This is a fabulous GUEST POST by Shawn Amos from the most excellent web publication FleischmanHillard TRUE. TRUE is is an award-winning online magazine that features insights from thought leaders in the worlds of communications, marketing and media. We highly...
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On Set with Martin Scorsese
By Michael Neelsen StoryFirst collaborator Michael Nie has been one of my best friends for many years, ever since we worked on an independent feature together in Madison, Wisconsin in early 2004. More recently, he has worked on a myriad of major film productions,...
Storytelling Tip: The Principle of “Buts” and “Therefores”
By Michael Neelsen When most of us first start to dabble in storytelling, we fall into the trap of what I'll call "and then" storytelling. How many copywriters write corporate scripts that are nothing more than a list of talking points, brand promises and...
Our 5 Favorite Ads of Super Bowl XLVIII
by Michael Neelsen The Super Bowl is the biggest brand storytelling day of the year. For one day, all the major brands that live and die with seductive imagery, features & benefits, and data & rhetoric suddenly decide to tell a story. Here are StoryFirst...
Great Brand Stories, Vol. I : Starbucks
Today we will be breaking down a brand story released by Starbucks to promote its new Veranda (blonde) Roast.
Great Brand Stories, Vol. I : Starbucks
By Michael Neelsen Today we will be breaking down a brand story released by Starbucks to promote its new Veranda (blonde) Roast. First, Watch the Video This is a great example of brand storytelling. Let's take it beat by beat. The Aesthetics The very first image is a...
A Brand Storytelling Lesson from the NFL
By Michael Neelsen StoryFirst Media was founded in Wisconsin, and as such, we are Green Bay Packers fans (another clue would be our 2012 award-winning documentary Last Day at Lambeau). This past Sunday, the Packers completed the biggest comeback for a win in their...
How Storytelling Creates a Need for Your Data
By Michael Neelsen In 1994, astrophysicist Kip Thorne wrote the book “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy”. The title of the book sounds daunting. One would assume it to be filled with scientific theories and language that would surely alienate...
You Are Your Story’s Hero
By Michael Neelsen Back in 2011 when I was deep in editing for my documentary Last Day at Lambeau, I realized the movie didn’t work and I was mere weeks away from film festival submission deadlines. The movie was about the relationship between sports fans and their...
Demonstrate. Don’t Explain.
By Michael Neelsen On January 24, 1978, Steven Spielberg was sitting in a writers’ room with George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. They were hard at work structuring a story about a pseudo grave-robber in the 1930s who searches for the Lost Ark of the Covenant. That story...
Humans Interpret the World Through Narrative
By Michael Neelsen The human brain is hardwired to receive information in narrative form. If you wake up looking forward to wearing your new outfit to work and spill coffee on it, this thought might cross your mind: “My day just got off to a bad start.” This thought...
Stop Making Corporate Videos!
By Michael Neelsen When was the last time you actually enjoyed watching a traditional corporate video? If you’re like me, it’s been a damn long time (if ever). So why do we keep making them? I'll define what I mean by 'corporate video'. A corporate video (in the...
Action! – It’s all starts when the cameras have ‘stopped’ rolling.
What a great word, Action! In the world of film and video production it harkens to old world images of a director with megaphone and beret shouting action to get the cameras rolling. In the world of brand storytelling the word action takes on its greatest...
Establish Trust With A Front Page Web Video
Putting a web video on page one of your website is not about information, it is not about product presentation, it is about trust establishment.
16 Tips for Successful Online Video Marketing
By Amy Porterfield Social Media Examiner There’s no doubt that online video marketing is on the rise. Numerous studies and statistics prove that video works. In fact, Forrester Research found that videos were 50 times more likely to receive an organic first page...
Social Media: Frightening? Inspiring? Revolutionary?
Watch this awesome video and tell us what you think ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng Roger Ebert in a recent post with this video asked, "Are social media creating something wonderful for the human race? Or are they the first...
Content Over Aesthetic
I have recently been studying the works of the early Soviet film pioneers and their respective texts. While Sergei Eisenstein is the most remembered today, it’s important not to forget that he was but one member of an entire movement in world cinema history that took...
7 Online Video Tips Every B2B Marketer Should Know
By Kipp Bodnar, Social Media B2B Making and distributing good B2B video content takes time. It isn’t a quick process to arrange a video shoot, edit video and then upload it to the social web. This work though can come with a substantial pay-off if as a B2B company you...
NY – A Storm Story Without Words
Okay, I’m a little late to the party on this gem of a short film by Filmmaker Jamie Stuart. He’s receiving national attention for this short film he made about the recent East Coast blizzard. Stuart shot “Idiot with a Tripod” on December 26th…
Engage Your Audience With Stories
This post is a guest post by Roger Dooley, a writer, speaker and researcher in marketing, and in particular the use of neuroscience and behavioral research. This post was first published on PRSAY, the executive blog of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)....