It seems like every marketing blog and guru is promoting a video-first strategy these days. For good reasons — video is engaging, memorable, and what customers want. But as the focus on video increases, competition for audience attention gets more fierce. Figuring out what makes a video interesting can help your content capture more attention and, ultimately, convert more viewers.
After plenty of practice and hundreds of videos for all kinds of brands, we’ve honed in on a few key elements that interest viewers. We can’t guarantee you’ll turn out a viral video, but these six tips will certainly make your marketing videos more interesting.
1. Start with Storytelling
We talk a lot about storytelling at IdeaRocket, and there’s a good reason for that. Human brains are wired for story. It’s how we understand the world and it helps us remember information. That’s why the best videos go beyond the benefits and features of an offering to tell a story.
Stories are interesting because they activate the imagination. The viewer can’t help but identify with your main character, which means that they stick with you long enough to find out what happens – and learn about your offering along the way.
This video from Indiana 811 delivers a public service announcement in a story format. The song and animation work together to introduce you to our hero, Holey Moley, and the hapless man who doesn’t listen to his warnings. The story may be simple, but it’s a lot more interesting than a talking head explaining the dig rules.
2. Use Metaphor To Illustrate Ideas
Metaphor grabs people by the imagination and won’t let go. Spoken metaphor can enrich your voiceover while visual metaphor can enhance an animation. Take this example from CBC credit union.
The voiceover uses the metaphor of “feeling small” and then the animation doubles down with a main character small enough to step on. The character almost drowns in a martini glass before being rescued by a life preserver to eventually float carefree on a peaceful ocean. And all that in the first 13 seconds of the video. Metaphor doesn’t just make a video interesting, it also lets you pack a lot of information into a few seconds.
3. Pick Up the Pace
Shorter videos have become the standard on most video platforms — especially social media. Interesting videos keep moving and pull the audience along. That could mean more transitions, faster motion, or even speaking at a quicker pace. But pacing isn’t always about speed, it’s about giving each piece of the story exactly as much time as it needs, and no more.
There may be some exceptions to the faster-is-better philosophy. One study found that if a product requires a lot of explanation to be understood, consumers respond better to ads with a slower pace. For products that consumers are already familiar with, a faster pace might be preferable.
4. Take a Unique Perspective
From the industry changing camera angles of Citizen Kane to pharmaceutical and medical videos that take us inside the human body, some of the most interesting videos ever made take unique perspectives. While live action can achieve unique perspectives with camera angles and special effects, animation opens up new dimensions and possibilities.
With animation you can take your viewers inside the human body, under the sea or into space. You can even zoom into a recipe book and travel the world as in this video for Spice Hunter.
5. Choose an Arresting Color Palette
Color choice alone probably won’t turn a boring video into a show stopper, but a unique color palette can snag attention just long enough for the other elements on this list to do their work. See this example from Sightpath Medical Lasik, which uses a striking combination of black, lavender and gold to capture audience attention from the very first frame.
A more traditional color palette would have been okay, but these color choices are just surprising enough to pause the scroll or make viewers actually focus on their television screens. Once they’re paying attention, metaphor and storytelling do the rest.
6. Be Surprising
Most of these tips boil down to just one idea — surprise your audience. That doesn’t mean filing your ad with jump scares and non sequiturs. Your spokesperson need not reveal that he is on a horse like that classic Old Spice commercial. Instead, think about how you can subvert expectations, tell a story from a new angle, or show your viewer something unique.
We Make Interesting Video
At IdeaRocket we use storytelling, metaphor, pacing and design choices to surprise audiences and deliver interesting videos. Whether you’re making an animated commercial or an explainer video, we can help your brand stand out. Contact us today to get started.
