Storytelling, as we know it goes back to the days of Aristotle who was the first to define that a good story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. You may wonder why Aristotle’s thoughts are valid today, and the simple answer to that is evolution.
Our minds have evolved following that structure of storytelling through the years. We tend to pass on all of our relevant and important information through stories. Stories that may be long or short, but long enough to reach a point. A point that is made through writing, speaking, or through pictures and videos to articulate our thoughts.
Think of a story you recently narrated to someone. When you described it, you would have illustrated its timeline of events and made it easily relatable and memorable to the person you’re narrating to. Because that’s what lies in the power of storytelling – building a strong emotional bond that’s relative to the topic being discussed.
Taking the anatomy of storytelling a bit further, characters have been the portal of every story. They are the anchor to get your audience to stay interested and buy into your story. Every person can identify with the characters in your story in one way or another. Some relate to, some empathize with, some compare and some even become the characters themselves.
Now let’s put your brand in context here. Your brand’s story, personality and identity are entirely based on the content you communicate to the world. The audience who consumes your brand’s content will form their entire perception based on that content. This is where video stands tall as the best medium for storytelling.
Video content is unique; not only does it tell your brand’s story, but it shows it in the best possible way. Videos can relate information, educate, engage and empower people in a way that written or designed content cannot. Articulating a story through a powerful video overpowers any piece of writing, or design in today’s age, considering the shorter attention span that people have. As per data trends last year, it’s clear that the dramatic increase in video creation and consumption caused by the pandemic is here to stay. The pandemic made everyone take a step back and pushed everything virtual. And that’s where videos became opportunities for brands to connect emotionally with their audiences.
On average, people spend 80% of their time online watching videos off of platforms like TikTok and Instagram and content creators are currently creating videos as their primary form of content for one main reason – connecting with billions around the world, in a matter of 15 seconds (or more) to raise awareness or just make someone on the other end of the planet, smile.
Let’s look at the top 5 reasons why your brand should jump on the video content bandwagon:
Videos are more engaging
Let’s face it, when you’re trying to research for your next pitch or ground-breaking idea, you’d look for a relevant video on YouTube over skimming through a 500-word article any day (except this one of course). That’s purely because video content engages our senses far more than any other form of content. Since we can’t feel, taste or smell everything we see on our screens (just yet), seeing it and hearing it (through videos) are the next best thing. Statistics prove that when a viewer engages with a video, they retain 95% of its messaging.
Videos increase your brand’s awareness
We live in a world where, as soon as someone hears of a new brand, product (or even person), they immediately look them up on the web, or on any social media platform to see and learn more about their personality. At that moment, if your brand does not make it in the first impression of being digitally savvy, you’ve already lost the plot. Your brand’s identity and personality are based entirely on the content you communicate to the world, and most importantly how you do it. Jumping on the bandwagon by creating an impressive video about your brand, and showing the people who make that brand successful, will change the way those ROI numbers look in your financial reports. Consumers today believe in transparency; they want to be able to see, feel and relate to your brand in order to engage with it and then talk about it in their circle of trust.
Videos can go far beyond colour palettes
Colour palettes and typefaces are super important (don’t get me wrong) but taking those brand design elements into sets, colour grading, costumes, animation and music just means that you’re creating more space for a unique brand story that would help make a lasting impression on your audience. At Socialeyez, this year we’ve consciously adopted a “story-first” approach across our creative thinking and once we’ve cracked the concept of that story, we then think of the colours, typography and elements that complement it. The sole purpose of which is to be connected with the audience.
Videos build the strongest emotional connection
If there’s any medium that can help you create the strongest bonds with your audience, its video. This goes back to how video content touches most senses, and when a brand touches its audiences with feelings of empathy, relatability, and real content through its videos, the concept of brand affinity is born. Brand affinity makes audiences feel like they’ve spent a lot of time with the brand. Your ultimate goal is that you want people to spend more time with your brand, strengthen their ties and feel closer to your business because of it.
Videos stand out on social media
Videos have shaped the way platforms operate. Be it Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and even LinkedIn, each of these have native video platforms and videos have proven to get higher engagement rates on every platform than text or image posts. So if you want to be able to stand out and acquire engaged audiences on social media, then you’re going to need to have a lot of video content. The good news, however, is that current trends focus on short-form video content that is raw, real and in the moment. And budget-friendly! A 15-second creative reel shot on a phone can get more views and engagement than most high budget TVCs.
With the current scene of how more and more brands and agencies are investing in smaller in-house video teams to create authentic video content, and with the new trend of focusing more on experimentation, there’s no doubt that your brand will lose its relevance if left behind.
