They’re often confused, yet their goals, audiences and visual codes are radically different. Before you launch your next video project, it’s worth understanding what separates a corporate film from an employer brand video, and when to pick one over the other.
The corporate film: speaking to your clients and partners
The corporate film (also called an institutional or brand film) speaks first to your clients, prospects and outside partners. Its goal: telling who you are, what you do, and why you do it differently.
A good corporate film answers these questions:
- What is the company’s history and values?
- What makes your offer unique in your market?
- Who are your teams and what’s your culture?
- What’s your vision for the future?
The visual codes of the corporate film tend to be more formal, controlled, cinematic. It aims to inspire trust and make people want to work with you.
The employer brand video: speaking to your talent
The employer brand video addresses a radically different audience: potential candidates, talent you want to attract, and current employees you want to retain.
It answers different questions:
- What’s a typical day like at your company?
- What career opportunities do you offer?
- Why have your current employees chosen to stay?
- What’s the atmosphere, the vibe, the internal culture?
The codes are different: more authentic, closer to the employees, often less formal. The goal isn’t to impress but to make people want to join the journey.
When do you do both?
For a fast-growing company or one in the middle of a transformation, it often makes sense to produce both, at different points in the client or candidate journey. The corporate film establishes credibility and aspiration. The employer brand video humanizes and seduces talent.
AG2R La Mondiale, with whom SIGNS. collaborates regularly, uses both formats: institutional films for their macro positioning, and employer brand video series for their recruitment.
And brand content in all of this?
Brand content is a category of its own: you’re no longer talking about the company, you’re making something your audience cares about for its own sake, like a mini-series, a brand documentary or a social format. The company is in the background; the value brought to the viewer is in the foreground.
Our recommendation
Before defining the format, define the goal and the audience. A well-written brief always helps you pick the right tool at the right time. It’s actually the first step of our process at SIGNS Films.
Let’s talk about your project or explore our portfolio to see how we’ve handled both formats for our clients.
Frequently asked questions
What is a corporate film?
A corporate film is a video that presents a company to its clients, prospects and partners: its history, values, teams and vision. Also called an institutional film or brand film, it aims to inspire trust through controlled, cinematic visual codes, usually over two to four minutes. SIGNS Films has produced corporate films for La Poste, Renault, Liebherr and Tikehau, always starting from a written brief and a storyboard.
Corporate film vs corporate video: what's the difference?
Both expressions cover the same object: "corporate film" stresses narrative and cinematic ambition, while "corporate video" more broadly means any video content a company produces, including short formats for social media. The choice of word matters less than the choice of goal and audience. SIGNS Films starts every project with that written framing, because a three-minute brand film and a 60-second LinkedIn video are not produced the same way.
How do corporate films strengthen employer branding?
Corporate films strengthen employer branding by showing concretely what a typical day, the atmosphere and the employees look like, which makes candidates want to join and current teams want to stay. The codes are more authentic and less formal than those of an institutional film. AG2R La Mondiale, a regular SIGNS Films client, combines institutional films for its positioning with series of employer brand videos for recruitment; Allianz has also turned to Signs for this format.
What are the main types of corporate video?
The main types of corporate video are the institutional film, the employer brand video, the client testimonial, the employee portrait, the CSR film, the event video and the brand content series. Each answers a distinct goal and audience: credibility, recruitment, conversion, engagement. The SIGNS Films portfolio is organized around these categories, with more than 200 productions delivered for around fifty brands between Paris and Geneva since 2017.