perspective)
We use a multi-method approach in which we study and compare the form, content and activation of three types of corporate video (i.e. corporate image, corporate social responsibility and employer branding):
In the first phase (Oct '20 - Nov '20), we perform an extensive literature study. In the second phase (Dec '20 - Aug '22), we try to gain more in-depth insight into the company perspective and the recipient perspective by setting up a survey into the use of video in the profit sector. From the results of this survey, we will select a number of companies where we will:
- do a content analysis on the videos
- conduct in-depth interviews with the communication managers and producers of the videos
- organise focus group discussions with the target groups, focusing on the expectations regarding the corporate videos used in the internal and external communication of these companies.
In the third phase (Sept '22 - Dec '23), we repeat the same process for the non-profit sector. In the fourth phase (Jan '24 - Sept '24), we process the data with a view to integrating and valorising the results of the research.