It’s probably the case that the expression ’going viral’ doesn’t sound quite so attractive since a certain, real life virus came along and caused havoc in all our lives.

Nonetheless it’s still the ideal that most marketing departments aspire to through their social media. So what makes a really great short message video? Working Week talks to one financial services company whose video not only went viral but also won them an award.

David Viera is the chief communications officer for the JTC Group, which was founded in Jersey in 1987.

He says: ’We’ve grown from humble beginnings on another small island just like the Isle of Man: we’re now global with offices in more than 20 countries, 1,300 staff and 6,000 clients globally. Our mains areas of focus are fund services, corporate services and private client services and we listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2018.’

Like many similar companies, JTC has been reducing the number of Christmas cards it sends out to clients and intermediaries, in favour of email greetings,

Ping Ho, who like David is Jersey-based, is senior manager of the group’s business development and marketing.

She says: ’We would send them an ecard, which was usually animated with something sparkly on it but, because everybody was doing that in the industry, we wanted to separate ourselves with a video.

’Three years ago we started to create short, two-minute videos that would give our partners and our clients a message, thanking them, and we would have a theme around it. So the first one was all about how much we spent in the community, then we evolved a year later to our culture, based on our people with lots of pictures of them, so our clients and intermediaries could see who was doing the work for them.

’Then obviously in 2020 it was the pandemic and people were struggling around the world and so we decided to do a virtual choir, because virtual choirs were very popular at that time.’

’So we reached out, at JTC, to see whether we would have enough volunteer singers to produce a choir and luckily we did, we had 20 people, and that’s how it came about.’

The choir included two singers from JTC’s Isle of Man office, Liz Rivers and Carol Joyce.

Liz, who is manager of the fiduciary review team, says: ’We’re always looking to expand, to bring on new customers and find solutions for new and existing customers, so this was a great way to get JTC on the map in the Isle of Man.’

The song they chose to use for the video was Des’ree’s ’You Got to Be’.

Ping says: ’The lyrics resonated with our slogan, Stronger Together, and gave the messaging of what we were all feeling that year and how we were all together as well.’

Right from the start, this made it different from their previous videos: the song was three minutes and 20 seconds in length rather than two minutes and people’s attention spans have generally become shorter and shorter.

Would people watch it all the way through?

David says: ’I will hold my hand up. When Ping was putting the video together I said: "Shouldn’t we just have 50 seconds and the chorus but, actually, it was so emotive people were enjoying the whole song.

’It was definitely the right call to let it play. In general you probably don’t want to go three minutes and 20 seconds but I think because of the subject and how it came across it worked really well.’

When it came to making the video, they had a bit of good fortune. The sister of one of Ping’s team members was in the London production of the Lion King, along with her boyfriend. They were both on furlough at the time because of the pandemic and were only too delighted to earn a bit of extra money. ’They helped us with the arrangement and then one of our video suppliers has done music before so he gave us pointers on what to do. Then it was just a case of each individual [in the choir] filming themselves and sending it in,’ says Ping.

The end result is very watchable and definitely showcases some very talented singers that the company has. But what it mostly is, as Liz Rivers says, is ’genuine and authentic’. It is well produced but not so slick that it fails to be engaging and, because of the extraordinary issues facing everyone during the pandemic, it came from the heart.

And that is probably the secret of its success and that of any marketing message: it was of its time and it struck a chord with people at the time.

David says: ’We sent it to clients and intermediaries - law firms, accountants, etc - so it’s a very commercial world, it’s all very hard nosed, and people are sitting there at Christmas going: "Oh yeah we get loads of these emails messages".

’But we’ve had lawyers and others coming back to us and going: "I’ve just watched your video and it nearly made me cry".’

Liz Rivers agrees, saying: ’We had some good feedback from local intermediaries and also, within the group, an increased awareness of the Isle of Man. We are encouraged to share JTC on social media and we had lots of good feedback from our friends and family. News travels fast on the island.’

It was also good for JTC’s employees. David says: ’It was a much more personal connection and, because our people were in it, they felt really proud. And the singers were getting friends who’d seen it on Facebook saying: "I saw your bit - that’s so cool".

’It was about being real and human and very personal, not corporate, that wasn’t the point. It was a little bit of revealing who we are rather than being all traditionally glossy and corporate.’

The video also scooped them a silver award in a Europe-wide competition organised by Impact Awards. Ping, as project leader, went to London to collect the award.

Liz says: ’I would say it was lovely to be able to connect with people and a very satisfying venture. I think this whole project captured that creativity very well, connecting with people and having a genuineness, and authenticity.

’It’s not just what you do it’s the way that you do it. Not just presenting a corporate hard-nosed image but being real people.’