VISUAL
STORYTELLING
Carrie Hollenbeck had to sell her used car, a 1996 Honda Accord with over 230,000km. Price; 499 USD on Ebay. I discuss it. But Carrie’s fiancé Max Lanman, fortunately, had a better idea; to run an ad to promote the car and stimulate its sale at auction. Lanman was not a person at all but an advertising director. So Max, with the help of a producer friend, under the act of Anne Marie Avey, realizes the “Used Car Commercial // 1996 Honda Accord” spot and puts it on Youtube. Like the millions of videos that are downloaded daily. The result: over 3.5 million clicks to date, and the 1996 Honda Accord, with over 230,000 kilometers, sold for more than $ 100,000.
What is the secret? There are thousands of youtube video ads. Why did Max Lanman’s video work?
To give this answer it must be said that this ad is not something spontaneously launched. Lanman is an advertising professional. Although only 29 years old, he is the author of several spots for Microsoft, Hāagen-Dazs, etc. The video has been created on the table and built on a genuine strategy by shifting public attention from the car to the protagonist of the video to her lifestyle. Turning it into a lifestyle, translating it with adorable inspiration into a form of storytelling where many of us find a small part of us to draw our attention to. Ironically, using a technique as old and current as what marketing is called Storytelling. Visual Storytelling to be more accurate. This technique, commonly used in Social Media Marketing, seeks to use the expressive power of images or videos to bring the public to a deep level of involvement and empathy with the story in question. And with the brand behind such a campaign. But beware, images per se do not have this power without being used properly, without knowing the rules underlying them.
Photography is a language of communication, as every language has its morphological and syntactic rules. Only anyone who comes from the photography world can understand this and be able to use it effectively.
At EJAlbum, the word Visual Storytelling translates to an area where we can provide consultancy and build genuine communication campaigns. We have been doing this for years, ours are all our company communication campaigns, some campaigns and client consulting such as: Italian Institute of Culture in Tirana, Turkish Junus Emre Institute, Benetton Studi and Ricerche Foundation, Metropolitan University, Metroresearch and Metropolitan Incubator, Telecom, Strongbow, GKA, Tirana Municipality, etc.
The fruit of EJAlbum’s work is also the cycle of Visual Storytelling lectures we occasionally hold at universities, institutions, and company staff with the goal of educating the market to make the most of this successful form of communication. We at EJAlbum talk and think about photography. This thing every day, for years. No one better than us can manage his image and derivatives and no one better than us knows his expressive and empathetic power. Give us a try…