Posts Tagged storytelling
Can Coca-Cola Compete with Traditional Media Publications?
Posted by The Running Start in Inspiration, Online businesses, social media, Storytelling on November 12, 2012
About a year ago, I was having lunch with an old colleague in the digital advertising industry who 
asked me where I thought the Internet was headed. Now, I am not a visionary or web guru of any sort. However, knowing that I had to pivot my business in the past year towards content marketing (because that’s what everyone was requesting from me), I told him that I thought that big brands would start to create their own web-based publications that might soon rival those of traditional media publications online. He, being a digital advertising salesman, was somewhat skeptical.
I recently wrote a blog post commenting on Coke’s big plan for digital storytelling which revealed details on how the company would develop creative content for the web. Well, according the NYTimes.com, the company is re-designing it’s website to reflect something “more akin to a consumer magazine than a business portal.”
So, I guess my prediction, if Coke is successful, is on its way to becoming a reality. It’s not a big surprise. As I mentioned in this post from July 2011, social media has basically become the soap opera of the digital age. As such, brands are developing web-based media publications and channels where their stories can be shared and commented on to spread virally online. Whether all of them will succeed in this pursuit is not yet clear. However, I think we’ll see a lot of other companies following Coke’s lead in the near future.
Do you agree? Please share your thoughts below.
Explaining What You Do While Captivating Your Audience – That’s Edutainment!
Posted by The Running Start in B2B Marketing, Online businesses, Storytelling on September 5, 2012
In July, I posted a story on the Jugnoo blog about the pros and cons of using digital storytelling to 
generate sales leads.
One of our readers, Elliot Dwennen, made a very good point in his comment on that blog.
Elliot’s point?
Story is more compelling and brings an emotional attribute that content marketing cannot live and breathe by itself.
Elliot is absolutely right and of course, a good story needs elements like a setting, plot and characters to make it come alive.
But I want to focus on two ways that one can apply those elements to work for content marketing in this week’s post: education and entertainment (or “edutainment” as we clever folks in the media world like to call it).
A Brand is a Living Thing
Terry O’Reilly, host of the CBC Radio One show The Age of Persuasion, recently explained in a June 2012 podcast that “a brand is a living thing. It’s an idea or a promise residing in your imagination. But it needs help getting there.
It has to grab your attention…and to win a place in the consumer’s imagination, you must also offer a reason why.”
In essence, the “why” is done by educating the customer about the features and benefits of your product or service and how it helps to solve a problem. How the “why” is communicated to the customer is where story and emotion (via entertainment) come into play.
The Power of Explainer Videos to Educate and Entertain
In a digital age, there are many tools available for marketers to use to educate and entertain customers, while answering the question “why.”
Consider the recent popularity of online explainer (or demo) videos that have been used both by large companies and SMEs to do everything from introducing a new product to the marketplace, to describing how a technology startup’s complicated software works.
Online video is a great medium to both entertain and inform your customers in less than two minutes.
According to a study by Forrester Research that was referenced in a recent blog by Canadian video animation company Switch Video, “a single minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.” This means that you can capture a lot of information and ideas in a short period of time.
Plus, you can use the power of sight, sound and motion to tell a very compelling story that “can increase conversion rates by 20 per cent, providing a high return on investment (ROI),” says Tony Marik, Sr. Account Manager at Switch Video.
There’s An App For That
Last week, Swedish furniture retailer IKEA launched a new augmented reality mobile app for its catalogue.
The app will enable IKEA catalogue readers to view films, photos and other interactive features to get ideas for home decorating without having to visit a retail store – all by simply scanning your phone or tablet over pages that are marked with a special app icon.
I love this video because it combines education (by explaining how the customer can use the augmented reality feature on their smartphone or tablet) with an entertaining story about the history of the IKEA catalogue. The video also inspires emotion through a nostalgic account of how the company has evolved over time.
There are many other ways to educate customers through content marketing while also entertaining them. Some examples include: tie-ins between social media and live events, interactive games, podcasts and webinars with engaging guest speakers (who tell great stories about your industry) and much more.
Do you have an edutainment strategy that works for your business? If so, please share in the comments section below.
A version of this post was originally published on the Jugnoo blog in July 2012 and has been republished with permission.
Coke’s Big Plan for Digital Storytelling
Posted by The Running Start in Inspiration, Online businesses, Random Thoughts, Storytelling on May 9, 2012
Yesterday, I read a blog entitled “Ten Brands Doing Post-Advertising Right.” I recommend that you check it out to see how companies around the world are using digital storytelling platforms to spark conversations and generate awareness of their brands.
The example that I enjoyed the most was a series of videos from Coca Cola, describing their goals for global content excellence by 2020. I loved the storyboards that Coca Cola used to illustrate, rather than just tell their story about digital storytelling and conversations. It’s so simple, yet so creative. I’ve re-embeded the videos below for your viewing pleasure.
What I love about their strategy is that even though Coca Cola is a big, global brand, even a small business can easily adopt some of the tools and tactics that they are using. I also dig that they are being completely transparent about their plans, letting the world know their intentions to use technology to enable consumer empowerment, build emotional connections and meet the needs of an on-demand culture.
Check-out 2:45 in the first video (Chapter 3) for Coke’s rendition of “The Evolution of Storytelling,” and the different types of storytelling that Coke will use to build their brand in the next 8 years. But it’s also worth taking the time to watch both videos in their entirety, if you can. Enjoy!
Patience and Perseverance are the Keys to Content Marketing Success
Posted by The Running Start in B2B Marketing, Online businesses, Storytelling on March 28, 2012
Many of my friends and colleagues ask me why I blog so often (on my own blog and on other channels). As many social media and content marketing 
gurus will tell you, it’s extremely important to be consistent and have patience when it comes to generating sales leads via blogs.
Building an audience and rapport/trust with potential customers through content marketing is a huge time investment. But the payoffs can be quite amazing. Just remember that no blog or social media profile is ever an overnight success. Just like Tweeting and posting updates on Facebook, it’s important to stick with it – even if you feel like you’re just talking to yourself in the beginning. Over time, it truly is amazing how many people will start to recognize your efforts and contact you to find out more about your services.
For best practices on what type of content marketing stories can help to generate sales leads, check out some of my previous posts:
- Why Digital Storytelling is Just Like Being Single
- Seven Thought-Provoking Corporate Storytelling Ideas
- Influential Corporate Storytellers in the Digital Space
Good luck with your content marketing commitment. Just remember to think like the tortoise and not the hare! Good customers come to those who persevere.
Image: http://www.veezzle.com
Will our digital memoirs ever tell the real story?
Posted by The Running Start in Random Thoughts, Storytelling on March 7, 2012
In the past year, a number of new online tools have emerged to help catalogue and track a user’s digital memoirs. From the launch of Facebook’s new timeline feature, to the growing popularity of pinning our hopes, memories and dreams to Pinterest, to the ability to collect and weave your favorite photos, Tweets and social streams into a tale on Storify, the possibilities to recount a sequence of events seem endless.
But these digital scrapbooks of one’s personal history likely do not reflect the real, or whole story. I see it more like users are revealing a scattered collection of moments online. If this isn’t the case, then many of my friends’ lives could be summarized on Facebook timeline as follows: you are born, you attend university and a few major events, you randomly “like” some cat videos, photos of friends’ vacations and children, to be continued…
As privacy concerns grow online, my compulsion to share personal experiences and memoirs on sites like Facebook and Google+ seems to be fading – especially when I know that these companies plan to share my personal data to advertisers.
Therefore, like true human memories, there are many holes in my digital story. And until my online privacy is better protected, my timeline will remain a mystery, rather than a biography. Let me know your thoughts about sharing your personal story online via social media.
Image source: iStockPhoto.com
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