A great product or service isn’t enough to fuel your business’ growth. To thrive, your company has to attract customers and build their trust with honest, unique messaging. Video for brand storytelling is a proven method for relating to your customers on a more personal level. When you tell your entire company story—your purpose, values, how you benefit others—people realize that they share the same beliefs and aspirations as your brand. With this connection, they’re eager to find out more about your product.
Brand storytelling can happen through a number of mediums, such as blog posts and photo ads. But in today’s world, video is the most powerful way to tell great brand stories. The combination of music, movement, visuals, and more in video engages people on a deeper level than other less dynamic mediums, such as audio or text alone.
We’ve collected ten examples of brand storytelling that showcase how great companies have used video to emotionally connect with their target audiences. Seeing their storytelling techniques, you’ll be inspired to tell your own brand stories through video.
Top 10 storytelling examples of brand storytelling through video
If you asked a person on the street “what is brand storytelling?”, they probably would guess that you’re talking about the history of a company.
A brand’s origin is just one part of their story. As these ten innovative companies show, there are many other types of great brand stories to share. You’re not just explaining how you began, but also why you work, who does your work, and who your work serves.
To show you how to share these details through video—with footage, music, effects, and more—here are 10 examples of fantastic brand storytelling through video. These videos all powerfully capture these companies’ brand stories by focusing on one of these factors:
- Authenticity: The company uses the visuals of video to show viewers how their brand acts on its mission and values.
- Philosophy: The values of the brand are reflected in the video subject, whether that’s a celebrity sponsor or a company-supported event.
- Personality: The video highlights the fun, lighthearted side of the company to show viewers the human, approachable side of the brand.
Let’s dive in.
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1. Ben & Jerry’s: Company mission video
Brands build trust by showing customers the “why” of their story. Demonstrate your company’s good intentions and desire to make a positive impact. People will understand that your company wants to help others and, as a result, be more likely to buy into your product messaging.
As a socially conscious company, Ben and Jerry’s is exceptionally great at telling the story of their business. Instead of just writing a “Mission” page on their site, they created a video to explain how social consciousness drives every aspect of their business. By highlighting the company’s mission in action—family farms that Ben and Jerry’s sources from, the employees reporting on sustainability—the video shows viewers that their socially conscious focus is authentic.
Takeaway: Show viewers that your mission is authentic with imagery of how your brand acts on its philosophy.
2. Casper: product explainer video
Your product is the core of your brand story. It was created to fulfill your brand mission and its unique features set your company apart in a sea of other brands.
Tell the story of how your product helps others with an explainer video. It can show visuals, include voice-overs, and other details to explain the reasoning behind why you created your product and how it benefits your customers.
The mattress company Casper created an explainer video that powerfully justifies their product. Their design specialists explain in great detail how they created the Casper mattress based on consumer research and product engineering principles.
Despite being technical, the video makes the mattress’ value so easy to understand. The motion graphics of the product’s design are shown while you hear the designers explain their concepts, so it’s easy to connect the information and see what makes the mattress exceptional.
Takeaway: Combine the sensory details of video—voice-overs, visuals—to fully explain how your product works and show viewers why it’s genuinely valuable.
3. Tesla: testimonial
The part of your story that customers care most about is how you benefit others. Testimonials get right to the heart of that idea. In testimonials, customers explain what makes their product experience great, so viewers see how your company helps others.
Tesla created a testimonial video that is captivating with its cinematic, organic look. Instead of just watching the customer be filmed straight on, we get to experience his day-to-day life with his Tesla—we hear birds chirping in his neighborhood, we see him pull food out of the fridge with his kid in his arm. For viewers, these everyday details make his positive statements about Tesla feel believable.
Takeaway: Let your customer describe their positive product experience organically to make their support feel authentic.
4. Warby Parker: humor video
While higher values are important to show, your company’s brand storytelling doesn’t always need to be serious. Your brand also has to seem approachable to encourage people to connect with it.
Show the lighthearted, human side of your company with a humor video. While it could be about your product, the video could also just be a funny concept.
The Warby Parker team, for example, filmed their employees saying which word they like the least. It’s a simple concept that makes the brand feel more relatable. Seeing that Warby Parker employees are friendly and funny, viewers feel comfortable and eager to connect with the brand.
Takeaway: Remind customers that your brand is approachable by showing your funny personality through video.
5. GoPro: user-generated content
Customers are creating stories around your brand every day on social media. Get these personal stories out in front of your audience with user-generated content (UGC). These videos add authenticity to your brand by showing customers’ first-hand experiences with your product in their day-to-day lives.
GoPro is truly a pro at utilizing UGC to tell their brand story. Their Instagram is updated on a daily basis with photos and videos from their customers using GoPro cameras.
As an example, the company held a Million Dollar Challenge contest to capture users’ videos with the newest GoPro camera. The contest footage is authentic, high-quality, and speaks to the aspirations of GoPro’s target audience. Every video looks stunning in this montage of winning submissions, and they all capture the adventurous, outdoor-loving spirit of GoPro customers.
Takeaway: Share customers’ videos about your product to highlight how your brand benefits others in an authentic, unique way.
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6. Nike: Celebrity profile
Show how celebrities emulate your brand values and people will feel more invested in your company. Seeing how a celebrity is connected to your brand, viewers will be eager to bring your product into their lives, too.
The problem with most brands’ celebrity profiles is that they feel inauthentic. The celebrity just reads from a script about how great a company is, and viewers assume that they’re just saying the words because they were given a big paycheck.
Nike’s celebrity profile of Kyrie Irving is the opposite. Instead of scripting Kyrie to say that Nike is great, the company created a more compelling video by showing what their celebrity supporter has achieved with his father’s support. Seeing how Kyrie emulated Nike’s motto of “Just do it,” viewers leave the video wanting to connect with the inspiring brand.
Takeaway: If possible, highlight how celebrities embrace your brand values to gain their fans’ support.
7. Madewell: A day in the life video
In today’s social media-fueled world, people expect brands to tell their story with organic content. If you capture how customers authentically interact with your product, viewers will be able to imagine themselves using your product and feel more connected to your brand.
Madewell appeals to this interest with a “day in the life” video featuring three of their customers. Unlike a testimonial, the customers don’t talk during the video and Madewell isn’t mentioned. The video, instead, features brief snippets of the three women doing their jobs while wearing Madewell. Watching these three customers looking chic in their day-to-day lives, viewers can see how Madewell helps everyday people look fashionable.
Takeaway: Capture how different customers are using your product to show how your brand benefits everyday people.
8. Clif Bar: Events video
Brands show their personality today by promoting events outside of work, whether it’s International Women’s Day or a road race that their employees are running. Scrolling through a company’s social media page, people can tell what values the brand supports by the events that they post.
Clif Bar highlighted its brand values by filming a team of bikers on an eight-day biking journey from San Francisco to Alaska. Instead of featuring Clif products, the video features gorgeous footage of the winding highways and green forests on the trip, as well as the challenges and accomplishments of this athletic group. Clif’s target audience loves the outdoors and being active, so they feel connected to the brand knowing that they supported this event.
Takeaway: Promote events that reflect your brand values and you’ll attract your target audience.
9. Square: Use-case videos
Just like testimonials, use-case videos tell your brand story by showing who your company benefits. However, a use-case video shows these benefits more broadly than a testimonial by featuring an entire type of customer that uses your product, not just an individual. Seeing how your company helps others, viewers will feel more connected to your brand.
Square highlighted a use-case of their Terminal product with a video showing how a dry cleaner would use Terminal. The video captures how the product is not only portable but also a no-fee payment system. Seeing these details, viewers understand how Square helps make payments easier for small businesses.
Takeaway: Highlight how broad groups of people can use your product to show how your brand is helping its customers.
10. Headspace: company culture
Even in the age of Amazon, people still go to local mom-and-pop shops because they know and trust the store’s owners and employees. Likewise, you can build customers’ trust in your brand by introducing them to your team with a company culture video. Capture why employees feel motivated to work at your company, and viewers will believe in your brand, knowing that your employees are driven and passionate.
In most company culture videos, employees talk about the physical perks of the job—a ping-pong table, beer in the fridge, a snack pantry. The Headspace culture video is much more compelling by solely focusing on how employees feel about the company mission. Watching employees’ expressions, viewers can see that they are genuinely passionate about the brand’s desire to make the world healthier and happier through meditation. The video remains true to its brand by incorporating brand colors and unique brand elements throughout the video.
Takeaway: Film employees talking about what your company mission means to them to give viewers an authentic impression of your company culture.
Connect to customers with brand storytelling through video
Your brand story is not just your company history—it’s your product, your philosophy, your process, and more. Customers pick up pieces of this story and internalize them with every interaction that they have with your brand. To retain these customers and attract new ones, you have to craft and share content that tells your story creatively and authentically.
Video is the optimal medium for innovative brand storytelling. Combining visuals and audio, video captures the details of your brand stories and conveys them in memorable ways.
Use this guide to gain inspiration for your own video brand storytelling. Seeing how companies have connected with customers through video, you’ll form plenty of ideas for telling your own brand story.
Looking to learn more about branding your videos? Take a look at these resources:
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