AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS (Part I: Sour Puss)
I just can’t stress upon you enough the importance of audience expectations: Let me ask you some questions that reflect upon your own expectations as consumers. Fill in the blanks with either “hot” or “cold.”
Let’s say it’s a hot day and you decide to meet a buddy at a sports bar to watch the game and enjoy a nice ___ beer. Or maybe it’s a rainy day and you decide to curl up with a good book and enjoy a nice ___ cup of tea or cocoa. Or let’s say you had a long day and you decide to relax in a nice ___ bath. [Answers: cold, hot, hot]
How would you feel if instead you were served a warm beer ? Received a lukewarm cup of tea? Or slid into a frigid bath—yikes! You wouldn’t be happy, because none of the scenarios would meet your expectations.
Allow me to share a story with you: A movie came out in the mid-1990s called Now and Then. It was a coming of age film featuring Cloris Leachman. In one scene Leachman wanted to get a rise out of girls, so the comedienne in her decided to pull a practical joke. In an effort to make the girls look uncomfortable, she put salt in some lemonade instead of sugar and served it up to the unsuspecting girls. During the take, they innocently took a sip expecting a pleasant, familiar flavor, but instead they ended up with a mouthful of bitter, salty lemonade. Only one girl was able to play it off; the others reacted as one would imagine with disgust and sour pusses on their faces. Yuck! [PHOTO OF SOUR PUSS]
The point? When viewers tune in to watch your video, they expect to see something like other videos with a familiar style. And just as you can understand how someone could be disappointed by failed expectations, you can anticipate the likely reaction and achieve a predictable response with the right storytelling strategies. I would suggest that employing Hollywood Classical Cinema style can be your number- one strategy to win over your audience and get them to come and stay. (More to come…)
Did you know?
You Can Improve Your Search Engine Rankings with a Web Video
According to Forrester Research (2010), websites containing video are 53 times more likely to appear on the front page of Google results.