Using motion to spark emotion
We like to think we play an active role in the choices we make and the actions we take, but when it comes to making big decisions, a lot of work often happens ‘behind the scenes’. According to Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, driven far more by instinct and feeling rather than careful consideration. It’s like the old adage says ‘Sell the sizzle, not the steak’, and advertisers know just how to reach you at an emotional, subconscious level. But this is not only true of advertising.
When it comes to connecting with and driving behaviour change with our employees, we often talk in terms of winning ‘hearts and minds’, and achieving that means hitting the right emotional drivers with our audience to inspire them to act.
Video is a particularly powerful medium in this regard. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. But in order to effect real change, we need to agree first how we want to get cut through with our audience and find that emotionally resonant (and authentic) sweetspot.
It’s great to see the appetite and commitment to producing video content in our client community and across the industry. A recent study reported a 135% increase in video production in 2020. Now that the physical limitations of COVID have been largely lifted we expect to see that number increase. We’ve got some incredible pieces of video content currently in production that we can’t wait to launch and share in the near future.
In the meantime, we’ve taken a look back through our extensive archive of content that we’ve been lucky enough to produce for our clients over the years and grouped them by the three key methods we use to build a strong emotional connection with our audience.
Category 1: Insight with levity
Humour is great for engagement, cut through and driving conversation. It also helps take the edge off an otherwise valuable insight or core message, repackaging it in a more relatable and authentic way.
Star Moves
Our challenge was to get StarTrack’s warehouse teams to take up daily safety rituals or warm ups to prevent injury. To get a sometimes cynical audience on their feet, we enlisted the help of a personal trainer to get everyone “moving moving” as part of the production.
KFC Safety
KFC’s employee audience needed to do away with the idea that safety was ‘uncool’. We worked with employees to create an original take on safety (delivered through a video series), seeing a 28% increase in safety incident reporting and a 21% increase in near-miss reporting as a result.
Category 2: Insight with a strong moral
Insights are ultimately just human truths, and truth is particularly resonant. By connecting insights to a strong moral core, you can create a compelling story that actually compels your audience to make a change or take an action.
Medibank Diversity #1
For Medibank, it wasn’t enough to simply have a diverse workplace, they wanted to unlock the full potential of having one. Our research showed that the way to do this involved opening up to vulnerability and talking about the prejudices and assumptions we all make without realising it.
Medibank Diversity #2
The impact of the first video inspired Medibank to deepen and expand the conversation, the next video focusing on unconscious bias. With 10,000+ views in a week on LinkedIn and a broadly positive reception, it certainly got people talking.
Category 3: Insight with emotional connection
The key to advocacy is making your audience care, but it’s hard to care about something you don’t have a connection with. Using storytelling to create those emotional connections is a powerful way to find those eureka moments that turn employees into brand-invested advocates
Jurlique Vision
Our research showed us that people working in Jurlique stores didn’t feel a significant connection with the farm in the Adelaide Hills where their natural ingredients are grown. We created a video to help employees understand and connect with the origins of the brand, one they would be proud to tell to customers. To fully immerse our audience in the story, we distributed this video with Google Cardboard to create a 360 style experience.
Metcash Employer Brand
Metcash has long been driven by a strong Purpose to Champion successful independents, but there was still a disconnect between the work their employees did day-to-day and the impacts that had on independent retailers across the country. We worked with 5 of their ambassadors – known as Metcash Legends – to help them share the stories about their life, their work and their connection to independent Australia.
More than a feeling...
Humans are emotional beings. We act on instinct and feeling more than we would probably like to admit. When it comes to influencing change and inspiring action with your people, sometimes the key to their minds is through their hearts.
If you have a project that requires investment, engagement or advocacy from your people, get in touch with our Client Advisor, Nicola Hutchinson.
