Marketing videos and the power of narrative

Are you wondering how narrative can be used in a marketing video?

Are you considering producing a marketing video and wondering how to include a narrative structure?

Read on to discover just how central narrative is to the persuasive power of marketing videos.

Can you imagine a sales campaign that had one simple, unambiguous message: “Buy our product!”. It makes no attempt to engage, motivate or persuade anyone as to why doing this might be a good idea. Just a crude call to action. I don’t think it takes much for us to realise that this would be about as successful as a wax frying pan. What it lacks is a narrative that might help us understand why we should follow the call to action.

Why are narratives or stories so important?

For countless generations, our forbears shared ideas, beliefs, and knowledge via storytelling, a process that continues to this day. Every message benefits from storytelling of one sort or another. From warnings, wrapped in fairy tales, given to children; to calls to action on the environment wrapped in graphic narratives of extinction; many aspects of human culture are bound up in narratives of one sort or another. Social, religious, and political movements, for example, all rely very much upon narratives to convey their messages.

The selling power of stories

Recognising and harnessing the power of narrative structure can be hugely beneficial for your marketing. A well-crafted story helps the audience to engage with, internalise, and form an emotional relationship with your key marketing messages. The story you tell can embody very clear and unambiguous messages. But, at the same time, persuasive cues can appear via the backdoor while the audience’s guard is down. With a good story, you can temporarily place your audience in a different time or place. You can appeal to their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, or entertain them with humour or drama. Good stories are the bait, hook, and line with which you can land your prize!

But you’re no author, so how can you introduce narrative in your marketing videos?

The idea of you using narratives to market your products and services with videos may seem daunting. After all, you’re a business person, not an author, right? The simple fact is that, in essence, your story’s structure is already written. You have the essential ingredients at hand in your market research and business planning.

Story structure and the power of threes

For some reason, we find the number three very potent when it comes to storytelling. We have the three little pigs, three billy goats gruff, three wishes, etc. There’s something about three that gives us scope to explore an idea, but that constrains us at the same time. Unsurprisingly, a good narrative is usually structured in three main parts. This holds true for 30 second TV commercials or two-hour feature films:

1. The equilibrium of life is disturbed by a problem (e.g. peaceful seaside town terrorised by an oversized shark)
2. A solution presents itself (three guys go out to hunt down and kill the shark)
3. With the problem solved, a new equilibrium is enjoyed (two blokes swim back to shore and life goes on)

Narrative is essential for movies of all kind including marketing videos.

OK, the film Jaws is somewhat more involved in terms of execution, but in essence, the structure holds true. The same thing can be seen in countless movies, books, plays, and so on. But you want to tell a story about your products and services, not about sharks. Right? OK, but the principle is the same.

Narrative structure applied to marketing videos

1. Highlight a problem that affects your target audience (backache, processing mixed data sets, stubborn stains, inefficient logistics, whatever)
2. Introduce your solution to the problem 
3. Show everyone how good it’s going to be to have their problem solved

As I hinted above, the products or services you provide will inevitably have been developed in response to a problem. Presumably, those products or services can solve or reduce that problem. So, you already have the basic building blocks for your narrative. From here, all you really need to do is put a little flesh on the bones of this basic plot. Characters, context, and a little emotional glue will all help you to engage your audience in the story.

Read more about the three-part narrative structure.

Example marketing stories:

Tech startup story

Problem:

‘Our research identified many skilled workers who were finding it difficult to assess national job opportunities in the context of local living expenses. They were often shooting in the dark, not really knowing if their job change would work financially. There were some real horror stories of people relocating for jobs and effectively ending up worse off. They had no viable way of assessing living expenses against salary offers in advance. Some people were actually accruing debts because of where they were working. At the same time feeling obliged to continue to avoid ‘difficult to explain’ anomalies on their CV’. Others were stuck with crippling commutes or with living away from their families.

Solution:

‘We created a database that aggregates information on the cost of local accommodation, utilities, transport, and other service providers. A job seeker can see quickly if a job change is viable, given local living costs.’

Conclusion:

‘We’ve had so much great feedback from professionals who were able to make informed decisions regarding potential jobs. Some of them have described our service as a lifesaver.’

Dating app story

Problem: 

‘Dave, Julia, Zack, and Emily aren’t finding it easy to get an appropriate date. Dave is busy, Julia is shy, Zack just moved in from out of town. Emily, meanwhile, has a very small social circle.’ 

Solution: 

‘Dateapp does the searching so you don’t have to. Find a date in minutes rather than months. Let Dateapp’s intelligent algorithms work for you to search through thousands of members in your location.

Conclusion: 

‘Dave, Julia, Zack, and Emily find romance and even love.’

Authentic dining experience story

Problem: 

‘Diners have so many restaurants to choose from these days. However, so many places simply offer predictable, mass-market type food, with nothing for the adventurous, discerning diner.

Solution: 

‘Authenticeat is a chain of world cuisine-themed restaurants. Each restaurant features the cuisine of a particular world culture. Authentic eat restaurants offer only the finest authentic dishes. Their chefs prepare dishes containing only authentic, ingredients, using traditional methods. Food is then served in traditional style.’

Conclusion: 

‘Diners can now enjoy and be inspired by the flavors, textures, aromas, and traditions, peculiar to the local cuisine of exotic and far-off places.

Don’t forget your target audience

In short, there’s pretty much no limit to the scope of this simple three-scene template. You can use it to structure an effective and engaging narrative for pretty much any product or service. All that remains is to ensure that your narrative contains situations and characters, that resonate with your target audience. Otherwise, your story will fail to engage and your message will be lost.

Find out more about my video production services.

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