#80 - Best Higher Ed Video Tips for 2025 (Wrong Answers Only)
w/ John Azoni
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SHOW NOTES
In this lighthearted solo episode, John Azoni takes a humorous dive into common clichés in higher ed video marketing. From the overuse of drone shots to awkward diversity montages, John shares "wrong answers only" tips to spark conversation and reflection on how to elevate video storytelling. Drawing from personal experiences and industry anecdotes, he highlights the balance between creativity, practicality, and avoiding overplayed trends.
John also shares hilarious contributions from LinkedIn commenters, adding a community-driven twist to the discussion. Whether you're a higher ed marketer or just love good video banter, this episode is sure to entertain and inspire!
Key Takeaways:
Skip the Drone Opener: Sure, drone shots look great, but starting every video with a campus flyover is predictable. Try something creative instead—anything that makes your story stand out.
Say Goodbye to Dramatic Symphony Music: Adding emotional orchestral music won’t save a boring story. Explore fresh, unique soundtracks that better reflect your institution’s personality.
Hooks Over Introductions: Instead of starting with “Hi, my name is…,” dive right into the story to capture your audience’s attention from the first second.
Slow Motion Isn’t Always the Answer: Slow motion can be impactful, but only if it’s used intentionally—no more slow-typing scenes, please.
Avoid Forced Diversity: Showcase genuine, organic moments of inclusion. Forced, overly staged diversity shots can come across as inauthentic.
Move Past the “We Are” Montage: The “We are [insert school name]” ending is overdone and adds little value. Find more creative ways to leave a lasting impression.
Your Logo Doesn’t Hook People: Leading with your logo is a mistake. Start with something that draws your audience in, then reveal the branding.
Meaningful Taglines Over Played-Out Phrases: Let’s retire taglines like “Your Story Starts Here” and focus on messaging that truly resonates.
Bonus: Listener Contributions from LinkedIn
John shares community-generated “wrong answers only” tips, like:
Always show students walking awkwardly while holding books they could’ve put in a backpack.
Highlight “diverse” groups of people who are clearly strangers standing in a semicircle.
Use vague taglines like, “Dream Big. Start Here.” It’s totally not a cliché.
And the classic: “Students in a dark lab with a glowing beaker—it’s science!”
Connect with John:
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:21:23
John Azoni
Hey, folks. Happy 2025. Well, it's been 2025 for long enough now. I'm recording this on January 22nd. I don't think we need to say Happy New Year any longer, but I am here with an episode about best higher ed video tips for 2025 wrong answers only. So this is going to be a solo episode. I don't have a guest.
00:00:22:07 - 00:00:44:03
John Azoni
And between guests right now, if you want to be our guest on the show, reach out to me. Let me know. We talk about higher ed content creation and storytelling. And you know, it doesn't have to be about video. One thing I will say, I get a lot of pitches from people who want to be on the show that have clearly never taken a second to find out what the show is about.
00:00:44:22 - 00:01:09:21
John Azoni
So I get the most like off the wall pitches from folks outside of higher ed that are like, This would be a perfect episode for your audience. I'm like, Did you take 5 seconds to know what my audience even is? Anyway, So it is very cold here in Michigan. The feels like temperature is negative eight degrees. My kids have had yesterday and today off school for snow days.
00:01:09:21 - 00:01:30:10
John Azoni
We don't even have a name for a snow day when it's not snowing, it's just a two cold day. And so this is a thing this is a new thing. You know, I remember it had to be like a foot of snow before school was canceled growing up. And I remember one year it snowed a lot and we had three snow days in a row.
00:01:30:10 - 00:01:55:07
John Azoni
And that was like the year that will live in infamy in my mind. I remember building snow forts and like it was so fun, like three days in a row, waking up to, Hey, there's no school. That is the best feeling when you know my mom, who would leave for work at GM at like six in the morning and she'd come in and wake me up to say goodbye, but she would tell me that I didn't have to go to school that day because it was a snow day.
00:01:55:16 - 00:02:18:08
John Azoni
The best way to wake up unequivocally. But now they've started giving out snow days for it being too cold. And so I can understand the kids that walk to school, that being too cold. So I totally get it. All right. I've grown to be okay with like, okay, we're not going to you know, this is the 2020s. We're not going to make kids walk to school and get like frostbite on the way.
00:02:18:08 - 00:02:40:06
John Azoni
But my daughter, who is seven years old, had basketball practice canceled last night because it was too cold. Now, this one I don't understand and serious question. If anyone can tell me a logical answer to this, what could possibly go wrong between in the 20 steps that it takes to get from a heated vehicle into a heated building?
00:02:40:12 - 00:03:02:08
John Azoni
I don't get it. I'm genuinely perplexed. I asked people on Facebook what they think about this as a serious question. I have not gotten any logical answers yet. So if you have a reason for this, I just feel like we're babying these kids, you know? So I'm officially like, you know, walked uphill both ways, years old now. I'm like that guy, like back in the day, back in my day.
00:03:02:16 - 00:03:28:07
John Azoni
Anyways, let's get into it. Best Higher Ed Video tips for 2025. Wrong answers only. And I want to preface this by saying I don't want to come across as critical. This is just in good fun. Like, you know, I think in higher ed, we can all embrace the cliches. And I will be the first to say that I've done a lot of BS and sometimes, you know, pulling a cliche out of the hat kind of is a necessary evil.
00:03:28:07 - 00:03:47:06
John Azoni
Sometimes you don't have a choice. The client wants it. Other times, other times it just might be a good creative decision, even though it's maybe a very overused one. So I'm going to tell on myself in some of these. So don't take me as being overly critical. We're just having fun here. We're all in this together. Same team.
00:03:47:06 - 00:04:16:18
John Azoni
So I posted this on LinkedIn. I posted seven of these wrong answers, only higher ed video tips, and then a bunch of people chimed in with their own, which were so many good ones. We'll start with mine. Number one open with a drone shot I recently went to. I decided I was going to take like I'm going to find ten randomly selected schools and I was going to go to the year two pages and see what that top video was, that top like hero video it was and just see what the patterns were.
00:04:16:18 - 00:04:37:13
John Azoni
So I asked Ketchup to give me ten random schools, mixture of small and large schools. So out of the ten, I want to say that like six of them. So 60% if my math serves me correct, opens with a drone shot of the campus. Now, this isn't inherently wrong. You know, it's good to show your campus, especially if you're going for like a campus tour vibe.
00:04:37:21 - 00:04:58:18
John Azoni
But in that one slot up there, I just feel like we could do something different. So there was one example I saw I just love when I see a school do something different. Anything different up there. So there's one that was University of Oregon had a their mascot is the Duck, and they had this little animation of like their duck mascot, like on a dorm room bed, just like vibing to some music.
00:04:58:18 - 00:05:15:17
John Azoni
And it was like 3 hours of just like, study music, just like, chill, like, I don't know, like jazz or something like that. And it was just like this three hour long animation of this duck just kind of vibe and studying and stuff. And I thought that was cool, you know? Are they going to like, dramatically increase enrollment with a video like that?
00:05:15:17 - 00:05:38:10
John Azoni
Probably not, but at least it creates a vibe that's like something different, something that stands out. So yeah, open with a drone. Wrong answer for effectiveness. I suggest finding another way into the story or into the content than just a standard drone flyover of your campus. Number two Dramatic Symphony music should be your only option for pumping up the emotion.
00:05:38:21 - 00:06:07:16
John Azoni
I see this a lot and you know, it's like taking a boring story or a boring narrative and just adding like dented didn't dare to do it. It's like lipstick on a pig, you know? It's like you can't just add dramatic music and it's like if a chef went to dumpster diving and found like rotten food ingredients and then just dumped a bunch of salt and sugar on them and was like, Here, here's some gourmet food.
00:06:07:23 - 00:06:36:17
John Azoni
It's just it's not going to work. So my wish for higher ed in 2025 is that we completely ditched the symphony music altogether. Let's just ditch it. I have one client that really gravitates towards jazz, and I love editing those because I love just like happy jazz music, like in the background. I think it works great for videos, just like a real, you know, upbeat, kind of jazzy improv kind of vibe and like a good baseline, you know.
00:06:36:23 - 00:06:53:16
John Azoni
So this one school, we use a lot of jazz music that's at their request. And I'm like, This is a great idea, this very smart marketing here. I think this is a really good vibe that kind of signals like, Hey, we're an Ivy League school, but also we're like kind of down to earth and we're cool, we're hip, we're jazzy.
00:06:54:03 - 00:07:12:14
John Azoni
So I like that. And I've started using jazz music in my internal content to here and there. And I think it works. I think it works great. Let's just ditch the symphony music. All right, The next one is Hi, my name is is an incredible hook, so just don't start with Hi. My name is such and such. I'm the president of such and such.
00:07:12:22 - 00:07:30:00
John Azoni
Really try to find anything that's interesting that's slightly you know, that's like hints at the topic, but that gets you into the story in a different path. That's where I think a lot of people go wrong with videos. They start at the beginning, at the logical beginning. Hi, my name is blah, blah, blah. Here's who I am. Here's why it matters.
00:07:30:00 - 00:07:50:14
John Azoni
Here's what I have to say. Here's why you should care. And that's fine. That makes a fine video. But we can do better with these hooks. Number four, use slow motion. Always never don't use slow motion. Even when people are just sitting, they're not moving much. In reality, AI instructs our camera operators, our filmmakers, to not use slow motion as a gimmick.
00:07:50:20 - 00:08:13:13
John Azoni
Let's keep things normal, motion, normal reality or slow motion does work, though, is when something is happening that's like this happening fast that you want to slow down and it kind of makes it more dramatic. But a pet peeve of mine in the video world is seeing someone just like typing on a computer or something that's already kind of a pretty static movement, but they put it in slow motion, so it just looks like they're typing really slow, you know?
00:08:13:13 - 00:08:40:20
John Azoni
Number five, write a poetic script and get a voiceover artist to read it in a soft, reflective tone. Also pair this with number one about the drone shot. So yeah, also see a lot of this with, you know, the sort of inspiring like aspirational kind of script that's like, you know, artsy and poetic and stuff like that. And there's usually like a shot of, like a, you know, someone in a lab coat that's like peering into a microscope or like holding a beaker or something like that.
00:08:41:05 - 00:09:00:12
John Azoni
Number six always end the video with a montage of students looking in the camera saying, We are, we are, we are, we are school name. This is one of those gimmicks that it just makes me laugh every time. Every time I see I would if I see a commercial that does this like non higher ed or higher ed or whatever, I just start laughing.
00:09:00:12 - 00:09:18:17
John Azoni
Guess because it's just so like, what does that mean? We are blank. In Michigan. We have Henry Ford, one of our main health systems or hospitals and their commercials are always end with like we are. We are, we are. Henry And I'm like, What does that mean? We are Henry? Like, So you're just a hospital, but you're the hospital.
00:09:18:21 - 00:09:42:10
John Azoni
I get what they're going for. But it's one of those things where it's like, sounds cute but means absolutely nothing. Number seven show any less than 5 seconds of your logo at the beginning, and people will be so utterly confused. They'll end up on an elementary school's website by accident. I've had a lot of clients that really struggle with this where it's like they don't think that anyone will know what they're watching if they don't have some semblance of the logo right up front.
00:09:42:18 - 00:10:12:19
John Azoni
And to me, I'm kind of like, that's the wrong way to think about it, because your goal shouldn't be, Who is this video coming from as the hook your goal should be? How can I get this person to be interested so your hook needs to hook them? People aren't hooked by a logo. If you feel like you have to have like the logo right up front, that's probably signaling that, you know, maybe somehow, subconsciously, deep down you're thinking, Hey, if this person clicks off of this thing in 2 seconds, I want to at least have seen our logo.
00:10:13:01 - 00:10:30:23
John Azoni
Well, why are they clicking off of it within 2 seconds where you feel like you have to shove the logo down their throat, put something up front that gets them curious to stay and watch till the end. Give them some content that's worth their time. I do get for like a commercial though, you know, sometimes like commercials, like broadcast commercials on TV.
00:10:30:23 - 00:10:47:14
John Azoni
They're kind of in the background. You know, people aren't like super paying attention. So maybe like, subliminally having, like the colors and the logo kind of in there, you know, kind of branded throughout makes more sense. But like in a piece of content that's like opening with 10 seconds of the logo, I don't get what the move is there.
00:10:48:11 - 00:11:10:18
John Azoni
All right. Let's get into the comments. So Jamie Hornbuckle from three enrollment marketing, she says definitely shots of random buildings that literally could be anywhere. Lots of buildings, more buildings as nondescript buildings as possible. I think this is funny because it is true a lot of campuses have a lot of the same looking buildings. Maybe like old looking buildings.
00:11:10:23 - 00:11:37:13
John Azoni
And I will say alumni tend to like the campus vibes, like they have memories tied to these buildings and things like that. I think we just put more stock into our buildings, into our architecture than probably is relevant to a prospective student. I will say there are some colleges that have really cool architecture. You know, I had Michelle McMahan on the podcast and as I was looking for images, for the thumbnail for that episode, for YouTube, you know, they've got some cool buildings, like some really interesting architecture.
00:11:37:13 - 00:11:56:16
John Azoni
So I think that's worth it. You know, I think, you know, there's a school by us called Walsh College that has a really cool building inside and out, just like really well-designed, just inspiring to be in there. And it's inspiring to drive past it. So like for a school like that, I'm like, Yeah, let's showcase the architecture. But yeah, here's some buildings, you know, come to our school, we got the best buildings.
00:11:57:05 - 00:12:18:22
John Azoni
Colin Nicholas I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. Don't forget to grab a bunch of disparate people with different skin colors who are not friends and don't even know each other to imply diversity for the campus. Having them join in a semicircle for a flyover, preferably right as the leaves are turning in the fall. Oh, yes. The quintessential diversity shot.
00:12:18:22 - 00:12:40:18
John Azoni
It's not even that diversity is wrong. It's that it's like this forced diversity of like you have someone with a hijab and then someone who is white and then someone who's Hispanic and then someone who's African-American. In reality, a lot of those groups tend to hang out with each other, like in high school, growing up, like a lot of the African-American kids, they would congregate together in the cafeteria.
00:12:40:18 - 00:13:03:17
John Azoni
A lot of the Asian kids would congregate together. You know, for better or worse. There was a lot of, you know, mixing of cultures, too. But you never really see, like in high school that you would never really see like a perfect picture of like an Asian girl and then like a white guy and then a Hispanic guy and then an African-American girl, like walking down the hallway just like, just happily conversing.
00:13:03:17 - 00:13:23:11
John Azoni
There's no drama. They just love life. And they're like holding their books in their hand, which is another one that we're going to get to. But yeah, so diversity is important, but let's maybe bring it back to reality about what diversity actually ends up looking like on our campuses. And I should mention Colin Nicholas, he is strategic marketing consultant.
00:13:23:12 - 00:13:45:01
John Azoni
He's a growth and brand expert who helps organizations achieve their goals and reach their audiences. And he works as a marketing strategist for national and global brands. All right. So go check out Colin. All right. Jennifer Jordan, strategic communications manager at Columbia International University, says your video kind of said dream big start here. You're home. The time is now.
00:13:45:06 - 00:14:07:03
John Azoni
Just do it. Wait, that one's taken. Yep. These college taglines, I mean, they're not going anywhere. They've been around for a long time. I feel like there's this, like, no college tagline that isn't going to sound played out. Like, maybe we should just retire the taglines altogether. Someone else posted underneath that Start here, go anywhere. Jamie Hunt also posted about that.
00:14:07:04 - 00:14:30:00
John Azoni
Being at an airport and seeing all these like start here, go anywhere ads like display ads from schools. And it's just funny to me. I sincerely think that when people think of these taglines, they're like, This is it like, this is new. I've never seen this before. Start here or go anywhere. Like, it sounds cool, but it sounds cool if you don't actually, like, look at what other schools are doing.
00:14:30:06 - 00:14:53:00
John Azoni
Just a story about this. My dad got remarried and I was, I don't know, probably 22 or something like that. And I was the best man in his wedding. Thanks, Dad. And so I had not been to a lot of weddings at this point. This was before I was a wedding videographer and I planned in my speech to say, because, you know, I was big like Christian church guy back in the day.
00:14:53:00 - 00:15:09:22
John Azoni
Everything was about Jesus and God. And that defined my entire worldview for everything that came out of my mouth. And I wanted to put it in there. Love is patient, love is kind, Love never fails, whatever is the verse in Corinthians. And I just thought that was gold, you know? I was like, Dude, no one's out here giving speeches like this.
00:15:10:05 - 00:15:28:20
John Azoni
This is going to kill. And my my friend who at the time who I took the writing, she's like, Yeah, that's every speech and every wedding says that, so don't say that. And I think that's what's happening here with taglines. We need some outside perspective of like, what is actually the landscape of college taglines? Like, how common is this one that you're thinking of?
00:15:28:20 - 00:15:47:07
John Azoni
Like your story starts here or your journey starts here because it's not original. Nick Savino Another higher Ed videographer, does work with Penn State, and he says, I agree with all of these. Number six only holds some weight. When my team and I work with Penn State. The whole We are. We are. We are. We are. We are thing.
00:15:47:16 - 00:16:09:15
John Azoni
You know, sometimes you got to do it. You got to do you know, the clients paying the bills. You know my rule of thumb as someone that likes to be helpful to clients and serve their needs as a videographer, I just say I'm going to tell you once what I think. Then it's up to you. You want to open with the logo, you're going to get an email from me that says I don't know that that's a great idea in this context and here's why.
00:16:09:15 - 00:16:29:03
John Azoni
But I defer to you. And you know, sometimes when you defer to the client, it doesn't go the way you suggested. That's actually a lot of times and I'm okay with that. I you know, we're here to make you happy. Jeff Hollman, CMO, marketing brand director at University of Florida, Warrington College of Business, posted a very evergreen video.
00:16:29:03 - 00:16:49:22
John Azoni
That video, it's by a company called Dissolve. It says this is a generic brand video and it's like a just all these like brand video cliches. I thought that was a classic. Matt Haimes over at three Enrollment Marketing, as he says on YouTube, Make the video title Campus Drone tour it is sure to be found by people on the second most used search engine.
00:16:50:01 - 00:17:14:04
John Azoni
This could be a whole episode in itself, unlike at YouTube SEO. If you want to learn about YouTube, SEO, YouTube, organic content strategies, reach out to Matt. He's got some good thoughts. He's always in my comment section with some good nugget about YouTube thumbnails or YouTube titling your videos or SEO or whatever. I've learned a lot from him, but it's just funny because like I think people use YouTube as almost like a catalog, like an internal catalog.
00:17:14:04 - 00:17:36:16
John Azoni
And I think that's one way to think about YouTube. Like, I think you either use YouTube as a holding place for links or you use it as an external, like pulling of potential leads, like you're using these videos to go fishing for prospective students and you're going to treat this like an actual, like YouTube channel SEO kind of search optimized content library.
00:17:37:02 - 00:18:04:05
John Azoni
And so I make that distinction because I think that a lot of people think they're using it as a search optimized lead magnet sort of content library when they're actually using YouTube just as kind of an internal holding place. So when you label a video campus drone tour, you're probably thinking, well, if somebody knows they want to go to University of Idaho or whatever, I have no idea if University of Idaho has a campus drone video.
00:18:04:05 - 00:18:31:09
John Azoni
I'm just using this just off the top my head. If they already know they want to go there and they want to see a tour of the campus, they're going to click on campus drone tour that meets exactly what they're looking for at that time. But you got to think of, you know, if someone's searching colleges in Idaho or whatever, like college drone tour of Idaho or like a better one would be University of Idaho campus drone tour or something like that.
00:18:31:09 - 00:18:56:14
John Azoni
So at least when someone's searching University of Idaho in their YouTube feed that might come up. But yeah, think about like, what is the person that doesn't necessarily know what they want to see? What might they be searching and how should you title that video? So classic example is, you know, titling a video like Mary's Story. Well, that works If you're going to go to the College of Engineering and you are maybe in a playlist of videos of just engineering students.
00:18:56:14 - 00:19:12:06
John Azoni
And so you want to hear from Mary, who you assume is an engineering student, and she has a story that might be relevant to you. But if you're just like, who else is just like some like a high school or maybe like a potential grad student that's just going to type in Mary's story into YouTube. It's just not how people search for things.
00:19:12:06 - 00:19:38:12
John Azoni
So you have to think about things. How do they search for things? Maybe more by the program. You know, Mary landed her dream job after graduating from University of Idaho or whatever, something like that. You know, treat it more like a news headline rather than an internal catalog title. Anyway, that's my soapbox on that. Ryan Morabito says, Make the school the hero of the story and not the students.
00:19:38:12 - 00:19:58:02
John Azoni
Ryan Morabito from Five Degrees Branding. Yes, that is often the case. We make the school the hero of the story, and it's a lot of we are this. We believe this. Our mission is this. Our values are this. We have the best professors we have that we, we, we, we, we and that that's really making the school the hero.
00:19:58:02 - 00:20:14:06
John Azoni
And there is room for that. I think, you know, there's a place for informational videos that say like because like at some point I want to know like sell me on your school. Like just, you know, I don't want to watch a long tangent of a story to figure out what the value is that you're offering to me.
00:20:14:12 - 00:20:32:14
John Azoni
You know, at a certain point in my buying journey, I just want to know, like, just sell me on it. Why should I give you money instead of this other school? What am I going to get from you that I'm not going to get elsewhere? But when so much of your content is me, we, our, US focused, then I think that's a problem.
00:20:32:14 - 00:20:52:15
John Azoni
I think we really need to uplift the natural stories that are coming, you know, the stories of transformation that are coming out of students, that experience to the value that you're talking about. Because they can actually illustrate and show the value, not just tell about it, because it's sort of like, hey, we're this, we're that, we're awesome. We're that is sort of like, trust me, bro.
00:20:52:15 - 00:21:09:22
John Azoni
You know, just just trust me. There's no source. The sources trust me, bro. But when a student is saying, Hey, I experienced this and went through this and I got through it this way, and now I'm doing this or whatever it is, and these are the things that really benefited me in that process. That's not trust me, bro, anymore.
00:21:09:22 - 00:21:32:12
John Azoni
That's trust. The student that has actually lived it. All right. Michelle McMahon. Michelle McMahon, as I mentioned earlier from University of Limerick, she's their digital marketing and content officer, really great marketer. Follow her on LinkedIn. Also, go listen to our episode. A couple episodes, go with her, as she says in her long answer, only include all the interview questions or overlay them onscreen.
00:21:32:12 - 00:21:57:18
John Azoni
No one could possibly understand the context with complete answers alone. If this makes your video twice as long, congrats, it's now twice as good. Yeah. No, I'm with Michelle on this one. It's sort of an amateur vibe to have videos where you're putting the question on the screen and then their answer Sometimes that's necessary, but a more professional approach is to instruct your interviewee to speak in complete sentences, and I give them this example.
00:21:57:18 - 00:22:15:09
John Azoni
So I'll say, like if I ask you, like, what program did you graduate from? I don't want you to say College of Engineering, I want you to say I graduated from the College of Engineering. That's a complete sentence that doesn't necessitate the need for us to put the question on the screen and make this video unnecessarily long and more boring than it has to be.
00:22:15:21 - 00:22:47:17
John Azoni
So yes, wrong answer would be to include all the interview questions on screen. Brian Gentry I believe it's gentry or Gentry. Brian You can email me and rip me apart for either one of those pronunciations. Director of Communications at University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences. Brian writes five words That's why I chose Yale. And then he also writes attractive student pouring Kool-Aid from a beaker into a flask just 2 seconds worth, since the video has nothing to do with chemistry.
00:22:47:23 - 00:23:06:22
John Azoni
Yes, the beaker. Totally. And yeah, Kool-Aid. Probably the cure for cancer in there, but it's Kool-Aid. Always include the president walking across the Dell or the quad with students who have never talked to the president before. And then his other one wasn't sure. The video goes for at least 10 to 15 minutes in order to answer everyone's questions.
00:23:06:22 - 00:23:26:22
John Azoni
This video has to be for everybody. Yeah, creating videos that are for everybody that can't possibly leave anyone out. You're already going off the rails there. We need to go back to the drawing board and define who our audience is and what they need to hear. Sarah Furlong, director of university marketing communications at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. Is it SUNY or Sunny?
00:23:27:00 - 00:23:48:00
John Azoni
I'm not sure it's one of those, she writes. You don't need anything but the president talking ever because 18 year olds and alumni definitely know who he or she is and care what he or she says. Yes, students influence other people. One thing I've learned as a parent is that there's a small window of time where the parents have influence over what the kids believe about themselves.
00:23:48:00 - 00:24:09:22
John Azoni
And you know, we're just in influence over the kids in general. But the window of time is much larger for like how effective their friends are going to be and their surrounding environment is going to be the social cues they're being given. Things like that. So I feel like that's like when we're relying overly too much on the president to deliver the marketing messages or the communications messages.
00:24:10:03 - 00:24:28:11
John Azoni
It's like that parent trying really hard to influence their kid when what would be more influential is to have someone that's not the parent speaking to and speaking to that kid's life, a mentor who's younger or, you know, it could be, you know, one of their friends is going to be more influential. And so that's why I just think that this is spot on.
00:24:28:18 - 00:24:53:06
John Azoni
Definitely get your president involved. You know who did that really well? And I'm trying to remember, gosh, who was it, Ohio University, maybe, or I'm blanking on who it was. I think it might have been Ohio University that got their president to do like just a funny like Gen Z scripts like the Gen Z interns wrote this script for her and she just delivered it so great and so, like tongue in cheek and perfectly.
00:24:53:06 - 00:25:18:07
John Azoni
And that was for like an Instagram reel. I thought that was really funny. Way to click your president. That's the way to do it. Like kind of humanize the president in a way that's not like, Hey, I'm the big head honcho on campus, but more like get the president on the students level and let them see them in a more irreverent way that's going I mean, data shows that is going to work better than just having them deliver this message of here's the five reasons why our mission and our vision is a good fit for you.
00:25:18:19 - 00:25:42:04
John Azoni
Vince SlOPs, Ski Assistant Vice President, Communications marketing at University of South Florida. He has a few here include as many higher ed buzzwords as possible. Everyone will relate to these immediately. Also pay actors to appear on camera instead of showcasing your amazing students, faculty, staff and alumni. And then also make sure to remind the viewer that the university feels like home and everyone belongs.
00:25:42:12 - 00:26:02:12
John Azoni
Yeah, if you just say you belong, that's it. That's all. That's all you got to do. Just say you belong. And people are like, Oh, okay. I didn't know I could belong there. Jonathan Blundell Ah, Blundell from the Texas Association of Community College Marketers show footage of students walking across campus awkwardly holding their books in their arms instead of their backpack.
00:26:02:18 - 00:26:24:16
John Azoni
And this didn't occur to me until I read Jonathan's comment that I'm like, Yeah, why do we see them holding their books? That never happens. Like, who is carrying their loose books around? It's just like, who goes to the grocery store and carries out like an arm full of loose groceries to their trunk? Actually, I do that a lot because I don't like I don't like getting bags.
00:26:24:22 - 00:26:47:00
John Azoni
We admire here in Michigan. Meyer is notorious for. Like, you buy a pack of gum and an onion, a rotisserie chicken or something, they're going to put those in three separate bags and God forbid you buy anything, glass like a candle or like maybe a bottle of wine or something. They're going to put that thing in like four plastic bags, Like that's going to keep it from breaking if you drop it.
00:26:47:11 - 00:27:07:21
John Azoni
But I just hate using plastic. I hate being a participant in the single use plastic bag culture. So you might actually see me carrying a few things loose, you know, from like Lowe's or something like, you know, out to my car. But books would not have been one of them. You know, you best believe I had a Jansport backpack back in middle school, elementary school.
00:27:08:08 - 00:27:27:00
John Azoni
Not sure what I had in college, though. I mean, I had some sort of backpack. Probably wasn't Jansport though it was probably had some like punk rock band sticker like Rancid or like no effects on it, like a patch or something like that. John In parentheses. Jack Allen So his name must be Jack. Digital Producer, Creative at University of South Carolina.
00:27:27:00 - 00:27:52:08
John Azoni
I would add slow motion of the school's mascot, but in reverse and flipped horizontally with a side of Vignetting. Yes. Any artificial post-production trick like a star wipes or, you know, anything like that? Like it's just going to immediately pump up the video vignettes. I do have a disdain for. It's just a very nineties way, just a nineties sort of style of video making.
00:27:52:08 - 00:28:24:17
John Azoni
So really, I mean, please use vignettes very sparingly. Mickey Bedell or Bedell, assistant director of social media at Dartmouth College or Dartmouth College. I'm guessing it's Dartmouth College. Don't forget to highlight your amazing sense of place through woods, walkways, brick slash, hyper modern buildings and downtowns that definitely don't look like every other college or university in the world and leave in every gasp or pause and stutter in your three out of four interviews with faculty and students for authenticity.
00:28:24:17 - 00:28:55:06
John Azoni
Everyone wants to watch a live stream of consciousness, and it's not confusing at all to not prompt people. Yes, I think there's a balance here. On one end of the spectrum, too much stream of consciousness is bad. On the other end of the spectrum, zero stream of consciousness. Sounds like you're reading off a teleprompter. So I do. Especially when interviewees are having to read something off a teleprompter, I actually tell them, Throw some arms in there, throw a pause in there, look away from the camera for, you know, just like, do some stuff that you would normally do if you were talking.
00:28:55:06 - 00:29:26:03
John Azoni
But yeah, absolutely. You know, when you just let people kind of ramble and there's like no editing involved in this video. It's a painful video to watch. EDIT Barry from founding partner at a collaborative says Go longer than 2 minutes. Yes, you know, definitely there's a place for short videos. I think there's also a place for long videos, but I would say there's not much place for boring videos unless you have a really captive audience already that has nowhere else to be except to watch this maybe informational video or something like that.
00:29:26:03 - 00:29:57:09
John Azoni
But by all means, don't just, you know, don't make videos longer than they have to be. Nancy Dudek or Derek, technical writer at McMaster Carr writes Information copy for industrial supplies, catalogs, students doing experiments in a dark lab with a purple light bulb. Yes, absolutely. And the cousin to that one is the I.T. commercial, where it's just like they're in dark server room with just like blinking lights and they're just like pointing at things and like, you know, pushing buttons and stuff.
00:29:57:16 - 00:30:22:12
John Azoni
Jodie Cane, Rush Ruck Folks, I am just butchering everyone's names. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have started the pattern of naming everybody. I should just it's it's just that another person said this, but from Emory University social media manager. OMG, I've been laughing about number six for years. That's the we are, We are. We are one that I said in my original post watching a commercial and you're like, Oh man, oh man, they're about to do the thing.
00:30:22:12 - 00:30:39:04
John Azoni
Yes, that's I mean, Jodi gets it. I feel so scene right now because that's what I do too. When I watch a commercial that's heading in that direction of doing the We are. We are, we are. We are. I get the same way. I get excited. I'm like, they're about to do it. Yes, they did it. All right.
00:30:39:04 - 00:30:57:09
John Azoni
And that completes the comments section. So thanks, everyone for chiming in on this comment thread. This was a lot of fun to see these. I didn't think this would generate this much engagement, but I'm very pleasantly pleased and surprised and happy about it. So thanks for chiming in. Oh, and I said I was going to tell on myself in this episode.
00:30:57:09 - 00:31:18:13
John Azoni
I said I was going to talk about the things that I also do that are some of these clichés, so I kind of forgot about that. But let me give you a little rundown. Drone shots definitely are always like useful filler. I try to avoid opening with them, but I'm not going to lie. Sometimes a good drone shot, you just need something that's like a visual eye candy.
00:31:18:20 - 00:31:37:13
John Azoni
That's just going to add a little pop up to the video when maybe it's not as naturally of an interesting topic or interesting, you know, flow as you'd like it to be. That's a good, you know, like a little salts on the steak. You know, that just really pumps it up. So good trick. I just try to avoid opening with them.
00:31:38:02 - 00:31:56:06
John Azoni
Hi. My name is I've had to do this here and there. Some clients are just very adamant that, like you introduce the person before you get to the content. So this was not my choice. But I you know, there's been a lot of times where we've had to open with a hi, my name is look a poetic script and a voiceover.
00:31:56:06 - 00:32:18:16
John Azoni
I think there's a place for it. And again, I like University of Oregon. They're doing some cool stuff. They have a campaign called The Power of if that's kind of old, it's like ten years old or something like that. I remember seeing this video and being like, That's a really good use of a poetic voiceover, and that actually works here because there's some like other energy that's like feels just really authentic because they use like a lot of user generated content or just like kind of down to earth B-roll.
00:32:18:16 - 00:32:37:13
John Azoni
It's not like really I think the problem is when you pair this poetic voiceover to like really overtly produced commercial footage, it just feels off. It feels like you're trying too hard to sell me something rather than just showing me the culture as it really is. The We are, We are, We are. I have you know, this is another thing.
00:32:37:13 - 00:33:02:13
John Azoni
This is not something I would ever advise. But as a videographer, you know, we got to you got to you got to follow who's paying the bills. My old job, we used to film the I.T. conference for the Department of Defense. Every year it's called notice the Department of Defense Intelligence Information System or something like that. The IT department for the Department of Defense in the US and this one year, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA, they were like the ultimate client.
00:33:02:13 - 00:33:18:05
John Azoni
They're like my client's client. They really want it to end with We are. We are. No, they want to go. I am. I am. And then transition into we are, we are DIA. And so we had to do that. I will say it does get people in their feels, you know, like people like that. It was a hit.
00:33:18:11 - 00:33:41:16
John Azoni
But, you know, as a videographer that sees a lot of that stuff, it's not my favorite thing to do. But, you know, we do it sometimes we're forced to show a logo open with the logo. Like I said, I'm going to tell you once not to do it and then I'm going to follow your lead. The diversity thing that Colin mentioned, I don't think that we would go as far as showing like the perfect mix of racially diverse students.
00:33:42:01 - 00:34:03:02
John Azoni
However, there does have to be like some semblance of diversity. That is something that we are conscious of a lot when we're editing because, you know, on some level it is the right thing to do, especially if you have a diverse population. But where I think we would go wrong is fabricating diversity. Like if you're a mostly white university.
00:34:03:04 - 00:34:23:10
John Azoni
Well, I mean, maybe it's a problem. Maybe that's something you should work on, you know, in an actual real life sense, like maybe you should attract some more diversity, but also, like, you don't want your marketing to show this, like super diverse population and then have students get there and it's completely wrong, like they'd feel lied to. So, yeah, there's a line we definitely at Unveiled.
00:34:23:10 - 00:34:43:00
John Azoni
We do care a lot about diversity and we pay attention to that in our videos. And there are times when we've, you know, we've had to kind of fake a little bit sometimes marketing, You got to gloss things up a little bit. But we are we are conscious not to do too much of that. Pay actors to appear on camera instead of showcasing your amazing students, faculty, staff and alumni.
00:34:43:12 - 00:34:59:23
John Azoni
I'll just say, sometimes you got to hire an actor. Sometimes you got to hire actors to be in the video because real people don't want to be in the video, you know? And sometimes you just you need to get the shot quick and you need someone that knows what they're doing. They can deliver the line or they can just do the thing and they're there to be on camera.
00:34:59:23 - 00:35:19:12
John Azoni
That's the thing that's awkward for me as a videographer that is like 99% of the time. The people that your filming either don't want to be on camera or don't know they're going to be on camera. They didn't know there was going to be a guy with a camera, you know, on campus, you know, trying to show random people walking around, having a good time and they're like, Who is this guy?
00:35:19:15 - 00:35:37:01
John Azoni
That's like, I was so uncomfortable for me. Like when I actually I'm the one doing the filming when people don't know or don't want to be on camera. And that's where having actors makes things easier. Like when you're doing commercial stuff in hiring actors, that just makes things a lot easier because you're just dealing with people that they're getting paid to be there and be on camera.
00:35:37:01 - 00:35:50:21
John Azoni
And it's not awkward for them to do what you're asking them to do anyway. All right. So that's some of the just want to make sure I told them myself a little bit. I'm not in a sense of some of these video scenes myself. So anyway, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you soon.
