Do you remember being a kid during story time?
You’re gathered around on the floor in front of the teacher, eyes glazed over, enamored with the tale. A kid or two are drooling at the vivid imagery, while that one kid who always falls asleep during story time is there with his shoulders slumped, head off to the side, not a care in the world.
You don’t want your audience to be that kid. Besides anything else, it’s a sure thing he’s going to get drawn on with magic marker.
So how can you really engage your audience and keep them interested? Tell a real life fairytale and make it vivid. Here are three we love.
“My house is where plants came to die.”
Sad but hilariously true, this is reality for more people than we think. Miracle-Gro’s Potting Soil commercial is a simple story told by a “girl-next-door” who’s tried everything to keep her plants alive. We can all feel her sigh of relief when she finds something that protects her plants.
How a Shipping Giant Can Befriend a Forest
Cartoons + music = a serious flashback into kid-dom. Who wouldn’t want to remember a time where being worry-free took priority? FedEx recreates a woodland fairytale with their brand story about helping the Earth, then strips it back to show that their newest sustainability solutions are more than a dream.
“Remind me to clean up…tomorrow.”
Now we know Apple fans are probably some of the most loyal, devoted tech fans there are on the planet (and probably this universe). But even for the segment of people that aren’t Apple users, it’s hard to resist a quirky character and her technological fairy godmother who can plan a whole day with a few voice prompts.
How does your brand impact your audience? Take a real-life person who has a real-life problem and give them a real-life solution. Think about the problems your consumers have, and how your business has swooped in to help them solve their challenges. That’s the stuff of happy endings: check out this example with a Vocus customer to see what we mean.
Each of the fairytales above are told in under a minute. Can your brand do that? Take the challenge: create a YouTube video and link to it in the comments section below.
Image: headexplodie (Creative Commons)