Why Your Brand Video Needs Stakes

I think one of the things that many people forget to inject into their brand storytelling are proper stakes. Something that's at risk for their audience, for the hero in their story. Because I think, and I honestly think a lot of times it's because we are afraid of being melodramatic. We don't want to say anything too big. We don't want to overstate like the solution that we're offering folks. But the fact of the matter is if there aren't any stakes then nobody cares. It's like well if I don't use your thing or I don't partner with you then what's going to happen? I just live my life and nothing's wrong. I'm totally fine. But if you can really establish real stakes, and sometimes the stakes are things you have to like really educate people on. They are not aware that there's going to be a problem. If you can establish really great stakes then suddenly your story has the tension that it needs to really motivate people and it drives people to act. This isn't, let me be clear, isn't fear-mongering. We don't want to like make people afraid for no reason. But we should be pointing out what happens when they are overcome by the villain in the story. What happens when your hero doesn't succeed? What is the state they're left in? These are very traditional storytelling ideas. This kind of hero's journey. And if they're not fighting against anything then it sort of becomes difficult to really establish tension and interest in the story overall.