Brand stories · portrait 9:16
How to make a brand video
A brand video sits between two failure modes: the product demo that explains everything and feels like nothing, and the UGC ad that has energy but no point of view. The version that works is portrait-first, built on one belief you are willing to state plainly, carried by type and rhythm rather than narration. baz ships this as the Branding video skill — a portrait brand story with more attitude than a demo and less noise than UGC.
The shortcut: run a skill instead of starting from scratch
A skill is a context file that teaches an AI agent one specific video style — its structure, pacing, typography, motion grammar and sound design. Hand an agent the skill plus your product, and it rebuilds that video for you. The steps below are what the Branding video skill already encodes, so you can follow them by hand or let the skill carry them.
baz is a library of video skills: context files that teach an AI agent a specific motion-graphics style, so it can rebuild that video for your product, with your brand, from your inputs. Run a skill inside your own coding agent — Claude Code, Codex — or directly in the baz editor.
What you need before you start
Required
- One belief your brand actually holds — stated as a sentence you would defend
- Your brand assets: logo, colours, type
Makes it materially better
- A named audience, so the point of view has someone to be aimed at
- Any real proof — a metric, a customer, an origin detail — to keep it from being pure assertion
- A consistent sign-off you can reuse across a series
How to make a brand video: step by step
Write the one belief first
Not a tagline, not a value — a sentence someone could disagree with. "Most software is built for managers, not the people doing the work" is a point of view. "We believe in innovation" is not, because nobody believes the opposite.
Say it in the first three seconds
A brand video that builds atmosphere before making its point loses the portrait feed. Lead with the belief and let everything after it be elaboration.
Let type do the work
This format is carried by typography and rhythm, not by narration or footage. Strong type on a confident canvas reads as conviction; the same words spoken over stock footage reads as an advert.
Ground the attitude in one real thing
A point of view with no evidence is posturing. One concrete detail — a number, a customer, why you started — is what stops a brand video feeling like it could belong to anyone.
Keep the rhythm repeatable
Brand videos work as a series, not as a one-off. Establish a rhythm and a sign-off you can use again, so the fifth one is recognisably from the same brand as the first.
Resist explaining the product
The moment you start describing features, you have made a demo. If the viewer wants to know what it does, that is a different video — this one exists to make them care who you are.
What the finished video actually contains
Approximate timings for a 20–40 seconds cut. Treat them as a shape to hit, not a spec — the exact durations shift with your script and your music.
| Time | Beat | What is on screen |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | The belief | The point of view stated in type, before any brand identification. |
| 0:03–0:15 | Elaboration | The argument developed across a few short type beats with a consistent rhythm. |
| 0:15–0:30 | The proof | The one concrete thing that grounds the claim. |
| 0:30–0:40 | Sign-off | The lockup and a line you can repeat across the series. |
Mistakes that cost you the view
A belief nobody could disagree with
Do this instead: Take a position. If the opposite of your statement is absurd, your statement is empty.
Atmosphere before the point
Do this instead: Lead with the belief. Mood is what you sustain after you have earned attention, not how you acquire it.
Drifting into a feature list
Do this instead: Stay on the point of view. A brand video that explains the product has become a worse version of a demo.
Assertion with no evidence
Do this instead: Anchor it with one real detail. Without proof, any competitor could run the same video.
Treating it as a one-off
Do this instead: Design a repeatable rhythm. Brand is built by repetition, and a single video does not establish one.
Run it from your own agent
Skills are designed to run inside a terminal agent like Claude Code or Codex, against a project you control. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
npm install -g bazaar.it@latest
# Install this skill into your agent (Claude Code, Codex or Cursor)
baz skill add branding-video
baz project create --name "Branding video for my product"
baz prompt "make a brand video" --stream-json
baz review --summary --json
baz export start --wait --format mp4 --jsonOperations draw from a prepaid balance. See the CLI reference for the full command set.
Common questions
How is this different from a product launch video?
A launch video argues that you should use the product. A brand video argues that you should care about the company. They can share assets, but conflating them produces a video that does neither job.
Should it have a voiceover?
It works either way, but type-led tends to land harder in a muted feed and is cheaper to iterate. If you use narration, keep it to the belief and the proof rather than describing what is on screen.
Do I need video editing experience?
No. The skill carries the editing decisions — shot order, pacing, type treatment, transitions, sound design. You supply the raw material and the facts about your product; the agent assembles the cut. You review it and ask for changes in plain language.
Can I run this in my own coding agent instead of the baz editor?
Yes. Skills are designed to be run from a terminal agent like Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Install the CLI with `npm install -g bazaar.it@latest`, then `baz skill add <slug>` to pull the skill into your agent. The same skill produces the same style whether it runs in your agent or in the baz editor.
What does it cost?
baz bills against a prepaid dollar balance rather than a seat subscription — you top the balance up and each operation (generation, voiceover, render, export) draws a listed amount from it. There is no per-seat fee to make a video, and the price of each operation is published.
Can I change the video after it renders?
Yes, and this is the point of doing it as code rather than as a flat render. Every scene is a real component you can edit — ask the agent to re-time a beat, swap a screenshot, rewrite a line, or change the accent colour, and only that part rebuilds. You are not re-rendering from scratch each time.
Will every video from this skill look the same?
The grammar is the same — that is what makes it a skill and not a template. The content is not: your brand colours, typography, screenshots, copy and data all come from your inputs. Reusing one skill across a series is a feature, because episode three lands in the same visual language as episode one instead of being rebuilt from scratch.
Related guides
Pick a skill. Get the video.
Run the Branding video skill in your own coding agent, or in the baz editor. Usage comes out of a balance you top up, with a listed price per operation — no seat subscription to make a video.