After enormous strides in the supporting technology, online video is now the place to find truly innovative communications content. We surveyed leading producers of web-based video to find the best out there. Neil Gibbons reports

Affordable, direct and compelling, online video has become the pre-eminent medium for organisations seeking to engage with stakeholders. And with the web now acknowledged as a reliable communications channel, communicators are turning their attention towards content.

This month, Communicate canvassed the views of digital communications professionals and leading exponents of web broadcast to get the experts’ view on the best recent examples of online video. Five case studies stood out.

Aviva

‘Becoming One Aviva’ celebrated 57,000 people across 27 countries coming together to say, “We work for Aviva”, signaling that the financial services group’s 50 brands had become a truly global organisation. Through the portal of an intranet microsite consisting of a Twitter-like news feed, an interactive map, and the facility for employees to upload their own images and pictures, Aviva broadcast a 24-hour programme of employee engagement.

“The original ‘A Day’ for Aviva day took place in 2009 with a follow up this year,” says Ipek Yigit, client services director of CTN Communications, which helped produce the content. But it was in this year’s event that video made a central appearance.

In the preamble to a video entitled ‘The Journey to One Aviva’, the company says, “In this short film, we tell the story of our journey so far to create One Aviva. Told by some of the people who are making it happen, the film shows how we are transforming our business to deliver great results for our customers and shareholders.”

United Nations: Office of Drugs and Crime

The idea behind the UN’s video ‘Faces’ was pretty straightforward: to raise awareness of World Drugs Day. Working with video production company New Moon, the Office of Drugs and Crime at the United Nations in Vienna commissioned a Public Service Announcement that focused on the dangers of illicit drug use.

The 60-second video was distributed online via YouTube and Facebook where the primary audience was young people aged 13-22. This young demographic presented a particular challenge as conventional PSA communication has little influence on this demographic.

“New Moon embraced the challenge by developing a simple creative approach that was intended to disarm the young audience,” says Caroline Rowlands, New Moon’s CEO and executive creative director. It based the story on a simple concept that took its cues from fashion advertising and MTV’s the Hills. Starting with “the images of ethereal beauty to which young audiences aspire”, the narrative gradually unravels to reveal the destruction that drug use can cause.

“The visible effects of physical decay have provoked remarks of outrage from the target audience,” says Rowlands, “perhaps proving that this simple concept has been an effective way to encourage at least some young people to consider the far-reaching consequences of drug use.”

NHS Leicester City

Reaching young people with health messages in Leicester had been unsuccessful. With teenage pregnancy rates 51% higher than the national average, NHS Leicester City wanted to reach out to change behaviours on becoming pregnant and associated attitudes towards sex and relationships.

The Rocket Science Group was brought in to ensure that a sexual health campaign was co-created with young people at every stage. The result was ‘Teenage Kicks’ a shocking film created with viral dissemination in mind. The unbranded video showed a teenage girl giving birth on a school field in Leicester. Filmed in a ‘happy-slapping’ style, it was filmed on a teenager’s mobile to generate debate about the identity of the girl and its authenticity. It was made available to watch on the campaign website and promoted on Facebook.

Within 24 hours of launch YouTube had removed the video in belief that it was real. Within two weeks the viral had been viewed over two million times alone, had 3,231 comments on the web and featured on the ‘most popular’ sections of YouTube and Digg. There have now been more than three million views of the viral worldwide and over 250 pieces of media coverage with an AVE of over £3million.

Ministry of Defence

Winner of a 2010 IVCA Industry Award for Effectiveness, ‘Don’t Be Your Own Worst Enemy’ was part of a campaign to tackle drug and alcohol misuse and absence across the Armed Services. Grosvenor TV was given the brief to produce ‘a bold, innovative and comprehensive multi-media campaign’ to help achieve a 10% drop in the number of personnel lost through alcohol abuse, drug misuse, and absence.

The online video had to complement the rest of a suite of media, which included DVD, cinema, television and radio. Three dramas – one for each of the three Services – formed the core of the campaign.

In the year after the campaign, there was a 34% reduction in the number of positive drugs tests. In monetary terms, this equates to a £5.5 million saving to the training budget over the one year period.

“The most important thing about effectiveness is the ability to get inside the culture of an organisation and really understand what makes them tick,” says Des Good, MD of Grosvenor TV. “Creativity is important but you also need to have a passion for what you do. It’s the passion which gives you the edge. It’s the passion which makes the difference.”

E.ON

More ad hoc in nature but still well-regarded among respondents, E.ON’s use of video helped the energy firm to tell its side of the story at the climate protests outside the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

The company had previously launched the channel – youtube.com/user/talkingenergy – in 2009 to spark debate about key energy issues faced by the UK. But the real spike in hits came during the 2009 climate protests at Ratcliffe-on-Soar.

E.ON posted videos from plant manager Ray Smith, and from Jonathan Smith and Emily Highmore from the external comms team, before and during the protest. It also posted all relevant videos they received from protesters “to give everyone the chance to have their say”.

As a result, the channel saw more than 7,000 hits and five video postings over the week that led up to the protests and during the protests itself.

Jeremy Davies, director of communications at E.ON, said: “The response to the channel during the Ratcliffe protest was incredible and also served to show the blurring of the lines between ‘old’ and new media as the Guardian took a quote off one of the videos we posted for their print edition.”