www.upgvideo.com/blog Building your companies overall brand narrative is important. But how do you tell all of the smaller stories that build that big picture narrative? This short slide deck will help.

1. UPGVideo.com
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2. STORYTELLING EXERCISE
Great stories begin with a great storytelling process.
Here is an exercise that will help anyone tell better stories.
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3. The 4 P’s
Purpose: What’s the main point of the story?
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Why should the viewer care? This
should be one sentence.
People:
Who are the characters? How will you make us care about them? BTW,
it might not be a person. For example, your villain might be old technology.
Places:
Where the story happens. Is the location relevant? Friendly? What will it
add to the story? Don’t settle.
Plot:
Yes, every story has a plot. Doesn’t have to be “saving the world.” What’s
the journey or conflict? This is where stories go from good to great. This is where
you can make viewers feel involved. Choose 3 potential plots. Pick the best one.
Your story should have a beginning, middle, & end.
Key words: Brainstorm 4 or 5 key words or phrases that describe important aspects
of your story. List 20. Cut it down to 4 or 5. Which elements in your story speak to
each one? All key words must be represented in some way.

4. UPGVideo.com
EXAMPLES OF GREAT BRAND STORYTELLING
Peer 1 Hosting. During Hurricane Sandy, this New Jersey cloud provider’s building
began to flood. All of the server racks & equipment were about to be ruined, taking
down hundreds of client websites and stored data. Luckily all was saved, but the
brand wasn’t the hero. (video produced by UPG’s Stephen Mick)
(Take SlideShare Deck Fullscreen to Click Links)
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BreakingPoint (IXIA). A historic throughput test. It’s never been done. But you
can’t just point a camera at a server rack and say, “Watch this.” You need a story.
(video by UPG)
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Expedia: These guys do a lot of video content but nothing like the “Find Yours”
campaign. A series of stories about being human. This one, in particular was the
most shared. Never mentions the brand(until endscreen graphics).
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