Lights, camera... where's the action?

Each year, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship holds a film festival, which gives companies an “opportunity to demonstrate how they have utilized video as a communication tool”. There’s a public vote online – it ends tomorrow in case you want to have your say – to decide a shortlist and then the overall winner is selected by a panel of judges at the International Corporate Citizenship Conference in April. 

There are a total of 76 entries so it’s quite a feat to watch them all; however, in my quest to find out about corporate responsibility in the States, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to explore what companies are doing and how they’re talking about it.

Video is such an engaging mechanism for telling a story and companies increasingly use it to communicate their environmental and social messages to employees and consumers. In recent years, we've seen some compelling examples of how effective video can be, from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty videos, which went viral(see below), to Virgin Media’s video-driven approach to sustainability reporting. There is some really innovative and creative thinking out there.

I have to admit that not many of the film festival entries grabbed my attention. I accepted quite early on that the majority of the videos were going to be about philanthropic activities and that I shouldn't try and evaluate them with my strategic sustainability hat on. Some of the videos made reference to the broader social and environmental objectives of the business but, where they did, it felt like a bit of an after-thought. Broadly speaking, I'd divide the entries into two categories: 

• Emotional stories: personal stories from veterans, cancer survivors, single mums, people with disabilities about how they – or the charity that helped them - have been supported by the company and the impact on their lives. 
• Volunteer montages: clips of volunteers in corporate T-shirts painting schools, packaging up food bank deliveries or completing a 5 km run. 

Videos in both of these categories used similar ‘emotional’ music, and the commentary was provided by staff members, who said very similar things using slightly different words.

Now before you accuse me of being British and cynical, I should say that I was impressed by how much philanthropy seems to go on. The videos really convey the enthusiasm and excitement among employees in the US for ‘giving back’ and there are some really nice examples of how companies are supporting the communities where they operate. Perhaps my expectations are just too high – I believe that business can be a powerful force for good and therefore it’s frustrating to see companies wasting the opportunity to show what can really be done.

Content aside, at the very least, I was looking for a strong message, some creativity in the techniques used, and, most of all, a clear aim; by that I mean that I wanted to understand why the video was made and who it was made for. Only a very small number of entries ticked all these boxes.

In the future, it would be great to see the introduction of categories for the film festival. All the entries are currently lumped together as ‘corporate citizenship’ videos, but perhaps the inclusion of categories would help companies think more broadly about what corporate citizenship means and perhaps to submit something other than the usual volunteering or philanthropy video. The added benefit - it would help balance the expectations of viewers who are (ahem) harder to please.

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