Why Story Matters // Cincinnati Video Production

We often encounter advertisements that promote a sale but fail to give us a real reason outside of price for choosing their product over others. Sales are great but if there's a story attached to a company, we often feel much better about our purchase. Several examples of this exist today: TOMS Shoes, Kashi, and Apple are great examples, just to name a few. Companies provide a greater story for you as the consumer to take part in when they have a story to tell--a story that’s about more than the products they sell. Most companies today are underselling themselves by not creating a narrative to have people join in on. The key is thinking back to the foundation of your business where there is almost always a passion that started that business. Maybe that passion is making cookies based on your ancestors' recipes or maybe that passion is working in transportation in order to improve the world's overall quality of life. Either way, there's a story worth telling from its origin, but how do you communicate that with your audience?

Experts from Carnegie Mellon studied how people would react when receiving a sales letter for a non-profit. The first letter sent out told many facts about the terrible living conditions of a third world country, and the second told a powerful story of a girl who lived in the country. The second letter saw 118% more donations compared to the first letter. Story simply connects in a way that facts and numbers cannot.

At DRIVE we’ve come to see video as the best form to tell your story because it is both immediately familiar to the audience and easily digestible as a consumer. Videos have shown to increase people’s understanding of your product or service by 74%. Furthermore, people are more likely to take action on a product if video drives them to do so, as research shows that 75% of users visit the marketer’s website after viewing a video that tells an excellent story. Video marketing has seen an uptick in usage by businesses from 52% in 2012 to 70% in 2013 and that number is expected to increase again this year. Crafting your video narrative should be a priority for your business.

All in all, you can't settle for a medium that drives action only after a viewer sees a sign (or even a dull commercial) 20 times. A viewer should feel driven to take action after the first glance at your commercial or video. Story is the way to drive them to that point of immediate action.

Nayak, Varun. "Online Video Increases Consumer's Understanding of Brand Products by 74%