Blueforest Studios Creative Philosophy
Donec non posuit scaenam
We don’t put mess up on the stage!
Get to the brand story
Face it, when businesses and organizations talk about themselves (boring) they spend way too much time talking about what they do (dull) and how they do is (who cares?!) They almost always stop short of the most interesting thing: Why do you exist?
While there are undoubtedly lots of interesting facts, figures, techniques and tidbits about your company, there are people in your organization who are passionate about what they do. The do it because they love it and they have a reason why they love it. Tell me why they get up in the morning and pour their heart and passion into working for your organization.
Get deeper into the story
Now that we are focused on the story, we are on the right track but we have further to go. You will often find that once you start asking people at your organization their story, they will give you the most shallow answer possible.
That’s because all good stories are personal. The more personal the better. So when you ask your people that question you will catch them off guard and they will give you a guarded answer.
That why we don’t just ask why. We ask why 3 times in order to get to the personal story.
Here’s a generic example. Carol is an insurance saleswoman. Let’s find out her story:
Why #1
Q: Carol, you are one of our best salespeople. Why did you decide to become an insurance salesperson?
A: I don’t know, I guess I just really like helping people. People who make insurance claims are going through a hard time and I can help them.
Why #2
Q: Why do you think you enjoy helping people so much?
A: There are a lot of people who have helped me in the past and I always
looked up to them and wanted to be more like them. (Now we are getting
somewhere. Let’s go one level deeper.)
Why #3
Q: You could have chosen a lot of jobs where you could help people. Is there an example from your past that demonstrates why you chose insurance specifically?
A: Well when I was 6 years old my house burned down. It was a very scary experience. I remember.. and this is one of my earliest memories… there was an insurance agent who was there very quickly after the event and he came in and reassured us that he would take care of everything we needed to get us back in a home and replace all the things we had lost in the fire.
He was like a superhero in my eyes and I remember over the years thinking of him and wanting to be like him and help others the way he helped my family.
This is actually not just a story I made up but is based on a real story.
Understand story
Storytelling is an ancient artform. It’s also the subject of modern scientific study. What we know is that everyone loves stories and that our brains are actually hardwired to create and listen closely to stories.
Most people believe they know what a story is but when it comes down to actually describing that, we fall short.
For brand marketers, our job is even harder. We aren’t writing 900 page novels. We are not making 2 hour movies. We are not creating 23 minute tv shows. We are sometimes creating 15 second commercials or 1 inch by 2 inch business cards.
In order to fit our brand story into those formats we not only have to understand completely what storytelling is, we need to understand it right down to the core. Don’t nobody have time for character development, 3 act story structure, or intricate plots in a 15 second commercial. We have to be able to strip away all the unnecessary parts and yet still have a compelling story left.
So as I have studied this topic I have come up with the top 4 elements that you absolutely must have:
To learn more about why each of these is essential to your story, check out our other blogs and videos about this topic.
Sharpen the message
Once you know your brand story, you can finally start writing scripts, drafting artwork, creating storyboards and mood boards that support the story. As you do this, it’s important to remember that brand storytelling alone won’t cut it. We still need to sharpen and balance our message. We still have to do the nuts and bolts work of telling people what we do, knowing our audience, and having a call to action.
One tool we use to help with this is our video personality profile. This questionnaire will ask you a series of questions about the mood and personality of your video or brand. It will force you to make some difficult but important creative decisions.
Another tool we use are these three questions. Before asking yourself these questions, imagine you are the perfect target customer for your brand and you have never heard of this brand. You have just finished watching this amazing brand video.
Think
What is the #1 thing you want your audience to think about your brand?Feel
What is the #1 thing you want your audience to feel about your brand?Do
What is the #1 thing you want your audience to do the moment they finish watching the video?
Remember you only get one answer for each question. If you can do that your message will be very sharp at this point.
Promote the message
This may seem obvious but just because you made a great video or brand marketing piece, your job is not done. I can’t tell you how many videos we have produced only to find a year later that the client did not properly promote it. It’s pretty sad when a $10,000 video gets only 100 views on Youtube because the marketers did not properly optimize and promote it.
Sometimes a marketer simply does not know how to optimize the video and run a few ads. They may not know how to post it on other social media sites and purchase ads there as well.
That’s why we offer Blueboost marketing packages designed to get a finished brand video that maximum possible views.
Not just because we love our clients, but we want them to succeed, make lots of money and come back to hire us again for their next video!