Corporate video is not one thing. It is a catch-all term for a category that includes everything from a two-minute company overview to a multi-location drone shoot to an animated explainer that lives on a landing page. Before you brief a production company, it is worth having a clearer picture of the different formats available and what each one is actually for.
Company overview video
This is the most common starting point. A company overview introduces your business — who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters. It typically runs between one and three minutes and is designed to live on your homepage, play at events, or support sales conversations.
Done well, it answers the question a potential client asks themselves in the first thirty seconds of landing on your website. Done badly, it is a montage of b-roll footage with a voiceover that tells people what they could just read on the page.
The best company overview videos are specific. They show real people, real work, and give a genuine sense of what it is like to work with you.
Testimonial and case study video
A client talking about their experience with you is worth more than almost anything you could say about yourself. Testimonial videos capture that — an on-camera interview with a client or customer explaining the problem they had, why they chose you, and what the outcome was.
Case study videos go a step further. They typically combine the client interview with footage of the work itself — the project, the product, the location — to tell a more complete story. They work well for B2B businesses where the sale is complex and the decision-maker needs evidence, not just reassurance.
Event filming
Conferences, awards evenings, product launches, exhibitions — events produce content that has a very short shelf life if it is not captured properly. A well-filmed event video gives you something to share on social media immediately after, repurpose in future marketing, and use as evidence of activity to clients and stakeholders who were not there.
The main thing to get right with event filming is coverage. You need enough angles and cutaways to edit a coherent story, not just a recording of what happened on the main stage.
Promotional video
A promotional video is more overtly commercial than a company overview. It is designed to drive a specific action — a purchase, a booking, an enquiry. The tone tends to be more energetic, the edit tighter, and the call to action clearer.
Promotional videos often live on social media or in paid advertising, which means they need to work quickly — holding attention in the first few seconds and landing the message before the viewer moves on.
Training and internal video
Not all corporate video is customer-facing. Training videos, onboarding content, internal communications and safety briefings are all areas where professionally produced video makes a real difference — reducing the time taken to deliver information consistently across a team or organisation.
The production requirements here are often simpler than external marketing content, but clarity and structure matter more. A training video that confuses people is worse than no training video at all.
Drone filming
Aerial footage gives a sense of scale and location that ground-based cameras cannot replicate. For construction, property, large-scale events, outdoor facilities or anything where geography is part of the story, drone footage adds something genuinely useful rather than just looking impressive.
It is worth noting that commercial drone operators in the UK need to be CAA-licensed. If drone footage is part of your brief, make sure whoever you work with has the necessary permissions — some do not.
Animation and motion graphics
Some things are easier to explain visually than to film. Complex processes, abstract concepts, data-heavy content, products that do not photograph well — these are all areas where animation earns its place. Motion graphics can also extend live-action footage, adding titles, diagrams and visual explanations that make the edit cleaner and more informative.
Full animation is typically more expensive than live action for the same runtime because of the production time involved. But for the right brief, it is the most effective format by some distance.
Social video content
Short-form content for LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok has different requirements to longer corporate video. It needs to work at a smaller size, without sound in many cases, and hold attention in a format where the competition for that attention is fierce.
Social video is often produced as a cut-down from longer content, but it works better when it is thought about from the start — structured for the platform rather than adapted after the fact.
Which format do you actually need?
The honest answer is that it depends on what you are trying to achieve. A company that has never invested in video and wants a solid starting point almost always begins with a company overview. From there, testimonials and case studies tend to have the most direct impact on conversion.
If you are not sure which format fits your brief, it is worth having a conversation before committing to anything. The right format is the one that solves the right problem — not the most impressive-looking one on the list.