By connecting familiar emotions to new insights, your brand narrative will feel relatable yet distinctive, engaging audiences on a deeper level.

Example: How To Use Bayer’s Digital Asset Management System

The How To Use Bayer’s Digital Asset Management System video starts as a standard explainer on DAM systems and their benefits. But the sales pitch quickly cuts to a charmingly animated story. In it, “marketing warrior” Alex must navigate a maze of disconnected tools and file systems in search of the rights-free image she needs for a campaign.

Fantasy genre fans will recognize some characteristics of quest-based storytelling — heroes, magical incantations (i.e., marketing buzzwords), and an arrogant dragon that mocks Alex’s attempts to retrieve the asset with competitors’ tools.

And the video, a finalist for Best Topic-Specific Video at this year’s Content Marketing Awards, has one more plot twist for viewers: Before the final scene, it cuts to the narrator for a detailed online demo of Bayer’s DAM solution.

By jumping between factual insights and a fictional parable, Bayer skillfully blends message-driven education with engaging entertainment. It’s a great way to get viewers’ attention on the critical details while hooking their viewing interest until the video’s end.

Lesson 2: Sustain Engagement with Serialized Content

Serialized storytelling can keep your audience coming back for more. Think of your brand’s journey as a story told over multiple chapters or episodes, each one leaving a lasting impression and building anticipation.

By structuring your content as a series, you can gradually develop your message, deepen emotional connections, and make your audience feel like part of an ongoing adventure. Each installment should offer something valuable, making viewers eager for the next “episode” in your brand story.

Example: Murder in HR

Murder in HR isn’t another trendy true-crime podcast. It’s a clever, star-powered send-up of the genre, scripted to organically weave corporate wellness brand Gympass (now Wellhub) into an episodic thriller.

The plot centers on Jemma (voiced by actor Kate Mara) — an HR executive at a tech company who uses her people skills to investigate a death at a corporate retreat. As Jemma interrogates potential suspects, the audience learns about their use of the wellness services offered through Gympass. Customized ads aired during story breaks provided more information about Gympass benefits.

Teased out with a weekly release schedule, the podcast concludes when Jemma solves the crime. With the help of promotional activations across marketing, media, and sales, the show earned more than 1.1 million downloads and reached No. 1 on Apple’s list of top fictional podcasts. It also won the 2024 Content Marketing Award for Best Podcast.

Lesson 3: Show the Impact of Your Intentions

It’s one thing to tell people what your brand stands for; it’s another to show it in action. Capture moments that reflect the positive change your brand aims to bring about, whether it’s through powerful testimonials, real-life applications, or tangible results.

Showcasing the real-world impact of your mission or values builds trust, reinforces your credibility, and invites your audience to see the deeper purpose behind your products or services.

Example: Dear Jackie

Volvo, the world’s leading manufacturer of industrial vehicles and construction equipment, promises to become a fossil-free company by 2050 — and help its customers do the same. The urgency of achieving those goals is as clear as the blue stream in its Content Marketing Award-winning video, Dear Jackie.

It starts with a young couple in 2023, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the titular baby girl, Jackie. Viewers get to see the baby’s life unfold as she transforms from a sonogram image into a thriving adult about to welcome her own child into the world.

In the accompanying voiceover, a narrator reads Volvo’s letter to Jackie’s future self, setting its climate-change ambitions against the milestones in Jackie’s life. The company pledges to make one-third of its fleet electric by the time she starts school and be fossil-free when she completes her education.

By illustrating how they’ll work together to shape “the world we want to live in,” Dear Jackie embodies Volvo Group’s commitment to doing the work today so tomorrow’s generation can reap the benefits.

Lesson 4: Support Personal and Professional Success

Today’s audiences want brands that care about more than profits—they look for those that uplift and empower. Your storytelling should illustrate how your brand contributes to people’s personal or professional lives.

This could be through the skills they gain, the confidence they build, or the new perspectives they acquire with your help. By positioning your brand as a supportive partner in their journey, you foster loyalty and goodwill that can last a lifetime.

Example: The Path To Owning It

Doctors and other health care providers receive medical training, but that doesn’t prepare them to run a practice. Sharpening the business acumen of current and aspiring medical practice owners is the goal of Provide — a health-care-focused division of Fifth Third Bank, N.A., and the purpose of its The Path to Owning It podcast.

Each episode offers guidance on financial and operational decision-making, such as choosing whether to build or buy a practice or hiring the right care team. While the goal is to ease the transition from caregiver to practice leader, the discussions aren’t all business. They also delve into more personally resonant concerns.

In one episode, veterinarian Sarah Baker, owner of Lane Veterinary, touches on the mental health struggles of veterinary practitioners and the need for more female representation in leadership. Inspiring health professionals to advocate for their own well-being as they care for their patients makes The Path To Owning It a B2B storytelling standout. It earned recognition from the Content Marketing Awards as a finalist for Best Podcast.

Lesson 5: Express Your Unique Voice and Views

The most memorable brands are the ones with a distinctive voice. Don’t be afraid to share your brand’s unique take on issues, trends, or values. Use language, tone, and visuals that reflect your brand’s personality, making it clear who you are and what you stand for.

By expressing an authentic point of view, your brand will stand out and attract audiences who share your vision, building a more meaningful connection.

Example: Play It Safe

You may not be familiar with musician, actor, composer, and comedian Tim Minchin. But you should recognize the Sydney Opera House — the architectural landmark visually synonymous with his home country of Australia.

To celebrate the performing arts center’s 50th birthday, Australian agency The Monkeys (a subsidiary of Accenture Song Sydney) enlisted Tim to star in a four-minute musical ode.

Tim sarcastically sings the virtues of playing it safe and sticking with formulas to attract an audience. Yet, the accompanying sights and sounds of renowned artists, architects, and performers show that the opposite rings truer.

More than a birthday celebration of a building, the spot serves as an uplifting homage to the artists taking creative risks inside the structure. More importantly, the video proves that unique storytelling can amass a stronger following than calculated mediocrity.

The judges at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity certainly got the message. The mini film split Grand Prix honors with another inspiring effort that you’ll see in Lesson 6.

Lesson 6: Shift Perspectives to Change Minds

Effective storytelling has the power to shift how people see the world, and award-winning brands aren’t afraid to challenge assumptions. Through your storytelling, offer fresh perspectives that invite viewers to see familiar topics in a new light.

By opening up new ways of thinking, your brand narrative can inspire audiences to question, reflect, and even change their minds, fostering a deeper sense of engagement and loyalty.

Example: La compil’ des Bleues

This video campaign, produced by Orange (a French telecommunications company), highlights the stunning athleticism exhibited by France’s men’s national soccer team.

Or does it?

The real story is cleverly revealed halfway through: The footage was digitally altered. All the remarkable plays shown were made by members of the women’s national soccer team.

While many deepfake videos are designed to deceive to damage someone’s reputation, Orange’s use of visual effects tools does the opposite: It challenges the common (mis)perception that women’s soccer is less exciting and view-worthy than games in the men’s league.

Did the ruse achieve its purpose? In a follow-up case study video released by Orange, the impressions left by the video (in the media and on viewers) are made clear: The most viral French video ever sparked a global conversation about the entertainment value of women’s professional sports and led to broader discussions about gender inequality.

Tell Your Brand’s Story

Each of these lessons underscores the art of storytelling as a powerful tool for connection, authenticity, and influence.

By weaving these strategies into your audiovisual content, you can tell stories that not only capture attention but also leave a lasting impression—one that echoes the success of award-winning brands.

Have you ever heard?

Listener-friendly content material codecs like podcasts, audiobooks, and sound snippets improve the emotional attraction of your tales and strengthen advertising and marketing efficiency.

Give it some thought. How usually do you get your viewers’s full consideration?

“Throughout your workday, you’re getting pitched and pinged in your units when you’re in ‘deflect and transfer on mode,’” says Jeanniey Walden, CMO of Ceremony Help and host of the favored Liftoff Journeys podcast.

“However when listening to audio, whether or not a podcast or an audiobook, you might be almost certainly in a transitionary or relaxed state. At that time, it’s simply you and the content material.”

You’ll must develop a technique to rise above the noise of a crowded content material market and set lifelike expectations of the worth audio can contribute. 

Listed here are some professional views and recommendation for constructing content material and advertising and marketing methods that embrace podcasting, sonic branding, and sound snippets.

The right way to resolve whether or not to launch a model podcast

Based on EMARKETER’s June 2024 industry forecast, U.S. podcast listeners will tune in for a median of fifty minutes day by day.  

“People have a tendency to like to multitask, and audio is essentially the most passive solution to study and eat content material,” says A. Lee Judge, co-founder and CMO of audio and video manufacturing company Content material Monsta. “You’ll be able to hearken to the podcast whereas strolling or doing day by day chores.”

And you’ll repurpose podcast belongings, which extends your manufacturing funding’s worth. For instance, you possibly can edit a prolonged dialog into brief snippets to be used on social media. Or you possibly can pull verbal testimonials from the present transcript for reuse on web sites and in advertising and marketing campaigns.

“The podcast just isn’t the top product. The podcast is a supply of content material,” Lee says. 

Nonetheless, a podcast is probably not a great match for each advertising and marketing aim.

“If in case you have an present however passive viewers or a singular premise you want to personal publicly (just like what a guide can do for you), then chances are you’ll wish to launch a present,” says Jay Acunzo, host of the How Tales Occur podcast and co-founder of Creator Kitchen.

Then again, a podcast could also be a poor alternative if viewers development is your major aim. “The podcast itself doesn’t unfold like different types of content material. The host should exit and promote the present, like an actor with a movie or creator with a guide,” Jay says.

To create a profitable present, Jay recommends investing in these essential parts:

1. A well-developed, perspective-conveying premise
2. An irresistible format that will get individuals to stay round by way of the top of the episode
3. Reliable, entertaining expertise

Simply don’t anticipate to compete with movie star podcasters like Steven Bartlett or Anna Faris.

Lee Choose explains, “If you happen to’re promoting industrial door hinges, your complete market might solely be 100,000 individuals.”

When gauging the advertising and marketing influence of your podcasts, don’t rely solely on conventional podcast metrics. For instance, one among Lee’s shoppers reported a noticeable improve in inbound inquiries, although her podcast analytics knowledge didn’t mirror this profitable consequence.

“If she caught with what her podcast analytics indicated, she would have thought the present wasn’t working. However when individuals started telling her, ‘I heard you right here. I heard you there.’ She knew it was working,” Lee says.

If you happen to lack the buy-in or price range to host a present, contemplate pitching firm thought leaders as potential visitors on different business podcasts — or sharing your content material as a present sponsor.

Must you spend money on sonic branding?

When sure sounds or musical triggers make your viewers mechanically consider your organization, that’s sonic branding at work.

“Sonic branding is a system of strategically crafted sound that makes individuals really feel one thing a couple of model or expertise,” says John Taite, EVP of worldwide model partnerships at Made Music Studio. “We frequently say that folks assume about what they see, however they really feel what they hear.”

There’s actual advertising and marketing energy in an immediately recognizable sound.

“It’s a unconscious reminiscence set off that kicks in whenever you’re making a purchase order resolution — be it a automobile or a sweet bar,” John says. “Each piece of branded sound or music makes a long-term impression on a shopper — from promoting to social content material to activations.”

John ought to know: His firm is behind Cricket Wi-fi’s signature beep, Nature Valley’s “call of the crunch” whistle, and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch “Cinnadust!” sound.

Whether or not you’re a B2B or B2C model, massive or small, your group might be making a sound. However except it’s deliberate, it’s simply noise, says Roscoe Williamson, world inventive technique & innovation director at MassiveMusic, which creates music and soundscapes for manufacturers.

“You’d by no means simply have a random emblem, random kind fonts, or a random visible id, proper? If you happen to’re not fascinated by sound in those self same phrases, you’re lacking out [on potential branding advantages],” Roscoe says.

Roscoe cites his group’s work with TikTok as one among his favourite examples of the facility of sonic branding:

“TikTok had an issue with off-site model attribution. When individuals [shared] a TikTok movie to a different website, like Instagram or Reddit, analysis confirmed that folks weren’t attributing that content material to TikTok as a lot because the model would really like,” he explains.

His group created the now ubiquitous sonic emblem that seems on any TikTok content material pushed off-site — in different phrases, onto tens of millions of movies each week — which is now the signature sound of TikTok.

Sonic branding consists of utilizing sound for social media touchpoints, audio promoting, in-person experiences (like commerce exhibits or in-store buying), and the product appears like alerts when a job is full or an error has been made.

Selecting the best sound palette on your model begins with creating guardrails for what you do and don’t wish to sound like.

“[Those decisions] ought to align with what your model stands for — both its values or its tone of voice or promise,” Roscoe says. “Simply having that standpoint and being constant will put these manufacturers forward of others [that] don’t even give it some thought.”

However, when sonic branding isn’t taken significantly or executed proper, it could possibly injury customers’ notion of your model. “Simply ask one of many 15 manufacturers on-air proper now utilizing the sound of a doorbell,” says John Taite of Made Music Studio. “You’ll be able to’t stand out from the litter when you find yourself the litter.”

Add audio to present content material

If podcasts and sonic branding initiatives aren’t strategic suits, different approaches are value exploring. For instance, you should use AI automation to effectively create sound content material or incorporate audio options into your present tales.

Ann Handley, creator, speaker, and the world’s first “Chief Content material Officer,” sees the convenience of working with the newest tech as “a chance to make use of audio to create a fuller, richer buyer expertise and deeper viewers connection.”

Manufacturers can even give their Reels, TikTok movies, and text-based content material an audible improve with the assistance of AI-generated audio overlays.

“AI is nice at voicing factual data. If I’ve created a weblog article, it’s helpful to have an AI voice learn it similar to it’s written as a result of my aim is to [help my audience] eat the details on the web page,” Content material Monsta’s Lee Choose says. 

Lee says AI could be a good substitute for human expertise should you lack adequate sources. He makes use of this analogy: “AI is sort of a stand-in recording. You’ll be able to take pleasure in watching recorded music movies, but it surely isn’t like being on the live performance.”

Even so, AI will help otherwise.  

“AI can translate audio into totally different languages and make it obtainable to world populations in ways in which it hasn’t been executed earlier than,” Ceremony Help’s Jeanniey Walden factors out. 

Let your viewers hear your model voice

As you put together your technique, contemplate turning up the amount to ask individuals to collect round and hear. Podcasts, sonic logos, and including music and sound to present content material belongings assist deepen relationships.

Bear in mind: “Audio is about resonance, not attain,” Jay Acunzo says. “Give attention to activating present audiences and turning them into superfans.”