Never has there been such an opinionated age as now. No matter what the topic, whether trivial or significant, these days everyone has a view. And that’s what makes the use of vox pops so valuable as part of a PR campaign.
The term “vox pop” comes from Latin, meaning voice of the people. In PR and broadcast terms, vox pops are short soundbite interviews with random members of the public, the aim of which is to establish a snapshot view of what the masses think about a particular topic.
To show you what we mean, we’ve asked people in London what their personal highlight was in 2017:
So, what do vox pops add to a PR campaign?
- Vox pops are a great way of stimulating debate because you can express a variety of different views through them.
- Engaging video is all about content and humour is a good way of doing this – impromptu comment can often be a good vehicle for this.
- Vox pops are relatively quick to produce as you don’t need to book time in anyone’s diary. Whilst you often have to ask several people to get one decent answer, it’s only a matter of time before you get enough good content as there are an infinite number of people to ask!
- Vox pops can be used in a variety of different ways – they’re short and sweet enough to be used individually for social media, or to join together to be used alone or as part of a video package.
- They’re cost effective – if you asked us to produce them for you, something like this would cost from £250:
Guidelines for producing successful vox pops:
- Unless your campaign is targeting a specific demographic group, try and use a variety of interviewees. Voice of the people means your interviews should be representative of the general public, so try and include both male and female voices, a range of ages, and some ethnic diversity.
- Think about your location. It needs to be appropriate to the topic, but you need to avoid unnecessary distractions such as background noise or activity. So a park with dog walkers in the background might be appropriate for asking people about their pets, but you might go to a market to ask people if they eat 5 fruit or veg a day.
- Questions should be open-ended to avoid a yes or no answer. Ideally an edited answer should be between 5 and 15 seconds long. A good producer will encourage the interviewee to reflect the question back in their answer, so there’s no need for further explanation.
- The vox pops should be varied and reflect different views – it’s just too dull, and defeats the object if everyone says the same thing.
What to do if you’d like to commission some vox pops:
We specialise in producing high quality video, quickly and cost-effectively. If you’d like to discuss any upcoming projects please email keren@shoutcommunications.co.uk or give us a call on 020 7240 7373.
