Even if it’s only for a short intro a few seconds long, the music you choose for your corporate video can make the difference between people picking up the phone to contact you and them frantically clicking STOP and going to one of your competitors. When it comes to music and corporate videos, the first challenge is finding good music options, and the second it choosing the right music for your goals.
For example, the music in this video we made for Kings Colleges needed to lead people through a story. It starts very simply, becoming more varied with more instruments being added, which mirrors the student’s world opening up to new opportunities.
Finding good music and using it legally
Sourcing good music options is less challenging than making your final choice. There are a number of commercial music libraries out there that make it relatively cost-effective to find great music for a corporate video. As part of our video production service we source music for corporate videos and make sure you have the right licence to use it. (Audio Network is a library we often use.)
Even if music is ‘royalty free’, you still usually need to get a licence to use it legally in a corporate video, otherwise you could be infringing on copyright. Technology means it’s easy for copyright owners to scan the Internet for illegal usage of their music, so it’s definitely worth getting the right licences.
Is there more to corporate video music than you think?
Music can be a very emotive element of your video – some might say the most emotive – and it needs some careful thought. After all, there are academics who dedicate their whole lives to the psychology of music. We may not be rigorously academic when choosing music, but we do encourage you to think carefully about it. And we’ll help you do that.
The first thing to think about when choosing your music is what you want the people watching your corporate video to feel. What mood to you want to create? Do you want to them to feel calm, energised, thoughtful or happy? Thinking about the mood seems obvious, although sometimes company videos can get it very wrong.
The big music libraries all let you search according to the mood/emotion that you want to create. For example, Audio Network, lets you search for music that is ‘whimsical’, ‘laid back’ or ‘inspiring’ for example; Felt Music Library has ‘confident’, ‘playful’ and ‘warm’ amongst its mood filters.
However, there is more to it than that. Research has shown that the music should also match your brand attributes. A study published in 2011 showed that if viewers who had no previous knowledge of two competing products watched adverts for them both, they were more likely to choose the product where the music in the advert ‘fitted’ the brand’s attributes.
So, if you’re a traditional company, you don’t want to go too modern. And if you’re trying to be cutting-edge, you probably don’t want to blunt your branding razor with a piece of cheesy muzak. A mismatch like this makes people suspicious, and they’re less likely to trust you.
Music really can make or break your video. Rather than just using a tune because it’s free or easy to get hold of, we’d encourage anyone making a corporate video to take a little more time to think about their music.
Get in touch if you’re thinking of producing a corporate video