Pre-prepping your CEO: do they need media training?

You need to create a video and your new CEO will be the on-camera spokesperson. You’ve never filmed anything with them. You don’t even know if they’ve seen a camera before. The potential for stress is… not insignificant.

In this scenario, you may want to grab the red phone and call for immediate, emergency media training. Go go go!

But we’d actually prefer it if you didn’t. Most of the time, we actually find it easier to work with spokespeople who haven’t been media trained. There’s nothing wrong with media training, per se, but it’s usually centred around two main directives:

1. Hit these messages
2. Don’t say X, Y or Z

Much of it is designed for live interviews, where there’s one opportunity to get things right, and a lot of pitfalls to avoid. It’s defensive.

And, when you’re filming a marketing video, that approach is counter-productive. We want to do multiple takes, try different things out, and capture the more spontaneous, human moments that can make your spokespeople and videos more engaging. If your spokesperson is rigidly sticking to XYZ then we’ll get something that does the job, but it might be a bit ‘meh’.

On any of our shoots, our directors will work with your spokesperson to make sure we get what we need to make the best videos possible. That means making them feel comfortable, and helping them to deliver your messages in the most engaging, compelling way they can.