4 Great (And 1 Terrible) Examples of Brand Storytelling in Video

Your brand has a story, whether you know what it is or not, and it’s more than just an explainer video. Your brand storytelling videos can be just as powerful as your product explainer video.

Seriously. People are coming to your site, buying your products, interacting with you on social media. All of that tells a story. If you are intentional about consistently sending the same messages and engaging authentically with how people are reacting—chances are you’re on the right path towards telling a story that matters.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve never thought about it your brand video story. There are some big brands that haven’t put too much effort (or the wrong kind of effort) into creating their brand image – read on if you want to learn more about how to build effective brand storytelling videos and a bit of what not to do.

Here are 7 examples of (mostly) good storytelling videos

Let’s take a look

Number One: Weight Watchers

Our first example illustrates a good point. While you can do something in a dry, unemotional way and yield minimum results. Your brand storytelling videos can share testimonials, tips, best practices on platforms relevant to your audience.

Related: 3 Common Brand Storytelling Myths (and 3 Ways to Correct Them)

Weight Watchers knows their audience and that this group hangs out on Facebook.

The company pours tons of effort into that social channel. Making recipe videos, sharing testimonials, and advertisements to get people off the fence on into the program.

Just take a look at that engagement.

Why It’s Good: Relevance and brevity. Their most popular videos are in the red hot recipe video niche and around 30 seconds apiece.

Number Two: Samsung

Samsung has had some trouble recently to put it–mildly.

Phones blowing up, executives getting arrested and even fired! It  hasn’t been a pretty picture. Surprisingly, this isn’t a bad example. Every brand will have a few stains when it comes to their reputation.

But how Samsung responded told a great story for their brand.

Related: 3 Ways to Beat Bad PR with Better Brand Storytelling

The new folks in charge took out full page ads in several publications for the sole purpose of apologizing. The debacle cost them billions of dollars and countless amounts of brand equity, but they did the right thing in a very public way.

 

Why It’s Good: Trying to hide things that really happened doesn’t really feel honest to the consumer. When you tell the truth, even if it costs you money (billions in this case), or tarnishes your reputation, you’re still seen as having dignity. It makes consumers want to give you another chance. (which we did! Just look at the sales of the beautiful Galaxy S8!)

Number Three: Vizio (Hint: This One’s Not So Great)

Unfortunately, Vizio doesn’t do a great job of promoting themselves as the tech giant that they are.

They make great and reliable electronic products, and even had an ad during the Super Bowl — with Beyonce, no less!

But, their social media is lackluster at best, and some of the top 10 most popular videos they have are not gorgeous brand storytelling videos but they are videos like this:

…Yes, it’s a troubleshooting guide for a remote. Not kidding.

Why It’s Bad: The problem here is pretty obvious. Your job as a company is  to engage your audience with extensive brand storytelling videos with every. single. video. you release.

Number Four: Crossfit

No one ever asks, “Do I know anyone in Crossfit?”

You either do or you don’t, because it’s all they talk about. T-shirts from their gym, showing off their new muscles, or just randomly injected the word “burpee” into a conversation—it’ll be obvious.

It may be annoying, but the actual organization does a good job communicating with their audience. Crossfit’s brand storytelling videos are specific to their audience, and frankly make people want to learn more.

Related: Why You’re Not Educating Your Audience Right (and 4 Ways to Start)

They convey the story and benefits of their brand by showing off the results of the intense workout method. Most notably, they’ve put together the brand storytelling videos highlighting the Crossfit games and made a documentary detailing the process.

You can watch the 2014 games right from their YT—it’ll make you want to lift a tire, or at least think about lifting a tire.

Careful: You will tell your friends

Why It’s Good: It’s a huge story funnel that draws people in through media, the events, and results.

Number Five: Clash of Clans

You have to respect the massive growth of some game apps, even if you are in the more serious industries of software and SaaS.

With over 10 million active monthly users, there is something to be learned by anyone who sells something coded. Yes, the game is super well done and insanely addictive. That said, the brand is tailored for the immature person in all of us.

And they rock that story.

If their videos get less than a couple million views, or FB posts get less than 30k likes, it’s akin to failure. Plus, if you don’t have anyone around and want to be goofy—take look at their posts, their stuff is hilarious.

Why It’s Good: Speak to your audience on their level and don’t be afraid to have a little fun. The most serious brands can inject humor for a better storytelling experience.