From the new Covid-19 Kindness Offensive project to the dangers of online sexual abuse, here’s our pick of the latest in video communications. For more from #CommunicateLens, follow @Communicatemag.

Lush Kindness Offensive

Lush Kindness Offensive UK cosmetic retailer Lush worked with London-based charity The Kindness Offensive to produce ‘Lush C19 Kindness Offensive,’ a video that celebrates the organisations’ partnership in supporting 35 charities, during the Covid-19 crisis. The Lush Kindness Offensive reached over 100,00 people with Lush products, ranging from people looking after the homeless and refugees, to hospices and children’s charities all over London. The three-and-a-half-minute video features all the different people who participated in the initiative, both on the giving and receiving end. As they speak about their experience, the footage shows the work they did all over the country- from packing the Lush products into trucks to bringing them to people’s doorsteps. Among others, NHS workers are seen holding their Lush packages, smiling.

“This whole Coronavirus thing is a nightmare but in the middle of it there is a lot of giving, a lot of joy and a lot of kindness,” says one participant of the scheme. He is only one voice among the wide-ranging plethora of different voices included, which demonstrates how far-reaching and impactful the project was.

Hip Video

Video production company Hip Video released a video on safe filming during Covid-19, as most film companies were not allowed to go on site to film footage. The two-minute video is an explainer about the contingencies put in place by Hip Video to ensure the safety of staff and clients. They include guaranteed symptom-free crew, separate client refreshment facilities, and cleaning before every shoot. The video opens with a staff member of Hip Video talking to the computer camera, which, as he defines it, is the new ‘face-to-face.’ Combining this footage with PowerPoint-like slides that explain the measures taken in place to ensure safety on shoot days, the video gives clear and straightforward information for clients seeking to return on site.

Raven Housing Trust

Non-profit social housing provider Raven Housing Trust launched a new corporate video, ‘Putting Purpose Before Profit’ to both celebrate the company’s social purpose of building homes and saving lives, and highlighting their strengths as a company for future employees. The video features different staff members reciting the core principles of Raven Housing Trust, from trust and accountability to understanding the needs of others to being environmentally friendly and planning for a zero-carbon future. After the company mission is set out, staff members speak to potential employees about how Raven Housing Trust provides a great working environment, from having a healthy work/life balance, giving quality training and allowing employees to shape their own roles and climb up the ladder, from apprentices to director. By using members to talk about company benefits, the video allows viewers to feel welcomed to apply for their jobs there and to fully appreciate those who could become their future colleagues. The video ends by saying, ‘If you’re looking to make a real difference, if you’re looking for a job that puts purpose before profit, you can stop looking.’

National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation Agency + BAE systems

The National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit (NCA-CEOP) , which leads efforts to counter online child sexual abuse, and the BAE systems, an international organisations that fights cybercrime, worked with video production agency Kaptcha to create a video that highlights the ways in which the two organisations work together. The film showcases the work that the CEOP officers do on a daily basis, in addition to explaining BAE’S relationship with CEOP and how they assist and augment their existing capability. By combining interviews with officers from the CEOP and BAE systems with footage of a young girl being ‘groomed’ online by a paedophile, the video clearly presents, in just a matter of minutes, how dangerous online abuse can be and how important the role of the agency and BAE is.

"This wasn’t a video that aimed to nakedly self-promote. Instead it told a story that allowed the viewer to see the impact and innovation of the project without being sold to. The high production quality and narrative approach really lowered the barrier to people engaging with the story, leading to it being one of our most successful online videos,” says Ravi Gogna,at  BAE Applied Intelligence.