Imagine this:
You’re waiting for your subway train. Just as the train arrives, a seemingly static billboard of a young woman with long hair comes to life and starts to blow around. It’s as if the wind generated from the train arrival is propelling the action.
Interesting, right? It gets better. To fully experience the message, watch the video below.
The end result is powerful.
As seen in the video, the element of surprise created an experience that was completely unexpected for the viewers. The video also succeeds in putting a human face on the issue of childhood cancer and offers an immediate solution to help by donating via text message.
Interestingly, the campaign was first introduced by a Swedish shampoo company, Apolosophy, as a traditional ad. The experience was showcased in the first half of the video with the clever interaction of showcasing a woman’s hair blowing as the train arrived. The initiative was so successful that it inspired Swedish charity, Barncancerfonden, to leverage the technology and user experience to tell its story.
Interested in tapping into the power of videos to captivate your consumers and drive action? Consider these tips as you build your strategy.
Embrace Videos To Tell Stories
When it comes to social media storytelling, the power of video if undeniable. From stories that are funny, educational, inspiring, surprising, motivational, or heartwarming, videos are personal, draw attention and resonate with viewers in a way other mediums cannot.
Align Video Goals With Audience Needs
In order to stand out with consumers, spend time mining top conversation topics and video centric social media channels that are popular for your company (e.g. YouTube, Vine, Instagram). The stories you successfully tell with video will be more successful if they’re relevant to your consumers and on platforms where you have an established audience.
Tone of Voice Must Align With Call To Action
Should your video be heartwarming, funny, or educational? The answer to this relies on a few things – the story you want to tell, the desired call to action, video goals, plus your company voice and values. Outline these objectives and the creative process will be much easier.
Understand Optimal Video Lengths
How long should your video be? This depends on the length of story you want to tell, plus your consumer’s attention span. There are tons of stats available on optimal video lengths, but at the end of the day, if a video is incredible, it will be watched. Start to test and learn across different short and longer form content to understand where you drop off rate is.
Consider Alternative Video Production Resources
Video is one of the more difficult visual mediums to master and produce. If you don’t have a lot of resources internally, or are struggling to bring your message to life, companies like Tongal offer a great opportunity to crowdsource your campaign to a multitude of video producers at once. Companies are also increasingly looking to work with Instagram, YouTube and Vine stars as a way to create video content while also tapping into an already engaged target audience.
