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It just took a split second to attract the viewer’s attention to the above image and all it took was a minute to create it using the most common colour and font available in all computers in default. Imagine this plain image telling a story behind it. The possibilities are immense! It could be animated into something or we could add real life footages telling about a brand and so on. If a simple image can catch attention so easily. What all could we achieve with proper visual concepts behind it?
Visual storytelling is the art of using visual media and element to represent a story or concept. It can be conveyed through different formats and mediums. They can be static, dynamic or even mixed media. Through proper visual storytelling we can convey our ideas, concepts or even the emotions we share. Over years, brands have used this method to convey their ideas, stories to the audience they target.
Every brand has a story behind them. It’s not always about a product or service the brand offers, but also the journey, values and vision that define your brand. Storytelling in branding involves conveying these emotions and values using visual elements. The demand for visual content has never been high. With the new era of short attention span and fast content satisfying it, brands have no choice but to make use of this for their growth.
Even though branding and visual storytelling may look like something that has begun recently, it can be traced back to ancient civilisation. Merchants of ancient Babylon attracted buyers to purchase items such as spices, wines, rugs etc with sales pitches verbally. For illiterate populace, people hung pictorial signs and and painted their shops. These examples show how visual implementation of ideas can be effective. This directly or indirectly may have lead to the idea of marketing their goods through visual medium.
During 15th century, English text still had to be copied by hand. The massive time and energy required for this hectic process became even more demanding with the rise of more literate middle-class. German businessman Johannes Gutenberg saw this opportunity and came up with the idea of printing press and letter moulds. With the emergence of printing press everything changed. This paved way for a new era of advertising, branding and marketing. This became a popular and effective way to sell goods. Soon the first English language advertisement in the form of a leaflet was printed. The coming times saw great quantities of advertising and promoting.
With the introduction of photography and videography later, visual storytelling had a new face. Brands began using them to advertise, which showed great results as well. This contributed in bringing realism and authenticity to the stories. People used several methods for reaching out to the audience with attempts on making advertising films and product shoots. They began implementing several styles into the storytelling which proved effective. The introduction of television made it more immersive and engaging. Now, a large group of audience were available with wider perceptions. Ad campaigns and commercials became more common and they were aimed to evoke universal emotions.
The Internet era brought the biggest facelift for the advertising and marketing sector. With mobile phones, laptops and internet, any piece of media is accessible around the world wherever you are. This expanded the visual storytelling through websites, blogs, and several platforms like Youtube, Instagram etc. This also expanded the scope of the content because of the easy access on information. Brands could now use videos, infographics and interactive media to tell their stories. Social media platforms like Instagram emphasised on more storytelling and authentic content like campaigns focusing user - generated content.
Visual storytelling plays a crucial role in branding because it can help a brand reach out to the audience they want . Establishing an emotional connection, communicating their values, ideas and messages would definitely make the brand more appealing for the consumer.
For a brand to reach out to a wider audience, showcasing their services or products, they have to grab some attention. People process visuals faster than text and so, what more to take advantage for catching some attention. Numerous platforms like Instagram, TikTok etc are the best places for a brand to promote their business leveraging immersive visuals and content.
Deeper connections made with the consumer helps in growing the brands identity. Visuals create emotions in people’s mind when thinking about the brand. This establishes loyalty among people and make them automatically choose and trust the brand. This will drive the brand to a long term success.
Often brands suffer from consumers having trust issues for their product/ services. Though traditional marketing strategies generate them consumers, the idea of trust and reliability was harder to communicate. But with the visual storytelling, brands can show their values and personality. It creates a trust and humanises a brand creating a notion of reliability towards the brand. User generated contents, behind the scenes etc can build these trust and authenticity.
Using various elements, brands can communicate complex ideas and concept to people. They can simplify their process and ideas, making it easier and more reliable for the consumers to understand what the brand stands for.
Brands taking up several steps to consistently follow a signature style creates a visual identity exclusively for them. It can be executed using any elements such as colours, colours, logos, imagery etc. This will bring an exclusive visual story behind the brand and help customers recognise it faster.
Eg: Coca-Cola has consistently used its signature red and white colours, classic bottle design, and iconic logo maintain the brand visual throughout it’s course.
Short form videos are the latest trend in creating maximum engagement. Use of several platforms like Instagram, TikTok etc to coordinate a set of marketing actions aimed at a singular goal. These short videos can be highly effective in creating authenticity in brands story.
Eg: Nike’s “Just Do It” campaigns showcases real athletes with stunning visuals and dynamics.
Content that is created and shared by customers or fans of a brand. It can be of any form - texts, images, video reviews etc. It is normally shared through social media platforms and other online spaces as well. User generated contents feel more relatable and genuine compared to branded content as they are often directed from the customers and users. This is a very powerful method used by brands to build trust and connection between people.
Eg: Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign was very successful as it encouraged people to share photos of personalised Coke bottles.
These are informal and candid videos or photos of the process in creating a service or product. Brands can showcase what happens in the backstage when normally people could only see the end product. This gives an exclusive view on the effort and work put up by the brand. This will also create transparency assuring the audience with trust on the product or service. Also people would be more interested in knowing the behind scenes and it will automatically create a curiosity and emotion towards the brand.
Eg: Apple’s product launch videos are some of the best ones you can find. BTS snippets of these videos, showcasing the camera setup, drone shots etc was shared.
Commercial advertising is one of the most used and older method executed by brands for marketing their services and products. These can be branded videos with compelling visuals and messages. Though traditional advertising is effective, today’s advertising are executed more on social media platforms like Instagram. These contents are curated to be more relatable content with genuine experience based on customers. They are progressing in terms of authenticity without loosing it’s quality in visuals.
Eg: Google’s “Year in Search” videos showcase real- life moments and experiences of people across the globe.
When the topic is extremely sensitive, visual storytelling can be risky. If the topic of communications involves tragedy, disaster, or any difficult life events that are painful to discuss even in the best of forums, seriously consider avoiding visual storytelling. We might think that visually depicting a horrific or tragic event or situation would be the best way to convince the audience of its seriousness, but exposure to these kinds of visuals tends to have a complex, negative, or potentially traumatic effect.
Normally audience will take a topic seriously, but they’ll be more disturbed than engaged. Disturb an audience too much, and they’ll stop paying attention to protect themselves from the unpleasantness onscreen. This will gain their understanding but lose their attention , and they’ll likely resent you for the experience.
Always keep target audience in mind. Depending on who they are, visual storytelling might be the wrong approach. Older audiences tend to prefer to read rather than watch videos or seek out infographics. When working to reach those audiences, don’t waste resources creating visual stories that they might skip entirely.
While creating contents, brands must balance between the authenticity and quality of the videos. Often inauthentic visuals looses consumer’s connection with the brand. Attaining a visual with both authenticity and professional look can be challenging. People value more relatable and raw content, so brands have to maintain a borderline between them.
With technology advancing fast, the quality of the visuals are being set high. But this requires expensive resources and equipment. Along with these, skilled workforce can also add to the expenses. So the quality can largely be dependant on the available resources and budgets. Smaller brands with limited budget could fail to bring up impactful visuals compared to bigger brands.
With the increase of social media and visual-centric platforms, people are continuously exposed to content in their day to day life. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok etc feed immense information and visual content to people, making the space for visual storytelling oversaturated. With millions of videos and content flowing brands have hard time standing out among them. They have to provide content that will make them notice.
Each platform have different and unique requirement technically as well as audience preferences. This will require in making visual content based on the platform choose. The styles used in one of the platform may not generate as much as attention it has created in the other platform. The content may have to be produced entirely different in some cases. This can be a hectic process as they will have to maintain the visuals in all the platforms and invest more time and effort. Brands often post the same content across different platforms, but having a content that is not platform specific can loose their credibility.
Visual storytelling is expected to transform to a stage where it will be heavily focused on immersive and interactive experience. Technologies ranging from VR, AR to Artificial Intelligence will redefine how storytelling is experienced. Augmented Reality(AR) would grow it’s roots in the industry, changing how costumers can experience a product. Experiencing something first-hand is always going to attract more people. Imagine visiting a brand’s factory, using a product before hand all while relaxing back at home anywhere on the world. Artificial Intelligence will play a major role in coming up with personalised stories and narratives for brands. This could be achieved even with prioritising real life connections and authenticity in the visuals. Also technical and visual quality will increase leading to more dynamic and immersive experience in the visuals. Attaining high quality content and narratives will be easier and cost friendly with the rise of AI.
Visual storytelling is an indispensable tool for brands to create strong, emotional connections with their audiences. By using visual elements like imagery, videos, and user-generated content with compelling narratives, brands can communicate their values, establish trust, and capture attention in today's fast-paced digital world. From the historical use of symbols and print media to the transformation of dynamic campaigns and authentic content on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, visual storytelling has evolved to meet the trends.
Modern strategies emphasize brand identity, authenticity, and the power of relatable content like behind-the-scenes footage and user generated content. However, challenges like oversaturation, platform-specific requirements, and maintaining authenticity can be a pain. The future promises advancements like AR, VR, and AI to make visual storytelling more immersive and personalized. By leveraging these innovations, brands can continue to engage deeply with their audiences while maintaining a competitive edge.
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