Once upon a time in a PR world…

Nowadays people are exposed in plenty of information. Traditional media such as television, radio, newspapers along with the social media platforms provide people with news from all over the world. In most cases they do not have time to elaborate that information and therefore it is important to make their lives easier by communicating the messages in an accurate, effective and entertaining way. In addition, the human’s brain tends to prefer visual content than verbal ones. It seems like, viewing images it is a process that urge people unconsciously to be engaged with them.

Thus, it is useful to define the storytelling at some point and its importance for businesses. Companies and organizations should always keep in mind that the story is like their showcase that depicts emotions, perceptions and facts that the customers and audiences are sharing about these brands. Particularly, storytelling is the opinions that audiences shape through “the signals” that companies or organizations send to community. From the technical angle it is a “visual narrative” that incorporates plot, uses audio, text and visuals.

Visual content appeals to emotion and it has the potential to replace many words. From a scientific point of view, the humans’ brain is more active in visualization than in verbalization. In particular 80% of people remember the content they saw, 20% remember the read content and only the 10% remember what they heard about. Moreover, there are three basic chemical elements in human’s organization that speed up the process of prioritizing the visual content. The first one is the cortisol that is produced as long as there is something that catches ones attention and is linked with awareness. The dopamine is the second one that it has to do with events that trigger peoples' emotions and is connected with arousal. The third is the oxytocin and it enables people to identify themselves with or to feel like the protagonist of the story that is lead to action. Through this, one can realize that science meets PR, because it is connected with the main objectives that usually PR campaigns have planned.

So, given the fact that PR is here to shape perceptions, form behaviors, and improve reputations it is crucial to comprehend that a PR professional is not responsible for convey the news to journalists. A PR professional should create effective stories that will connect clients with media and consequently clients with target audiences. Regarding the visual angle of the storytelling there are some useful technical tips, which someone can use in order to create an efficient story. It is of vital importance to produce quality visuals, because usually peoples' actions are driven by emotions and emotions are triggered by the appropriate images. “Coca-Cola” Company for instance, communicates a better world through recycling and this case shows the way a company can use storytelling effectively.

Marina Kritikou