Since the beginning of the year, we were exploring story telling in class, we learned the elements through short documentaries or films. Then, we were introduced to a new project, it was creating a mini documentary about an NGO o a company we were interested in. As we brainstormed about Peruvian companies, we decided to work with a restaurant, we wanted to try the experience of filming a common environment, with people and delicious food that had a story behind, this is when La Folie came in. We were thinking about a restaurant that stood out, that had a different environment, an unusual one. La Folie was the first one that came to our mind, we knew it had a crazy environment and different and unique food, so we hoped it would have an interesting story behind it, this is why we chose this one. After contacting the owner, Andrea Balta, we scheduled a meeting to tell her a little bit about the project and she instantly agreed to work with us! This is when we started studying La Folie in depth. We wanted to explore the STEPPS from the book Contagious, written by Jonah Berger and apply them in our marketing video. This is when we started researching about the restaurant, to learn more about it and connect it to the STEPPS. After hearing the unique story of La Folie, we were convinced that we wanted to show story and emotion in our video, these were the two STEPPS that really described our company, that's why we chose them. The S from STEPPS belongs to Stories, the last step to make your product contagious. It is pretty simple, people tell stories because of Social Currency, which is the same reason why they share word of mouth, they want to look good to others. Stories are very practical, they are told very quickly and give people the information they need in a way that is easy to remember. Using them is important in making a product contagious because when telling stories, "information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter," so it doesn't seem like you are being told boring information about a product or advertising it, it is more like a conversation, where people share their opinions on the product, but the information still gets to the other person. The key elements that we wanted to show were the sisters and the waitress's story. The story behind La Folie is very interesting, it is about two sisters, Andrea and Pilar Balta, who wanted to open a cafe. They decided to make it different, with a unique style. This is when they mixed both of their tastes, in colors but also in food and this is how La Folie started. They studied Hotel Management and Marketing, so their careers were a perfect match for it, making the restaurant have a warm, comfy and homie vibe, making their costumers feel at home. That's how the story of the waitress comes in. There is a waitress that have been working there since the restaurant opened, and this shows loyalty, also how La Folie treats their employees and their costumers like family or close friends, making the environment feel a lot more like a home instead of a regular restaurant. We were able to show these stories in two different ways. For the sisters' story, we used a voice over explaining some key parts of how La Folie started. These are some quotes that we used in our film: "La Folie’s story begins in the year 2008 when Andrea Balta and her sister Pilar decide to start a business together. They began to brainstorm ideas and evaluated their tastes. And because of their complementary careers: hotel management and marketing, it combined well," "La Folie has a mix of modern and old things, the materials and textures are actually a combination of the different tastes of the two sisters," and "the vibe of La Folie is to feel at home. It is to get there and always find something new, a different place that reminds you of your childhood. For you to feel identified with either a sofa or a dessert and for it to be an experience that sharpens the senses." These were accompanied with some images of the environment, the crazy looks, the sisters and the plates to give our viewers the feeling of being there. For the waitress's story, we used an interview. In this case, we showed the waitress in the camera while she was saying "It is nice, I feel comfortable, if not, I wouldn't be here." This gives the audience a more personal side of La Folie, showing a member of their family. The E in STEPPS, emotion, the 3rd step to get contagiousness. Emotions are feelings, it means caring, and "when we care, we share." According to Jonah Berger, "arousal is a state of activation and readiness for action. The heart beats faster and blood pressure rises." When people feel high arousal emotions, such as awe, excitement, anger and anxiety, there are more likely to share. There are also low arousal emotions like contentment or sadness. This is why emotion is so important, because it focuses on feelings, it makes people feel these high arousal emotions and this causes them to share. "Emotions drive people to action." People don't want to get bored, they don't want you to fill them with information, they want you to make them feel. The emotions we wanted to convey in our video were happiness, surprise, excitement and awe. We showed these with the waitress's interview and filming her working in the restaurant, also with a picture of the sisters and Andrea laughing, and finally showing the costumers in the restaurant enjoying a nice meal and sharing a good time with their friends and/or their family. For example, the part where we show the waiters and waitresses singing happy birthday to a man that is there with his family, this transmit excitement, happiness and awe. It makes people feel happy for the birthday man. Or when we show Andrea laughing, this transmits happiness, surprise, awe and excitement, you feel surprised to see the owner of the restaurant so happy, not stressed at all, just enjoying having such a nice restaurant. It makes you happy and excited because you know that the restaurant is full of laughter and that the staff is happy so they are going to treat you well. These short clips transmit a lot of emotion, it makes you happy because you know that there is a place like home waiting for you, with a happy staff that are going to treat you like family. And when people see all of these happy people having a nice experience in La Folie, they want to try it too, they want to feel these emotions as well. So, these were the two main STEPPS we applied to our film. We wanted to make it a very personal video, a video that would get to people's emotions, causing them to go to La Folie, live a nice experience and share their story with other people. The story of La Folie conveys a lot of emotion to the audience and with all the clips we combined to make up our mini documentary, we were able to explore these two STEPPS studied in class in a creative way, that taught us how to actually apply these in real life and the effect on people as well. Applying our marketing knowledge to a promotional video was a great combination, it was both a fun and difficult project, that made us work beyond classroom expectations, working with real companies and dealing with real-life situations.
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