marketing at first sight

I’m sure many of you reading this have had to sit through 5 annoying seconds of a YouTube ad. Yes, 5 seconds is all an advertiser’s got to keep us hooked. Because, let’s be honest, we skip the ad right away. But not always. Sometimes, watching through an ad feels just right. Which brings me to the point of my post.

Just today, I followed a link to a YouTube video, and as is the case for most videos, there was an ad. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… I didn’t want to click skip because this ad piqued my interest. It was TenTree with its 10 Reminders For The Wild And Free ad. I didn’t even know it was TenTree, until the end; I thought it was an ad for some exotic resort vacation with all that surfing and beautiful scenery. The background music made it even better; dancy and ear-soothing enough to take you on an adventure. I rarely click through a YouTube ad, but in this case I wanted to know what exactly was being advertised, so I did. I landed on TenTree’s YouTube page, and it didn’t take long for me to realize it was an apparel company, based in Canada (and that they were on Dragons’ Den!). Turns out, their target market is Canadian nature-lovers; now I understood why the ad had elements of nature. A large part of what TenTree was doing in the ad is storytelling; taking the customer on an adventure.

We are social beings who value connection. Connecting with customers should be focal to a company’s marketing efforts. Done right, storytelling is a very powerful way of connecting to your customers .