Storytelling and social media: mini movies

How do you make people listen to what you have to say when there are so many things to read and watch?

Turn it into a story!

We talk about storytelling a lot because it is one of the best ways to pull your audience in to what you have to tell them. Today we’re going to share some of examples of how brands are using the mini-movie (longer than a typical ad but generally under 5 minutes) to really pull in their audience.

In some cases, the brand’s personal message is really subtle, in others it is less so. Either way, I had no problem watching the following three examples in their entirety without being tempted to close the window mid way through (this is particularly impressive given my personality.  

Investing as much as 5 minutes on an ad says a lot about how well-executed these were. Interestingly, two of these weren’t made in English. I hope to see more of these produced in North American markets.

Cornetto

Cornetto sells ice cream. This mini movie is a teen love story and there aren’t any real ice cream references that I noticed (though it’s not in English so I may have missed some). That being said, it has been viewed over 26 million times. Just by putting the mini movie together, they are getting a lot of visibility. 

Google search

I don’t know how I’d get through life without Google. In fact, when I was recently on a cruise our group spent a lot of time joking about how we were back in 1993 (“we know the information is out there somewhere and we can’t get to it!! We’re actually going to have to guess and then look it up later!”) because none of us had access to wifi.

This short movie pulled on all kinds of heart strings for me, and shows just how much many of us use Google search regularly.  It’s been viewed 6.5 million times and it was posted less than two weeks ago!

Code.org

The world needs coders.  This mini movie took some fascinating people and had them share their personal stories on why they learned to code. I thought it was a great way of sharing the personal side that people should consider becoming computer programmers.  Not to mention the job perks they get! :)

It’s been viewed over 11 million times.

What do you think?

I want to hear from you. Did those mini movies hold your attention? Have you seen movies like this going around and have you watched them? Leave a comment and let us know what you think: Does it work? Why?

If you’ve seen a good one, Share a link with us!

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