James
Most brands would sit to strategize video, and right away default to one thing; a brand commercial. Perhaps two assuming the budget is generous. They book the shoot, okay the script and give it a video strategy. It isn’t.
The brands which slip slowly and silently ahead do not make more advertisements. They are tapping off something their rivals have penned off as excessively niche, excessively costly, or excessively inestimable. Aerial footage. Branded documentaries. Motion graphics explainers. Live event captures. All of them accumulate equity in a totally different manner and they make a happy portfolio that no individual ad position can match.
This article takes you down the line on the types of formats most brands are bypassing, why each of them is warrants a budget and a useful audit you can execute before your next planning round.
- Why the “One Good Commercial” Approach Falls Short
- The Formats Brands Keep Leaving on the Table
- What Consumer Research Actually Says About Video Format Choice
- The Format-First Audit: A Practical Framework Before Your Next Planning Cycle
- A Scenario That Makes This Concrete
- How Production Partner Choice Affects Format Access
- Stop Planning Around Formats You Know. Start With Gaps You Don’t.
Why the “One Good Commercial” Approach Falls Short
Attention of the consumer is not a pool you can scoop once. Your brand is there at different times in the life of different audiences through different mediums and a 30-second commercial that is playing on one medium captures the sliver of the audience that is actually present. That’s it.
With new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at their 2024 American Time Use Survey, Americans are spending over 50 percent of their daily free time watching videos, and this trend is undergoing increased acceleration through 2023. The formats that they are viewing are not monolithic. Live event coverage, YouTube deep dives, social clips, and streaming all vie on the same hours. A brand that appears in just one lane is not visible anywhere.
The other one is trust accumulation. A commercial informs somebody about what you want them to believe about you. They can be shown using a behind-the-scenes documentary, a product demonstration with actual texture or aerial shots of your action. The audience has to give them differently, and can.
The Formats Brands Keep Leaving on the Table
This is what the least utilized categories actually bring to you, and that given in terms of the job performed by each category.
| Format | Primary Job | Where It Lives | Overlooked Because
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded documentary | Deep trust building | YouTube, website, events | “Too long, nobody watches” |
| Aerial footage | Scale and credibility | Social, intros, trade shows | “Feels like a luxury” |
| Motion graphics explainer | Concept clarity | Landing pages, email, LinkedIn | “We’ll just use slides” |
| Event capture | Community and culture proof | Recaps, recruiting, PR | “We only film speakers” |
| Testimonial series | Purchase decision support | Product pages, sales decks | “One testimonial is enough” |
The “too long, nobody watches” objection against branded documentaries is the one that costs brands the most. Long-form content earns attention from exactly the people already considering a purchase. Those are the viewers you most want to reach, and they’re actively looking for depth.
What Consumer Research Actually Says About Video Format Choice
Format decisions shouldn’t be gut-feel. There’s real research behind what pushes people toward action.
A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Business Research and available via ScienceDirect identified five characteristics of short-form video ads, including trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness, that are positively related to consumer purchase behavior, drawing on analysis of 2,578 videos and 128 users tracked across a full year. The implication is direct: format alone doesn’t win. The qualities baked into whatever format you choose are doing the work.
That’s the argument for diversifying. A motion graphics explainer can nail clarity and expertise. Aerial footage commands credibility. An event recap signals community. Pile three or four of those onto your content calendar and you’re building a multi-dimensional trust profile that a single commercial can’t touch.
“Our most reliable performers are step-by-step videos that teach viewers how to solve a problem or build a skill.” Bridgett Henwood, Director of Video and Podcast Production at HubSpot, as quoted in Wistia’s 2026 State of Video Report
That quote is about educational video, but the principle generalizes. Reliability in video comes from matching the format to the specific job it’s doing, not from picking the format that feels most impressive in a brief.
The Format-First Audit: A Practical Framework Before Your Next Planning Cycle
This is the part most brands skip entirely. Before you pick formats, map the gaps your current video library leaves open. Run through five questions:
- Where does trust break down? If potential customers drop off during consideration, they probably need more depth. That’s a branded doc or long-form testimonial gap.
- What does your operation look like from 400 feet up? If your answer is “impressive,” aerial footage is earning its keep. If it’s “embarrassing,” skip it and fix the operation first.
- Do your salespeople keep explaining the same concept over and over? That’s a motion graphics explainer waiting to be made. One good three-minute animation can replace 200 painful product calls.
- What happens at your events that nobody outside the room ever sees? Event capture is almost free when you’re already there and almost priceless for recruiting and PR afterward.
- How many real customer voices are on your website? One testimonial is a data point. Five is a pattern. A testimonial series is evidence.
Score yourself honestly. Any “yes, we have nothing here” answers are format gaps with clear ROI attached.
A Scenario That Makes This Concrete
Consider a mid-size outdoor gear company called TrailForge. Their only video is a polished 60-second brand spot that runs on YouTube pre-roll. It looks great. Their awareness numbers are flat, and their conversion rate on the product pages is stuck.
Running the Format-First Audit reveals three gaps: no motion graphics explaining how their patented buckle system works, no testimonials from long-distance hikers who actually pushed the gear to failure, and zero footage of their manufacturing floor. Each gap maps to a different moment in the buyer journey. They pick one format per quarter, spending about the same total as the original brand spot, and by the end of the year they have a content ecosystem instead of a single asset collecting dust.
The lesson isn’t that commercials are wrong. It’s that a commercial alone is always incomplete.
How Production Partner Choice Affects Format Access
Not every production team can execute across all these formats. Aerial footage needs FAA-certified drone operators and insurance. Branded documentaries require interview direction and narrative editing that’s a different discipline than ad production. Motion graphics need dedicated design and animation talent that lives nowhere near a camera.
This is why format range is one of the smartest filters to apply when choosing a production partner. A team capable of scripting, filming, animating, and capturing live events under one roof gives you format flexibility without the coordination overhead of managing four separate vendors. For brands in the Mountain West, finding a video production utah studio that handles that full range matters more than any single impressive reel.
According to IAB’s annual report as covered by ppc.land, US digital video advertising revenue grew 25.4% to $78 billion in 2025, situating the video investment conversation within a market that’s still expanding at pace. That growth isn’t going to one format. It’s spreading across platforms and content types as brands figure out that the audience is watching everywhere.
Stop Planning Around Formats You Know. Start With Gaps You Don’t.
The brands that keep producing the same commercial year after year aren’t playing it safe. They’re ceding ground to competitors willing to show up in more places with more depth.
Run the Format-First Audit on your current video library this week. Map the five questions above against what you actually have. The answer to at least two of them will point you toward a format that’s both underused and directly tied to a gap in your buyer journey. Start there, not with the format you already know how to approve.
