Creating employee highlight videos with emotional impact

Three Phoenix Senior Living staff members smiling together in a community hallway

Phoenix Senior Living is a national, renowned senior housing organization. Each year, they contract us to produce a series of videos that highlight their best employees.

The Brief

PSL wanted to celebrate their best caregivers, maintenance workers, cooks, admins, and managers. But we saw an opportunity to do so much more. We approached this project with certain goals in mind:

  • Highlight the employees. This was the main ask, and we helped spotlight the extraordinary people who give Phoenix its fire.
  • Reassure families. We saw this series as an opportunity to show prospective residents and their families what daily life feels like inside a Phoenix community, and how much care the staff gives the residents.
  • Recruit mission-driven talent. We wanted this content to stand out in a tight senior-care labor market, so potential future employees could see how special this organization really is.
A resident and her family member, Nyoka and Farrah, interviewed for the Phoenix Senior Living series

Our Creative Approach

Based on these goals, we established the pillars of our creative approach:

  • Docu-style, not commercial. We followed six employees through a typical day, blending candid footage with sit-down interviews. No big sets, no teleprompters -- just real conversations and raw moments.
  • 360-degree perspective. We interviewed residents, family members, and coworkers, layering the narrative with genuine testimonials of connection and love.
  • Lean crew, nimble gear. With a three person crew, two cameras, and a small audio and lighting kit, we minimized our footprint so we could focus our time on people rather than gadgets.
  • Editorial through-line. Each film ends on the employee’s personal “why”, reinforcing Phoenix’s core values.
A Phoenix Senior Living cook preparing food in a community kitchen

Multi-Purpose By Design

The winning element of this strategy is how many audiences the videos can reach, with completely different marketing purposes -- all without changing anything about the core videos.

Audience

Channel

Why It Works

Current employees
Leadership features these videos at their annual EPIC Gala.
The public recognition boosts morale, and retains employees.
Prospective residents and their families
Digitally via website banners, on social media, email campaigns, and as paid media. Also shown during community tours.
First-hand proof of attentive relationship-centered care.
Prospective employees
Careers page, Indeed listings, LinkedIn.
Shows the candidate a look at a day-in-the-life of the role, and the human impact they could have with such a supportive company culture.

Production Highlights, By the Numbers

Production by the numbers: 6 communities in 7 days across Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas and Virginia; 23 hours of raw footage cut into 6 stories; 4 hours of filming at each community; 0 disruptions to residents' routines; and a lot of happy tears shed filming and premiering the videos.

Key Takeaways

  • People > production value
    In community-driven businesses, authenticity beats aerial shots and fancy aesthetics every time. 
  • Design for multi-use
    ‍
    One shoot can feed three funnels when you know the endpoints from the start.
  • Celebrate publicly
    ‍
    Your company does important work and changes lives. Recognize the people that make that possible.

Watch the Series

Curious what genuine connection marketing looks like? View all six stories here:

Ready to Highlight Your Heroes?

If your team is doing incredible work, let’s capture it on film.
Reach out with the form below.

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