What 8 Brand Storytellers Have to Say About the Content People Want to See

Straight from Sundance

At its core, all marketing is storytelling. But new digital platforms—from video to Snapchat to VR—are providing brands with more powerful tools to build compelling narratives that engage and delight consumers. We asked the sponsors of the Brand Storytelling conference, taking place at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to share their insights on what brands need to do to become captivating storytellers. Here are highlights of what they had to say (and click the links to read their complete articles):

The Branded Content Lifecycle

As digital, social, TV and film converge, the ability to craft stories that are engaging and adaptable across formats and screens is increasingly valuable. Advertisers can act like traditional networks—developing, green-lighting, piloting and measuring the success of brand stories digitally before graduating the most successful to additional or bigger screens.
—Patrick Courtney, SVP of Marketing & Digital Strategy, Above Average

The Last American Teen?

When we commissioned a Gen Z study, we expected to arrive at a handful of core findings that crunched down into tweetable sound bytes—the same way millennials have been crystallized (or over-simplified) into notions like “the trophy generation” or “nerds are the new jocks.” What we found, instead, was something counter-intuitive. It seemed as if this next generation was not teen-like at all. They were more like mini-adults, skipping directly from childhood into adulthood.
—Astronauts Wanted’s Insight Lab

The New Technologies That Are Changing Storytelling

Last April, Garret Madison set out to ascend Mount Everest for the seventh time. The world-class American climber, who had previously guided 37 others to the summit, again found himself leading a group into the most dangerous journey in the mountaineering world. Only this time, Madison and his team were seeking to capture the climb in a way that had never been done before—in virtual reality.
—Bonnie Pan, President, Endemol Shine Beyond USA

2017: The Year Brands Embrace Fandom

Chasing fleeting relevance through the hashtags of the moment can be perilous and empty. But creating a story intended to connect fans to each other is powerful and fun. True brand fandoms cannot simply be bought. They’re fueled. When loyal, passionate fans connect with their friends and followers to be part of a dialogue designed with them in mind, that’s where you’ll find your fandom.
Alan Beard, CMO, Fullscreen Media

Storytelling in a Snap

What makes Snapchat so desirable? Most obviously, there’s the sheer volume of the audience. Snapchat attracts 150 million daily active users (spending 30 minutes daily on the app) who are sharing more than 10 billion videos per day. That’s an incredible amount of user interaction—users who are engaged in a new form of storytelling that’s highly personal, mobile and modern.
—Sara DeCou, Executive Producer, Naritiv (WeBuyGold) 

The Key to Brand Storytelling

Viewers today are drowning in a sea of content. Now more than ever, it’s critical for marketers to break through the noise and make real, meaningful connections with their consumers, wherever they watch. To do this, marketers need the right collaborators—partners who can tell new kinds of stories, identify key insights, drive attention to their brands, and fuel their larger marketing strategies.
—Wendy Wildfeuer, SVP, The NBCU Content Studio, NBCUniversal

Pay Attention to Attention

Advertising continues to play catch-up. Instead of adjusting to this changing landscape by properly valuing the cost of attention and getting more efficient about how to reach people, the ad industry has tried to cram more ads into an ever-more-limited window. And as time and attention get crunched, we’re turning to bad metrics to try to make everything look better.
—David Levy, EVP, Nonlinear Advertising Revenues, Fox Networks Group; Co-founder, true[X]

It’s Time to Raise Our Content IQ

For brands that are investing in content creation, having a high Content IQ is vital. The battle for consumer attention is only getting more difficult. The winners will use data and technology to understand what their audiences are watching, then use that intelligence as a guide for ideation, production and even casting.
—Chip Russo, EVP, Strategic Partnerships, ZEFR

See the complete Adweek Brand Storytelling Guide.