Stories beat montages

Montages are all the rage: images & video clips sliced up on a flat background with bouncy music and sans-serif supers. It's exciting! It hits all your "priorities of communication"! It's good for social! It's all so, very.... relevant!

But it's not as effective an ad with a good old STORY.

You know: with a real character or two. In a clear place & time. Who interact in a plot. Who maybe even have a distinct accent. Who have both text and subtext. Where a little suspense builds until the story is resolved.

Ever watch a commercial just to see how the story ends? Not often, but yeah. Totally.

Orlando Wood and the folks at System1 Research have analyzed oodles of ads and have seen a huge link between these types of ad techniques and their effectiveness.

Long story short: stories work better. Sadly, montages are more popular.

Maybe we think the "distracted viewer" needs ads yelled at them before they scroll on by.

Maybe the ease & cost of splicing together stock video, stock music, and a few supers is too enticing.

Either way, wanna make a more effective ad?

Tell an actual story.

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