In today’s fast-paced media landscape, getting your message out quickly and effectively is essential. One way to do this is through a video news release (VNR). A VNR is a pre-packaged video that can be used by journalists and newsrooms to incorporate into their coverage.

Newsrooms are often limited in resources and providing a Video News Release may mean that they do not have to allocate expensive resources to telling your story.  A video news release includes footage, interviews, and other elements that are edited together to create a package that can be distributed to news outlets. So how is a VNR valuable?

Control of Message

A key benefit of a video news release is the ability to control your message, image and brand identity.  By supplying newsrooms with approved footage, you reduce the risk of them using old and outdated vision of your products or imagery.  In addition, by supplying only approved interview “sound bites”, you ensure that a company spokesperson will not be misquoted or taken out of context in an interview. are supplying them with interview snippets that contain your approved dialogue.

Safety

Sometimes it can be unsafe to have video crews doing their work on your business premises, construction site or other location.  To reduce this OHS risk, but also ensure that newsrooms have available footage of your premises, a VNR can be a useful option.  At Immediate Communications we’ve created VNR’s at airports, construction sites and in factories where it would otherwise be impossible to allow news crews access.

Cost Effectiveness

A video news release can be a cost-effective way to reach a large audience.  In the scheme of things, producing a VNR is a relatively inexpensive part of an overall media strategy.  The best outcome, even if the VNR isn’t used by newsrooms, is that you will have excellent footage and interview material to use in your own productions and social media.

Increased Publicity

A VNR can be the difference between your story running in a news bulletin and being ignored.  No one wants the effort of a great media pitch to be wasted, so a VNR provides an excellent backup or alternative “just in case”.

A CAVEAT…

If you’re going to use a Video News Release as part of a pitch to journalists, it absolutely must be produced by an experienced production company.  News footage is shot in a particular style and the best team to handle your VNR will be a production company with newsroom and editorial experience, as well as experience putting together video news releases, with successful outcomes.