TOP 5 STARTUP VIDEOS (PLUS 1)
Being located by Silicon Roundabout in London's startup capital Shoreditch, we get approached by a wide range of companies looking for help in launching their new businesses.
Every startup is different and has their own story to tell, often startups don't yet know their story but with a few searching questions it generally soon becomes clear. The one thing they all have in common is a huge amount of passion for their project.
Most start up videos fall in to one of three categories, though there is a certain amount of overlap:
Explanatory videos
Promotional / advert videos
Viral videos
Though explanatory and promo videos can go viral. the viral video can be the holy grail for many start ups and people have very strong and differing views on his subject - we'll try to cover viral videos in another blog post shortly...
Our selection below was created after trawling through numerous videos on vimeo and YouTube. Our selections are based on a mixture of aesthetics, storytelling and (perceived) effectiveness. We haven't included any of our own animated videos (that would be weird) plus they're all in our portfolio if you do wish to view them (hint hint).
our favourite startup videos in no particular order:
Whilst Spotify is now a household name now, before it was famous they created this simple promotional video. With no voiceover, it relies on typography and the engaging music soundtrack to deliver their product overview.
A great innovative approach was used in this clean and simple animation for Message.
At just a minute long, we felt it delivered one key aspect of a startup video above many others - it was memorable. not just in terms of its animation style but also for the story/product of message it told.
Keyring created theis promotional video which manages to explain their product visually, without getting bogged down explaining how it works. Even with the sound turned off we felt you'd probably be able to understand what their app does as they visually explained the problem and then the solution their app seeks to address.
This video for iPhone app Replay stood out to us due to it's creative style that is rarely seen when promoting an app. So many startup videos are fast paced, have vibrant colour palettes and include almost shouty VO's. So it was great to see a break from the norm.
Foursquare's explanatory video quickly lets you know what the app does, how it works and why you might use it - all within just 60 seconds!
It's debatable wether this last video should be in this list as it's not really for a startup - but it is for a re-startup, after the original Bebo founders bought back their site for a fraction of what they sold it to AOL for - so kind of a start up again. It's just great to see people poking fun at themselves and trying something totally different - imagine being in the room when that penis idea was first pitched!