How to Make a Good Launch Video in Tech

Most launch videos in tech suck.

Cinematic launches are easy to hate on for being lofty. Cheap launches are easy to hate on for lacking taste. I want to show tech companies how to strike the right balance, how to create the kind of launch video that actually gets results.

When done right, yes. Launch videos do work

Ultimately, a winning video campaign can decide whether you’re in the headlines or chasing them. That’s why OpenAI spent $14M on a Super Bowl Ad. That's why Cluely is doubling down on content. That’s why a film festival was recently launched specifically for tech.

In 2025, video content is the first thing people remember about your product. It’s the thing they share, it’s the thing you share, it’s the thing people use to decide if you are FOMO-inducing, in the heat of the great global AI race, or just another product worth skipping.

You may think you’re above marketing. But it’s not possible to achieve success without attention, whether that comes from a popular founder or an organic community in niche tech circles. This is not a new take.

The entire foundation for Supernova was built on the idea that consumer brands are slowly behaving more and more like tech companies and tech companies are behaving more and more like consumer brands (I’ve said this many times).

In the summer of 2025, it’s become clear that tech companies without a video strategy are doomed to fail.

Today’s write-up is centered around the modern technology company, and how thinking like a consumer brand can place it at the center of cultural influence.

There are two types of tech teams in 2025

There are two types of tech founders / marketing teams I talk to on the regular.

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Type 1: tech teams who understand creative brand marketing and see the intangible benefits.

Type 2: teams that are stalled by the product purists, the marketing skeptics. Their team doesn’t necessarily see the ROI behind creative, but they are still talking to me because their investors, advisors, or marketing leadership made a convincing case.

The type 1 bucket of “creative-literate tech team” is easy to convince on a launch video. They realize what even the biggest and most successful tech companies in the world already know:

Your message is as important as your product.

This holds especially true when you consider where tech is headed, a future where anyone can customize their UX and see the world as they choose to see it.

On the other side of the coin, I don’t know if marketing-hestitant technology leaders are ready to fully embrace the idea that product development is flattening and it’s no longer the sole driver of differentiation in the marketplace.

In order to understand what makes a good launch campaign in 2025, it’s important to consider the macro state of technology.

Superintelligence is not singular. Tell a different story

Ultimately, “superintelligence” is not singular. It won’t be created by a sole winner in a vacuum. It will be a domino effect.

Once a few players achieve some level of intelligence, the rest will follow. How we decide between Gemini, GPT, Claude, Cursor, Deepseek, Midjourney, or Firefly will not be determined by product. It will be determined by colors and symbols.

Like tech marketing, there seem to be two emergent fields of thought in the world of artificial intelligence on a macro level:

“AI is replacing everything” and

“AI is just a tool”

There are smart people in both camps.

It is much more than a matter of early adopters versus late majority. It’s more than choosing between “those who get it” and those who are too non-technical to see the value. The difference lies between how we process the current state of technology and how we contextualize the significance of an AI world on a 50-year-plus timeline. Some of us tend to skew toward the latter.

Mark3ting by Supernova 🪩 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today, the world doesn’t look all that different at face value than it did 30 years ago. People are still walking dogs, mowing lawns, fixing toilets, building bridges. Will that still hold true in 2055? Is AI an existential threat, or a new paradigm that serves as a futuristic extension of how humans already operate?

Seems cliché to ask these questions. But it’s important to consider these social frameworks around tech when making lofty claims about your AI in a launch campaign or product release. Your words matter, and even one adjective can be the difference between pissing the world off or making them fall in love.

Are you replacing jobs or creating them? It depends on how you frame it…

Seek creative that’s creative, but grounded in business reality

Back to launch video strategies.

First off. Don’t be the brand that makes an amazing video but fails to do anything attention worthy or explain what the company actually does. If you’re going cinematic, make it product focused or make it controversial.

That way, you maximize your spend through eyeballs or user education.

At the same time, you don’t want a launch video that feels like a 120-second webinar tutorial with your Technical Support team (like this Glean video). Sorry Glean.

You have to find a balance between:

• How do I compete with Internet attention (I’m talking Internet. Not just tech Twitter)?
• How do I clearly articulate what my company does without using jargon?
• Why should anyone (literally anyone) care?

And you have to do this in under 60 seconds. Really, in 30 seconds. Oh yeah, and 70% of viewers will drop off after the first 5 seconds.

What to do (what not to do)

This launch video from my friends at 1X Tech checks all the boxes for me:

• immediately grabs you
• entertaining on its own
• 100% understand what the product is, unique to the brand
• good balance of visionary and grounded in what is possible today
• does not drag on too long

On the other hand, this AI agent demo release misses the mark:

• slow start with flat shots and long transitions
• too company/product focused
• lacks heart, character
• visually unappealing, looks like any other video

The first feels like it belongs on the internet and specific to 1X. The second feels like it belongs in an internal sales deck. Being harsh, but it’s important to see the difference.

The Supernova recipe for making a great launch video

If you fail to entertain, you look like everyone else. If you overcompensate for entertainment value, it better be part of your brand ethos, or you will lose credibility on product.

Here’s our launch video checklist:

• If we didn’t work at the company, if we weren’t a potential customer, would we still watch it for at least the first 5 seconds?
• If we removed our branding, could it look like any other peer or competitor?
• Does it drive a core human emotion (happy, sad, funny, angry)?
• Does it explain what the product does, why it’s unique, or how it creates value (aka why should people care)? Ideally all three, but at least two.
• Are we going deep or going wide? Are we aiming for virality or serving a niche audience?
• Where do we want people to go after seeing the video? Landing page, profile follow, app download? That should be top of mind when making the story.
• If I spent one tenth of the budget, or ten times the budget, how would I change this to make it really count?

Launch videos are popular right now because they are the most compressed, highest-leverage way to combine product clarity with cultural relevance. Find a healthy mix of fast and crafted. I’ll leave you with this:

If your launch video can’t stand on its own for 5 to 10 seconds in an unrelated social feed with the sound off, if you can’t turn 5 seconds of attention into an opportunity to influence new customers, you aren’t thinking big enough. There’s too much noise out there to go to market so plainly.

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