The surprising benefits of non-scripted video

I’ve written a lot over the last few months about Bear Video’s core principle of Ditching the Script and embracing The Drop and why, for those in highly-regulated industries, using a non-scripted interview technique is an essential step towards creating engaging video content that meets the modern Marketing Imperative.

As we’ve continued to repeat and refine this methodology with clients new and old, we’ve uncovered plenty of other benefits of this approach, beyond the simple world of creating video content that doesn’t feel stale or guarded.

Broadly, we’ve realised that this approach means the value derived from ‘video marketing’ goes far beyond the finished video files at the end of the process: for example, shoot days move from a basic, necessary step to a process to a significant driver of value.

Here’s my attempt to list some of the less-obvious value drivers exclusively available to those brave enough to go unscripted.

One important thing to note first, though, is that most of these benefits are only applicable if you use an external video producer — since unfiltered honesty is frequently compromised by the social desire to avoid causing offence.

Market Intelligence

Firstly, if the production of the video involves filming with existing users, potential clients or industry experts (it almost always does), then it’s a great opportunity to gather market and product / service intelligence. This can vary from how they see and use your product or service, to the exact language prospects are using, all the way through to some hard but useful truths.

Letting people talk in an unscripted manner is an opportunity to uncover reams of insight that you are unlikely to ever hear elsewhere. We’ve come to realise that things contributors say that are likely to go in the edit have the biggest impact on marketing, but the things likely not to go in the edit have the biggest impact on product and service development. It’s a nice addition to video’s return on investment.

Happier colleagues in Compliance

Your colleagues in Compliance don’t like saying no to everything you suggest. Like you, they’re much happier if they can play a proactive (and maybe even slightly creative) role, rather than being purely reductive.

Unscripted video is seemingly at odds with happier colleagues in Compliance but, by ‘Building a Sandbox’ — starting the video creation process with an approach that looks at what you definitely can’t say, rather than what you want to say — you can make the process much more collaborative.

Happier Clients

Any effective video strategy in highly-regulated industries will involve putting your users and the leadership team of some of your clients in front of the camera at some point. Making sure they’re looked after accordingly can be stressful for you, but more importantly it can also be stressful for them.

We’ve observed that imposing lines and suggested soundbites on them can be overwhelming. With a non-scripted interview technique, the pressure reduces dramatically: they can just be themselves rather than learning lines. We’ve seen that clarifying this early on in the ‘contributor recruitment’ process, when looking for volunteers to talk on camera, increases uptake considerably. Multiplying this effect, more contributors coming forward also strongly correlates with an objectively stronger final output.

Less time

We know from previous experience that it’s easy to sink hours of time into pre-production processes that have no positive impact on the objective the video is meant to be aiding.

The biggest culprit here is the process of ‘scripting the perfect answer’, which takes up hours of important staff time and ironically actually reduces the chances of capturing the ‘perfect’ answer. Instead, with a non-scripted interview technique you design prompts — loosely signposting the contributor towards the area you’d like to discuss — which takes less time and delivers more.

Even better, dump a load of information on us and let us design the prompts ourselves: being a whole step removed provides an invaluable level of clarity.

More fun

Last but by no means least, it makes the process a load more enjoyable. Not only does ‘Ditching the Script’ produce content that is less watered-down, and subsequently authentic, believable and effective in reaching objectives, but the benefits listed above make it a load more fun too. It takes an often anxiety-inducing task and makes it an adventure of discovery and learning. Importantly, this is felt throughout your organisation — from you and your colleagues in marketing, to compliance, and even your clients.

There’s no need for strategic video creation to be stressful, even in highly-regulated, compliance-heavy industries.