A brand story is the biography of your company, told in words and images. It’s an opportunity to share something about who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Brand stories can be used on your website or your social media channels to communicate with customers on a more personal level.
“Your brand story video should be the hero piece that gets people to follow you and buy into who you are,” says Joey Xoto, Co-Founder of Viddyoze.
The goal for business owners and marketers is to make it engaging, informative and entertaining. It’s about creating an emotional connection with your viewers – and one that they’ll remember. And you do that by harnessing the power of storytelling.
“By appealing to our innate preference for narratives we can create more memorable moments,” says Joey.
Storytelling not only increases brand favorability with your audience, but it also makes you more memorable (and more memorable than facts, too). Having a cohesive narrative is also vital for the growth of your brand. It’s what makes you stand out from the crowd.
The video must be directed at your audience and convey the message that your business is trying to get across. It should answer the question: why should I do business with you?
Your brand story is another of your brand assets. Just like your logo, colorways and tone of voice, when done well it’s one of the things people will associate with your brand.
Snapshot
- Whether you’re looking to tell your brand story or promote your ecommerce products, corporate video is a great way to tell your story in a way that’s both memorable and shareable
- Your brand story should be the backbone of your marketing efforts. It should tell the narrative of your brand, including where you come from and where you’re going
- Once you have a brand story, you need to tell it again and again. Your story should be consistent across all your content
- Our top tips for brand storytelling include: 1. be authentic and believable; 2. humanize your brand with humour; and 3. make the video as long as it needs to be
- Creating engaging video content can be time-consuming and expensive. Viddyoze makes creating beautiful video animations easy, fast and affordable for everyone
Why Are Brand Stories So Effective?
Video marketing is exploding. YouTube now has more than 2 billion monthly logged-in users who watch more than half a billion hours of video every day.
When videos are done right, they can be a powerful tool in a marketer’s arsenal. Videos create a personal connection between the customer and the company – and people feel more comfortable purchasing from a business that they believe understands their needs.
According to digital marketing experts HubSpot, 87% of video marketers say video gives them a positive ROI — a world away from the lowly 33% who felt that way in 2015.
It’s important that your videos are interesting to watch – or at least novel. A successful marketing video will get the viewer to watch the entire thing, which is why it’s important to make sure your video stands out from the rest.
Building an emotional connection with your viewers through storytelling is one way to get them to buy from you in a more meaningful way. People buy with their hearts, so use storytelling to create that connection.
What Makes A Good Brand Story Video?
It’s simple. A good brand story is one that captures your unique personality in as honest a way as possible. Real people talking about real experiences gives you real content.
“The best brand story videos have that human connection that your audience can relate to,” says Joey. “Forging a personal connection can be the difference between why someone buys from you and not your competitors.”
For example, researchers at Ohio State conducted several experiments on what happens when we become immersed in a story. They call that feeling of being so lost in a narrative that we hardly notice the world around us — transportation.
They discovered that when we’re transported by a narrative — whether it’s true or imagined — we tend to view the protagonist more favorably and embrace the beliefs and world views the story presents.
How To Use Video To Tell Your Brand Story
A brand’s story is often captured in video. In fact, videos have become a go-to medium for communicating messages widely and effectively. In fact, 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last three years.
When you’re creating videos, it’s often tempting to focus solely on what your brand has to offer. But video isn’t just a tool to sell products – it’s a powerful way of connecting with customers. Your videos should use your customers’ problems as a starting point.
Our Top Tips For Creating A Brilliant Brand Story Video
- Communicate the heart of your brand, and the soul of what you stand for. It’s why you do what you do, and who you are as a company
- Tell the history of your company, how it started, and where it’s going. Your brand story is a roadmap for your business
- Make the story linear – that way it’s easier to understand. It sounds simple, but you need a clear beginning, middle and an end. You want people to understand your story without having to read tons of text
- Be authentic and believable (not obviously scripted). The key to storytelling is authenticity and specificity. Start with the basics: Who are you? What motivates you? What gets you out of bed in the morning?
- Humanize your brand with humour. Tell your brand story in a way that’s easy to digest and fun to watch
- Give people what they need to know quickly. The 10-second rule also applies, so your videos must hook the viewer’s attention right away
- Make your video as long as it needs to be. The most important thing about your video is the story. However, if your video is too long, your audience might get bored or lose interest. If too short, they might not feel connected to your story
- Tell your story again and again. Your story should be consistent across all your digital marketing channels
Examples Of Brilliant Brand Story Videos
These examples show how companies have used video to tell their brand story.
Bombas Socks
This fashion for good sock company has a powerful brand story in which it positions itself as a challenger brand. In Better Socks, Better World it sets out a problem – the athletic sock hasn’t changed in decades – and goes on to explain how its products solve that problem.
Casper’s brand story video
Casper
Mattress-maker Casper uses its office as the backdrop of its brand story video. In We Can Dream, Can’t We it plays out a tongue-in-cheek vision for a utopian society where everyone sleeps soundly.
Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club founders Michael Dubin and Alan Hirsch created a weirdly compelling video, Our Blades Are F***ing Great. And it worked. It ended up going viral and launched the company in the best possible way.
Headspace
Those familiar with the meditation app will not be surprised that Say hello to Headspace features an animation with a soothing voice over. It describes the benefits of meditation, Headspace’s ideal customer, and how to use the app – all in a simple story brought to life with colourful characters.
Land Rover
Founded nearly 50 years ago, Land Rover has always looked for new ways to talk about its heritage. In The Land of Land Rovers we travel to Maneybhanjang in Nepal to discover a small mountain village that has over 40 vintage Land Rovers.
GoPro
As one of the pioneers of user generated content, GoPro has always put its customers at the heart of its content. In its first ever YouTube video Base Jump Movie we follow an athlete off the edge of a cliff. This set the bar for thousands of videos the brand has posted since.
Viddyoze
Despite being nearly an hour long, our brand story, How We Built An 8-Figure Bootstrapped Software Enterprise, is our most watched YouTube video. It tells a highly relatable story and charts the highs and lows of starting a business from scratch.
FAQ
1. What is a brand story?
A brand story is the biography of your company, told in words and images. It’s an opportunity to share something about who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Brand stories can be used on your website or social media channels to communicate with customers on a more personal level.
2. What is a brand story video?
A brand story video is a video that tells the story of your company. It can be used to show how you started, what makes your company special, or anything else you want to share about yourself. You can also use it as an introduction to your website.
3. What’s an example of brand storytelling?
A brand story is a narrative that tells the history of a product, service, or company. Brand stories can be told through many different mediums from text to video and more. For example, Viddyoze’s brand story video is told through the eyes of its co-founders, Joey, Jamie and David, and charts the business’ progression from a three-man setup to a eight-figure, bootstrapped video animation software juggernaut.
For more video marketing tips, check out these recent articles on our blog designed to help business owners and marketers make better videos in minutes.
- How To Promote Your Dental Practice With Video
- 22 Video Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
- The Do’s And Don’ts Of Using Music In Your YouTube Videos
- Video Marketing For Lawyers: How To Get New Clients To Your Law Firm Through Video Content
- The Ultimate Guide To Video Storytelling
- Video Marketing Ideas For Real Estate Agents
Creating engaging video content is hard. It’s time-consuming and expensive, and there are a lot of tools to learn if you want to do it well.
Viddyoze makes creating beautiful video animations easy, fast and affordable. With our simple platform, anyone can create professional-quality video animations in minutes without any technical skills or previous knowledge! Try it for yourself today.
