- February 17, 2015
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7 Ways To Tell Your Story, Courtesy of Tinseltown
Attention Hollywood writers, marketing creatives are on to you.
You thought you could keep your seven basic plots for stories all to yourself, but we found out your secrets. (Well, we picked up what author Christopher Booker shared with MediaPost and are adapting his guide for our own use.) And it’s making B2B videos as engaging as “The Interview” drama.
In fact, an internal PointRoll study ranked almost 1,000 video campaigns at random and found that interaction rates, completion rates and click-through rates varied depending on the kind of story told in the video ad.
As Booker asserts, there are “seven archetypal themes recur in every kind of storytelling,” according to AdWeek. By learning these plotlines, you can develop persuasive video storylines.
Overcoming the Monster
Booker calls this storyline the classic underdog story, probably accounting for its popularity in the PointRoll study. Examples include the epic “Beowulf,” as well as the David vs. Goliath match. Even Apple’s “1984” attack on Big Brother ad falls into this category.
Rebirth
This tells the story of renewal. Before you become nostalgic, know that it is one of the least popular storylines. However, it does resonate well with healthcare, pharma and professional services. If you want to know how to tell your brand’s rebirth story well, watch, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” (And while you’re at it, consider rebranding your signage, too.)
Quest
Who doesn’t love a hero? Booker does. So do the folks answering the PointRoll study, scoring the quest storyline second highest for interaction, showing that viewers are clearly attracted to the creative. “Lord of the Rings” fans will recognize this storyline, and even IBM and Lexus have used it. We don’t know if Frodo would agree.
Journey & Return
You can’t get much simpler than this storyline: Transform through a journey and then return home. These videos scored very well in completion rate. More than 40 percent of PointRoll viewers watched the first quarter of the video, which was a good mark, pollsters said. Advertiser Corona picked up this archetype with the “Find Your Beach” campaign, but “The Wizard of Oz” had us throwing Dorothy a homecoming well before that.
Rags to Riches
Oh, Cinderella, sell us any brand with your rags-to-riches story. We’ll watch. Transform reported that nearly half of viewers watched the first quarter of a video, and 35 percent watched all the way through.
Tragedy
Advertising is supposed to make people feel a connection with a product, and sometimes that requires a story about the dark side of humanity and the futile nature of human experience.
Since no one wants to feel down, Transform advises avoiding this category.
Comedy
The Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising found that humorous advertising resonates with consumers more than other kinds, and the findings from the Transform study correlated. Maybe that’s why we can’t get enough of the Old Spice hijinks. Here’s another example from our archives of a brand incorporating creative humor well.
So which archetype sells your brand best?