Human Interest Storytelling

One example of how we have applied our specialism for a client, was in our work for Coca-Cola.

We were asked by their Corporate Social Responsibility department to create a series of films about their European water resource management programs. This could have been delivered as a corporate documentary focusing on the features and benefits of the programs that Coca-Cola support. However, we knew that this would not connect well with audiences. So we opted for a human-interest approach.

We identified a number of people who had benefitted from the programs and interviewed them over Skype to learn their stories. We selected the most compelling people and sent out our film crews to capture the stories behind their problems, and how the water resource programs had helped to solve them.

Over the course of the next six months, we created documentaries about five different European water initiatives.  One of which led us to meet Aparicio. He’s a farmer in Valencia and is a great example of how human interest storytelling makes a subject so much more appealing than just facts and statistics.

We met Aparicio on his farm where he and his family have worked the land to grow oranges for generations. Valencia is famous for its rich juicy oranges but recently there has been a water shortage, meaning that crops have died and many farmers have had to close down their operations. Aparicio was a fighter and was determined to stay and make it work. He was also a very open character who shared his passion for listening to Rihanna whilst driving his tractor.

The water program that Coca-Cola supports benefits thousands of people in the region so we also interviewed professors, local councillors, charity stakeholders and leaders of the water management program to get a sense of the scale of operations. However, the facts and figures that they presented were not nearly as compelling as Aparicio’s desire to keep farming his family’s land and to hand a sustainable business to his children. These universally relatable goals enabled the audience to connect with him and gain an understanding of the profound impact of Coca-Cola’s investment into water resource management.

If you have a complex subject that you want to highlight to a wide audience, please get in touch because we would love to share our storytelling experience for your next video production project.