Is Your Brand Video a Tinder Catfish? When to (and NOT to) Use Stock Footage Video
Let’s imagine you’re a marketing pro at a big company. The pressure is on. You need a stunning new video for your homepage, like, yesterday. The budget is… well, let’s just say it’s ‘cosy’. Suddenly, the glittering world of stock footage video libraries starts calling your name. It’s quick, it’s affordable, it looks slick. What could possibly go wrong?
Hold your horses. Before you build your entire brand story on clips of ‘Woman Laughing Alone With Salad’, stop and think. Despite your low budget, you ended up so preoccupied with whether or not you could produce a video, you didn’t stop to think if you should.
Let’s be clear: we’re not bashing stock footage. Think of it like a secret spice in the video editing suite. A little pinch can add that extra something, but nobody wants a curry that’s 90% paprika.
This is your friendly guide to using stock footage as the useful tool it is, without accidentally catfishing your audience.
The Golden Rules: When Stock Footage is Your Best Mate
Sometimes, stock footage video is an absolute lifesaver. It’s the perfect solution for getting those one or two shots that would be wildly expensive or just plain impossible to capture yourself. We give it the green light for:
- The “Impossible” Shot: Need a sweeping drone shot of the New York skyline, a time-lapse of Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing, or a clip of a the Amazonian rainforest halfway across the world? Unless you’ve got a Hollywood-level budget, stock footage video is your friend. Stock footage is perfect for establishing a location or illustrating a grand concept.
- The Quick Cutaway (B-Roll): A well-placed, generic shot can be brilliant for adding visual texture. Think of a 2-second clip of fingers typing on a keyboard, a close-up of coffee being poured, or a bustling street scene. It helps to smooth over edits and keep the pace snappy without distracting from your core message.
- The Budget Stretcher: Let’s be real. If your video absolutely needs a shot of a wind turbine at sunset to make a point, and you don’t have the budget to hire a crew and wait for the perfect light, a single, carefully chosen stock clip can save the day. The keyword here is single.
- Carbon Friendly: Stock footage video means you don’t need to travel across the country, or even the planet, to get that one shot you need that completes your edit. It’s the perfect; shoot once, use forever scenario.
A Quick Word on The Legal Bits: Licensing
Now for the slightly less rock-and-roll part, but one that could save you from a very scary letter from a lawyer: licensing. You can’t just grab any stock footage video you find. Every single piece of stock footage comes with a license that dictates how you can use it. The main ones you’ll see are:
- Royalty-Free (RF): This is the most common. It does not mean the clip is free of charge! It means you pay a one-off fee to use the clip multiple times across different projects without paying any further royalties. It’s your typical “multi-use” licence, offering great flexibility.
- Rights-Managed (RM): This is more specific and often covers higher-end footage. The price is based on how you plan to use it – for example, a “single use” in a web video for one year in the UK only. If you want to use it again or in a different country, you have to re-license it. It’s more restrictive, so you have to be careful.
- Editorial Use Only: You’ll see this label a lot. It means the stock footage video (often of real events or people) can be used for news and documentary purposes, but not for commercial or promotional work. Using one of these clips to advertise your product is a definite no-no.
The bottom line? Always, always, always read the small print on the license agreement before you click ‘download’.
Danger Zone: When Your Stock Footage Video Becomes a Brand Catastrophe
Here’s where we get serious. Using stock footage for your entire video, especially a flagship piece like a homepage film, is like telling a blatant lie to your audience’s face.
Your Homepage Video is Your Digital Handshake.
Picture this: you’ve been chatting to someone on a dating app. Their pictures are incredible – they’re climbing mountains, laughing with impossibly attractive friends, and cuddling a golden retriever. You’re sold. You arrange to meet for a coffee, and… the person who shows up looks nothing like their profile. The disappointment is real. You feel misled, and the trust is gone.
That’s exactly what you’re doing when you use a video made entirely of stock footage.
That slick, modern office with the smiling, diverse team? It’s not your office. They’re not your people. That video is not you, your brand, or your story. You’re showing your audience a polished fantasy, and deep down, they know it.
Don’t state that you’re a “diverse” team of professionals if you need to use stock imagery of a diverse team to back it up.
And we’ve all seen on sustainability websites this image and it’s soooooo generic!
If your budget really is that tight, then how important is this to the organisation? Could you spend that money on something else that would be more effective? You might think that an unrepresentational stock footage video is better than no video, but not one that activley deceives your audience.
The ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ Effect
Beyond the crisis of identity, there’s a huge technical problem. You’ve hand-picked five, ten, maybe fifteen ‘perfect’ clips from different artists. But when you try and stitch them together, you’ve not made a masterpiece; you’ve created a monster.
Different clips don’t formulate a cohesive visual style because:
- They’re shot on different cameras: Every camera sensor has its own unique “visual DNA,” capturing colours and light in a slightly different way.
- The lighting is all over the place: One clip shot in a studio in Germany will have crisp, controlled lighting. The next, shot outdoors on a cloudy day in Canada, will have a soft, cool feel. The jarring contrast screams ‘amateur’.
- Frame rates don’t match: One clip might be a cinematic 24 frames per second, while another is a smoother 30 or 50. Mixing them can create a stuttering, unprofessional look.
A good editor can spend hours (and a good chunk of your budget) trying to colour-grade and tweak these clips to match, but you can never fully disguise the fact that they were born in different worlds. The result is a video that feels disjointed and cheap, undermining the very quality you were trying to project.
Give Your Audience the Real Deal
Your audience deserves better. They’ve given you their time and attention – the most valuable currency there is. Don’t repay them with a generic stock footage video featuring ‘Businesswoman Pointing at Whiteboard’ who has also appeared in ads for three of your competitors.
Give them bespoke video content that resonates. Content that shows off your real team, your actual workspace (messy desks and all!), and the genuine passion behind your brand. This is how you build a connection. This is how you build trust.
As a 2021 report from Stackla highlighted, a massive 88% of consumers say authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands they like and support. They want the real you!
Bespoke video allows you to:
- Tell Your Unique Story: What makes your company culture special? Who are the amazing people who make it all happen? Stock footage can never capture your unique personality.
- Show, Don’t Just Tell: Let customers see your actual processes, products, and people. It’s infinitely more powerful and believable than a staged clip.
- Build Lasting Brand Equity: An authentic brand film is an investment that pays dividends. It’s content that is 100% yours, setting you apart from the competition and creating a genuine emotional connection with your viewers.
Don’t Catfish Your Customers
So, the next time you’re planning a video, ask yourself: do you want to show your audience a pretty lie, or do you want to show them who you really are?
Using stock footage as a sprinkle of spice in your video is smart. Relying on it for the whole meal is a recipe for disaster.
Ready to create a video that’s 100% authentic and truly you? Get in touch with us for a chat!
