Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
This is rule #14 in the Pixar 22 Rules of Storytelling published by Emma Coats, a Pixar storyboard artist.
It’s also one of the places we start when producing branded content for our clients.
Ultimately, the best stories that actually move audiences exist for more than just “selling”. Great brand storytelling is no exception.
If you’re creating content for your brand (video or otherwise) ask yourself the question:
Why must we tell THIS story?
No industry or business is exempt from this. It doesn’t matter if you’re in IT, consumer goods, healthcare, or franchising lemonade stands.
Every brand has the opportunity to connect with their audience at the human (emotional) level by telling stories that stand for something.
People choose to purchase from companies that believe in the same things that they believe in. We want to align ourselves with brands that we feel good engaging with.
Worried you don’t have an interesting or compelling story to tell?
Keep looking further.
As long as there are human beings involved, there’s a powerful story to be shared.
If you’re still stuck, here are some places to start:
- What are you curious about as an organization?
- What impact are you looking to have on your customers’ lives in the long term?
- What beliefs do you share as an organization that might go against the way things have always been done? How did you come to those beliefs?
- What obstacles have you overcome that your audience can relate with?
- How do you want your audience to feel? Then think of experiences in the past that have made YOU feel that way.
- What are your core values? What examples of those have you seen demonstrated remarkably in the world?
Storytelling is not just about saying what happened.
It’s about connecting to the audience through the shared human experience and always keeping in mind the reason why your story MUST be told.
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