Why I Watched 47 Tech Company Rebrand Videos in One Weekend
There’s a specific kind of corporate courage that only appears in rebrand launch videos. Stock music, wide shots of hands hovering over laptops, employees laughing in meeting rooms that don’t exist, and the unnerving frequency of slow-motion high-fives. I don’t know what came over me, but I lost an entire weekend to this stuff like it was Eurovision.
What struck me wasn’t the sameness, but the choreography. There’s an entire micro-industry around these so-called culture films, and they’ve all landed on a strangely aspirational-goofy tone. Everyone is ‘excited’, yet no one appears to blink. These videos aren’t made for outsiders. They’re for employees to feel like this wasn’t just a logo tweak, it was a spiritual awakening. And if that sounds like I’m being harsh, you haven’t seen the one with the drone shot swooping into a team-building campfire. For a fintech firm.
Oddly, some of my favourites weren’t the big-budget global ones, but the New Zealand firms going for it with a degree of earnest clarity. One consultancy even used a river metaphor that worked, somehow. It made me wish more agencies took notes from documentary filmmakers instead of wedding videographers. Real faces, actual clients, fewer filters. Forget the abstract ‘We’re more than just...’ voiceover. Just show us what changed.
Because rebrands shouldn’t whisper. They should leave a mark. Not a middle-tier clap track with gradient overlays. If you can’t rally your people first, you’ve lost the game before your new templates are even in the brand folder.
What struck me wasn’t the sameness, but the choreography. There’s an entire micro-industry around these so-called culture films, and they’ve all landed on a strangely aspirational-goofy tone. Everyone is ‘excited’, yet no one appears to blink. These videos aren’t made for outsiders. They’re for employees to feel like this wasn’t just a logo tweak, it was a spiritual awakening. And if that sounds like I’m being harsh, you haven’t seen the one with the drone shot swooping into a team-building campfire. For a fintech firm.
Oddly, some of my favourites weren’t the big-budget global ones, but the New Zealand firms going for it with a degree of earnest clarity. One consultancy even used a river metaphor that worked, somehow. It made me wish more agencies took notes from documentary filmmakers instead of wedding videographers. Real faces, actual clients, fewer filters. Forget the abstract ‘We’re more than just...’ voiceover. Just show us what changed.
Because rebrands shouldn’t whisper. They should leave a mark. Not a middle-tier clap track with gradient overlays. If you can’t rally your people first, you’ve lost the game before your new templates are even in the brand folder.