Monday, April 23, 2012

Business Storytelling: Brand Stories

Coca Cola and Target have announced what they call See-Thru Marketing. Below is a link to an article about it. The best part was a YouTube video Coke produced talking about its use of storytelling in marketing. Obviously, Coke has used storytelling masterfully in the past but now they are looking at engaging the customer into the story, dynamic storytelling. It's great to see this type of splash for business narratives.

Client testimonials are a great use of stories to brand your business. The problem is getting the client to write about the experience. Find a good writer, there are plenty out there looking for work. Stories are powerful and you will have a client for life when he or she is the star of the story on your website, brochure, blog.....

Do check out the Coca Cola article. It is always good to see what the big guys are doing.

 http://tinyurl.com/83eny8y

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Business Storytelling: Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) runs from April 20th to the 28th this year in New York. I read with interest some of the workshops and presentations planned, of course the one that really caught my attention was the one on films and branding.

"Brands and filmmakers are increasingly collaborating on film projects to achieve a range of objectives from marketing and public relations to corporate storytelling and philanthropy. As the number of projects as well as the platforms for distribution increase, the bar has been raised for how to make these projects effective corporate storytelling pieces as well as quality filmmaking."

Businesses have used storytelling for years to promote themselves. Usually the stories were written (brochures, articles etc), commercials (expensive) or word of mouth. Just as film festivals are seeing more independent filmmakers businesses are finding more ways to tell their stories. Short films posted on websites or YouTube act like commercials but at a fraction of the cost.

Has your company looked at using video to tell its story?