Whether it’s a snappy 15-second Instagram Reel, a behind-the-scenes vlog of your team in action, or a cinematic origin story, branded videos are a powerful way to strengthen your brand.
They show your human side, build trust, and turn viewers into loyal fans.
But jumping into branded video production without a strategy rarely gets you the results you’re after.
So where do you start? Right here. This guide unpacks what makes a successful branded video and walks you through building a high-performing video strategy.
Jump ahead to a specific section:
- What is branded video?
- Types of branded videos
- How to make a branded video: step-by-step process
- Best practices for making a branded video
[#TOC1]What is branded video?[#TOC1]
Branded videos are marketing videos that use storytelling or educational content to engage an audience.
Unlike traditional video ads that focus on direct promotion, branded videos aim to build trust and emotional connections — sometimes subtly referencing a brand’s product or service.
These videos share valuable content to reinforce your brand identity and build customer trust — helping companies organically reach new audiences. Over time, strong brand affinity influences purchase decisions, making branded videos a powerful marketing tool for driving leads and conversions.
What’s more, high-quality branded videos showcasing internal company culture also help attract top talent and boost employee engagement.
[#TOC2]Types of branded videos[#TOC2]
Each type of branding video serves a specific purpose, making it easy for brands to connect with their audience in different ways:
1. Brand story videos
These videos showcase your company's core values, mission, and origin story, explaining what sets you apart and building brand loyalty.
Company story videos can also be product-centric — Apple’s brand film, The Underdog series, for example, subtly highlights its product features, benefits, and use cases without making a direct sales pitch.
2. Behind-the-scenes videos
Behind-the-scenes videos give viewers an inside look at your company’s operations and product creation, essential for humanizing your brand and fostering deeper connections with your audience.
3. Customer testimonial videos
A testimonial video highlights your customer’s experience, building trust and credibility to influence buyer’s decisions.
It can follow an interview, reaction, or review format, or incorporate animation or voiceovers with B-roll content to create a more compelling story. Alternatively, a simple case study video can also be a powerful testimonial.
4. Thought leadership or educational videos
These videos share industry insights, tips, and expertise to educate viewers while positioning your brand as a trusted authority. Feature your founder and internal experts — or even interview industry leaders to create valuable content.
5. Social media brand campaigns
These are short, attention-grabbing videos designed for engagement and shareability on social platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram — often more effective when aligned with platform-specific trends.
6. Social impact and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) videos
Social impact and CSR videos highlight your company's sustainability efforts, charitable work, and community initiatives — enhancing brand reputation and appealing to socially conscious consumers.
7. Internal communication and company culture videos
Lastly, these branding videos showcase company culture, daily work life, and team dynamics — including inside jokes and unique workflows — to engage employees and attract top talent.
[#TOC3]How to make a branded video: step-by-step process[#TOC3]
Thorough planning and scripting are only part of creating a successful branded video. The other half involves editing to ensure brand consistency and engagement. These steps show you how:
Step 1: Define your goals and performance metrics
Begin by reviewing your business objectives to set clear goals for your branded videos. For example, if you’ve recently launched a new product line, a strong goal could be building awareness of its features and benefits.
Aligning your video marketing strategy goals with business needs ensures your content is purposeful and results-driven — not just creative for the sake of it.
And to effectively measure your marketing efforts, choose specific metrics that reflect your chosen goals. Reference this cheat sheet as you set goals and determine performance indicators:
Step 2: Identify your target audience
Outline your target viewer, what topics resonate with them, and their pain points.
You’ll also want to find out what content style appeals to them and where they consume the most video content. Do they engage with bite-sized, relatable videos on TikTok or prefer long-form, educational content on YouTube?
Put all this information in a target viewer persona that highlights audience demographics, challenges, interests, and goals. The following steps will help you uncover these details:
- Analyze existing audience data. Review your website, email list, and social media analytics to see who engages with your brand and which content topics resonate most.
- Study competitors. Check their social channels to identify what types of videos they post, which topics drive the most engagement, and who interacts with them. Use the insights to inform your brand videos, not replicate their approach.
- Conduct market research. Scour niche communities like Reddit threads, Facebook Groups, etc.), industry reports, and tools like BuzzSumo or Google Trends to understand market trends. Searching industry-related hashtags on social media also helps.
- Ask your audience. Run polls or surveys to gather feedback on the type of branded video content your audience would like to see or simply learn their interests.
Step 3: Choose your video type, format, and style
Use your target viewer persona and goals to select types of branded videos that’d best engage your target viewer and align with your objectives.
While you’re at it, consider your resources. Do you have the budget or time to learn or outsource creating different types of videos?
Next, determine video format(s) that’d accurately capture your message:
- Live action works well for behind-the-scenes content, customer testimonials, and company culture videos.
- Animation simplifies complex ideas into easily digestible ones.
- Voiceover and motion graphics are a cost-effective way to create engaging explainer videos without a full production setup.
- Mix media (live-action and animation) helps highlight key points in a live-action video.
Finally, review your brand guidelines to define your videos’ visual style guide. Determine:
- Style and tone. Will it be minimal and clean, cinematic and premium, or playful and bold?
- Visual elements. Decide where your logo will appear, the animation, text style, and other brand assets you’d use, and the color scheme you’d stick with.
- Lighting and camera angles. For live videos, set rules for lighting, camera placement, and background(s) to maintain a consistent look.
Dig deeper: Engaging On-Brand Videos: Visual Branding and Video Experts Share Their Secrets.
Step 4: Plan your message and script
Based on your video’s goal, outline its core message and call-to-action (CTA). Ask yourself:
- What is the one takeaway you want viewers to leave with?
- And what action should they take after watching — visit your website, follow your social page, or something else?
Also, make sure your messaging aligns with your brand voice.
For instance, if your brand is playful, your message could be fun, informal, and energetic — using pop culture references and casual language. But if your brand is bold, you’ll want to use confident language, even take a daring, conventional approach.
With the foundation set, write a concise script to keep your video focused and engaging.
Need a head start? Use AI tools to generate a first draft for you. Simply select your video format and the voice you’re aiming for, then leave it to VEED to write your script — review, refine as needed, and you’re good to go.
Step 5: Create your video
Now record your footage and/or create animations, paying close attention to visual and audio quality.
91% of consumers say the video quality impacts their trust in a brand.
To improve video quality, try filming in broad daylight to avoid poor lighting. If the sunlight pouring in is too strong, use a white sheet or professional light diffuser to soften the shadows.
Alternatively, use a three-point lighting setup — it’s an easy way to elevate your video quality, no matter your budget.
Dig deeper: A Beginner’s Guide to Video Equipment: Get the Best Product Recommendations and Tips from Our Pros
That said, audio matters just as much — inconsistent or muffled audio quickly turns away viewers.
So make sure to record in a quiet, well-cushioned room. You can also use AI to instantly remove background noise.
Looking to speed up video production? Use AI-powered tools to create short-form videos — 46% of marketers already use them, and 55% also find AI helpful in the process. These AI text-to-video prompts will help with this.
Step 6: Edit and add branding elements
Next, edit your video for brevity, brand consistency, and accessibility.
Cut out any sentences or words that don’t add to your message. By using the one-click Magic Cut feature in VEED, you can also easily get rid of filler words like ‘umms’ and ‘ahs’ within minutes.
When done, add your logo, brand colors, and typography. Instead of repeating this for every video though, save your assets in a brand kit in VEED to apply them instantly.
This ensures consistent branding, saves time, and empowers your team to create on-brand videos with ease.
And finally, add subtitles. They improve accessibility for those who are hard of hearing and boost engagement as 75% of folks watch social media videos on mute.
The good news? You can auto-generate subtitles with VEED to cut down on manual work and save time — just give them a quick accuracy check. Also:
- Use high-contrast colors for subtitle text so it’s visible against all backgrounds.
- Position subtitles at the bottom center to prevent cropping on certain devices.
- For social media videos, place text slightly higher to avoid overlap with UI elements like the comment box.
Step 7: Optimize for distribution
Lastly, resize your video for different platforms.
If you’re making or editing your videos with VEED, simply adjust to platform-ideal sizing with a click when editing videos.
Also be mindful of video length. Long, full videos work on YouTube while short, snappy ones are ideal for Instagram Reels and TikTok. Edit down longer videos — keeping the most engaging parts — to create bite-sized social videos.
Dig deeper: 7 Ways to Repurpose Videos: Create More Content and Get Greater Engagement.
For YouTube videos, add SEO-friendly titles, descriptions, and tags to get your content to rank. Again, you can use AI to quickly generate these — just like 37% of marketers already do.
Don’t forget to design a YouTube thumbnail that grabs attention and encourages clicks.
[#TOC4]Best practices for making a branded video[#TOC4]
1. Keep it concise and engaging
Tailor your video length to the platform and content type — shorter (15-60 seconds) for social media to grab attention, longer (2+ minutes) for in-depth storytelling or educational content.
2. Focus on storytelling over selling
Use a story arc to build an emotional connection with viewers. Start with a strong hook, deliver value or a relatable moment in the middle, and close with a CTA that drives action
3. Add translations to localize your content
Auto-translate your videos with a tool like VEED to improve accessibility and connect with a global audience.
Dig deeper: Video localization guide.
4. Test and optimize for performance
Track video watch time, engagement, and drop-off rates to learn what resonates with your audience and drives results.
Create your first branded video today
Planning, scripting, and creating branded videos can feel overwhelming at first.
But once you push past the initial hesitation, it becomes easier — even fun.
Luckily, the right video creation and editing tool makes the process way simpler than you’d expect. Not convinced? Try VEED for free and see for yourself.