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The authenticity zeitgeist – how to keep your audience content, with your content

Sports fans want more – the demand for content from their favourite sports teams and athletes is insatiable, so how can brands keep fans happy and engaged? They need to think creatively when storytelling, as authentic and compelling content is the key to success.

Storytelling has the power to create an emotional connection between an organisation, its products, and customers – which in turn can drive engagement and give rise to action. A successful story that resonates with audiences should focus on three key components to truly convey authenticity.

Empathy and human-focused

When it comes to the message you want to deliver, making it clear is a top priority. Highlighting the emotions of the athletes, allows audiences to connect with the organisation on a deeper level and transform them into brand evangelists.

Story10 partnered with The Professional Triathlete Organisation (PTO) to showcase this last Summer. By producing videos that focused on the impact of real-life issues for athletes – the PTO maternity policy (Triathlete star, Sodaro, reflects on the PTO maternity policy) and near-fatal injuries (Kat Matthews on the challenge of returning to racing after surviving a near-fatal car crash). It captured their emotions providing a human-focused narrative that fans could relate to and increase their connection with the federation.

Transparency

Transparency is also key as the brand will come across as more trustworthy; research has found that nearly 95% of consumers are more loyal to brands that are transparent and genuine [1].

The charitable organisation Campaign against Living Miserably (CALM) exhibits this component well through their short and powerful video with England and West Ham midfielder Declan Rice. The athlete’s transparency regarding mental health struggles and the importance of seeking help for feelings of loneliness or isolation, benefits CALM by positive association.

Compelling stories

For deeper relationships with your consumers, content should educate, entertain, or inspire. Additionally, using a variety of storytelling approaches, such as story arcs and rhetorical questions that get your audience thinking critically, also helps your audience resonate and remain captivated by your content.

In sports, some key narratives that evoke powerful emotions with audiences are drama, conflict, triumph, and failure. These are especially powerful when you construct stories that feature the personalities, values, and journeys of your brands, athletes, and/or team.

Story10 worked with Heineken and F1 superstar Max Verstappen to highlight their new partnership and responsible consumption campaign, ‘When You Drive, Never Drink’. Capturing exclusive interview content from Verstappen and Heineken CEO, Dolf van den Brink helped inspire and educate the next generation of fans, encouraging responsible consumption.

How we can help

We have helped brands amplify the reach of their campaigns and have seen great results in the form of increased media exposure and social impressions.

Find out more about how Story10 can help drive your brand's success by contacting us today.

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Source:

[1] Adobe (2022) The top 10 content marketing trends for 2023, Adobe Experience Cloud Blog. Adobe. Available at: https://business.adobe.com/blog/the-latest/content-marketing-trends (Accessed: April 19, 2023).