The First Corporate Video Your Firm Should Actually Commission

You're three months into a marketing role at a professional firm. The senior partner has dropped, between two meetings, the phrase "we should be doing more with video." The agency you used last for the brochure has emailed asking if you'd like to chat. Three colleagues have forwarded LinkedIn posts from other firms with videos that landed well. You have a notional budget, no clear brief, and a faint sense that the moment to start is now but the cost of starting wrong is also real.

This post is for you. Here's the film we'd suggest as a firm's first proper commission, why, and how to scope it so the next one becomes obvious.

Don't start with the brand film

The instinct is almost always to start with the brand film. A 90-second piece on the homepage that introduces the firm. It feels like the foundational asset, the one that should come first.

It almost never is. Brand films are the hardest film to make well, the slowest to date, and the easiest to commission generically. Most firms' first brand films are competently made and quietly forgettable. They sit on the homepage for 18 months, get watched 400 times, and quietly get pulled when the website is next refreshed.

The first commission should be something that pays back faster, that the sales team will actually use, and that gives the firm and the videographer a working relationship to build on. That isn't usually the brand film.

Start with one good case study

The film we'd recommend almost every B2B firm commission first is a single, well-made case study film.

Two to three minutes. Built around one client engagement the firm is genuinely proud of. The client on camera describing the situation, the work, and the outcome. The firm appears as the agent of change in someone else's story, not as the protagonist of their own. (We get into the editorial shape in more detail in our piece on B2B case studies.)

Why this one first:

It pays back immediately. The sales team starts attaching it to outbound emails the day it's delivered. Conversion on a "send me an example of your work" reply goes up. The marketing team has a piece that's trying to do something specific, and you can measure whether it does.
It teaches the firm what to make next. The act of commissioning a case study film surfaces things you'll need for everything that comes after: which clients are willing to talk on camera, who's good at interviewing, what the firm's brand book actually looks like under broadcast lighting, how the legal team feels about confidentiality on filmed engagements.
It dates slowly. A specific story from a real engagement aged five years ago is still useful as a marketing asset. A brand film that says "in 2026 we believe…" dates the moment the calendar turns over.
It's hard to mess up catastrophically. A bad brand film can damage the firm's positioning. A merely-okay case study film is still useful; the worst-case outcome is "the sales team uses it less than we'd like" rather than "the brand consultant we hired before flinches every time it loads."

The first commission should de-risk the firm's relationship with video. The case study film de-risks more than anything else.

How to pick the right case study

Three filters, applied in order:

The client is willing to be on camera. This is the gating constraint. If you can't get the client on camera with their name, their face, and their words on the record, the case study has to be anonymous, which destroys most of its conversion value. Confirm willingness early. The right case study is usually the one whose client offers to go on camera before you've finished explaining the brief.
The story has a shape. A clear before, a clear middle, a clear after. The client's problem was specific. The firm's contribution was specific. The outcome is measurable enough to be credible. (For more on what "shape" means here, see our case studies post.)
The work is recent enough to feel current, old enough that the dust has settled. Six to eighteen months after the engagement closed is usually the sweet spot. Too recent and the client may not have full perspective yet. Too old and they may have moved roles.

A useful exercise: list the firm's three most recent engagements that closed well. Ask each of those clients, informally, whether they'd be open to a short on-camera conversation about the work. The first one to say yes is almost always the right first case study.

What to budget

A well-made first case study film should land in the *£*3,500 to *£*7,500 range in London. (Our budget breakdown post maps where this sits in the broader pricing bands.) That covers:

A single-day shoot with a videographer plus second camera and audio operator.
Two locations (the firm's office plus, ideally, the client's space).
A 2-3 minute hero film cut for the website and sales emails.
One short cutdown (60 seconds) for LinkedIn.
Captions, colour and audio mix.
Two rounds of revisions.

That budget is enough to deliver something the firm will use and small enough to be a sensible first investment. Above it, you're buying scale you may not be ready to deploy. Below it, you're buying something the sales team won't actually attach.

What to commission second

The shape of the second commission depends almost entirely on what the firm learns from the first. Common patterns:

The case study landed and clients in similar shape are watching. The next move is usually a second case study, in a different vertical or treatment area. Two well-made case studies are dramatically more useful than one; they let the sales team match the right film to the right prospect.
The case study landed but the firm wants to broaden the marketing reach. Now is the right time for the brand film. The first commission proved the firm and the videographer can work together; the brand film is the harder, slower, longer-lifetime asset that builds on that.
Recruitment came up as the highest-need area. A graduate or early-careers film comes next. (Our graduate recruitment post covers that shape.) Often shot with similar editorial principles but a different audience.
The firm wants a thought-leadership asset. A longer-form interview with a senior partner on a specific topic, the kind of film that gets watched on a slow burn for years. (Covered in our thought-leadership post.)

The first commission tells you which of these is next. Without it, you're guessing.

The wrong first commissions

Three patterns that look attractive but consistently disappoint:

A "highlight reel" of recent work. Tempting, especially if the firm has photos and footage already. But the result is almost always a montage that doesn't make any specific claim. Marketing teams who try to skip the first case study and lead with a highlight reel usually end up commissioning a case study six months later anyway.
A series of short LinkedIn-format pieces. The seven-piece-content-strategy. Each individual piece is too thin to convert, and the whole campaign performs like one or two of them would have if they'd been made well. Concentration of effort almost always beats spread of effort on a first commission.
The "we'll just film an event and see what comes out." Without a clear deliverable in mind, the edit becomes a guessing game. Event coverage is a valid first commission, but only if you know what the film is supposed to do (highlight cut for next year's marketing, recorded sessions for the on-demand library) before the camera comes out.

A one-paragraph summary

Pick one client whose engagement closed in the last 12 months and who'd happily go on camera. Commission a 2-3 minute case study film built around their experience. Budget *£*3,500 to *£*7,500. Get a one-minute cutdown for LinkedIn at the same time. Send it to the sales team the day it's delivered and watch what they do with it. That's the first commission, that's where the firm starts, and that's the asset every subsequent commission earns its place against.