How to Make Videos That Evoke Emotion (With Examples!)

Emotion is a powerful driving force. It can make a video more memorable, more shareable, and more impactful. Emotion is also spontaneous and authentic, making it difficult to recreate or rehearse. However, understanding what type of emotion you’re aiming for and storytelling strategies to set it up can help you create videos that evoke emotion.

How to Make Videos That Evoke Emotion

As previously mentioned, it can be difficult to create something as authentic as emotion. However, you can set up situations that typically evoke the emotion that you’re aiming for. And, you can connect these emotions with your brand, organization, or goal. You won’t always get a gripping video that brings audiences to tears, but even evoking a slight feeling of caring, fondness, inspiration, or another feeling, can make your video more memorable and sharable.

What Emotion is Best?fs

There are many different types of emotions and combinations of emotions your videos might evoke. However, it’s important to remember that your video and its emotional reaction will be associated with your brand. Therefore, it’s a good idea to steer away from certain emotions, even if they might be impactful.

Steer clear of outrage or anger. Anger makes people want to comment on, react to, and share a video, however anger is not an emotion that you probably want associated with your brand, or even a competitor’s brand. You don’t want your brand or organization to get the reputation for making people angry or directing anger towards competitors, or you can quickly find yourself embroiled in disputes and drama.

Instead, aim for softer or more positive emotions. Some of the most effective and memorable ad campaigns generate the following emotions in their audience.

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Humor

The first of many Snickers’ “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” ads featured Betty White in a memorable Super Bowl ad.

Making your audience laugh is generally a good strategy for a memorable video. They might be laughing at themselves, at something silly or ridiculous, or at a silly situation. Many of us remember Snicker’s “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” ads because they made us chuckle. Just make sure the humor in the video isn’t at someone else’s expense. Making someone else small won’t make your brand bigger.

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Commiseration

One of Allstate’s many “Mayhem” commercials, this ad plays on a fear—in a humorous way—that many drivers share; road trouble due to bad maintenance.

There are some known situations that most people in your audience are familiar with. Acknowledging these situations and creating a shared sense of commiseration is a unifying emotion that can be great for your company, brand, or organization. Consider Allstate’s “Mayhem” commercials; they’re silly, but they also hint at situations that many of us are aware of, such as damage to our homes or cars in unexpected ways.

Nostalgia

Budweiser’s Clydesdales are well-known for those who have enjoyed the brand over the years.

Nostalgia is an interesting emotion that can make us misty-eyed for reasons that are hard to fully describe. Nostalgia is a reflection on another time or a fond memory that, though gone, gives us a mix of happiness and sadness when we think about it. Brands with a long history often use nostalgia in their advertising when they reflect on ads from previous generations. Budweiser’s reflection on their iconic Clydesdale horses or Coca-Cola’s 70-year history of its well-known polar bears are two examples.

Affection

It’s hard not to feel a bit of fondness with such a cute and relatable story as IAMS’ “A Boy and His Dog Duck.”

Feeling a sense of care and fondness may be one of the most positive emotions a business can evoke. This affection might not be aimed at the brand itself, but it’s often associated with the brand through a compelling story or adorable characters. Wrigley’s Extra Gum’s “Origami” ad effectively inspired this feeling through a compelling and relatable story between a father and daughter. IAMS’ video, “A Boy and His Dog Duck” created two immediately lovable characters and a short story where we see them both grow up.

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Inspiration

MetLife’s “My Father is a Liar” ad tells a powerful story of a dad trying to make a better life for his daughter, and successfully inspires plenty of emotion.

A video that moves us, makes us feel like we can do something or achieve something, is especially impactful for brands that leverage feelings of empowerment or success. Nike has successfully evoked this emotion in their ads for years, often with a focus on women’s empowerment, such as their recent “Dream Crazier” ad. Many banks and insurance companies evoke this emotion in their videos as well, often focusing on building a better life. MetLife’s “My Father is a Liar” tells a highly emotional story of a dutiful, but struggling father and his daughter. Thai Life’s “Unsung Hero” ad illustrates the humble life of a kind citizen and, in fact, directly tells their audience, “what he does receive are emotions.”

There are many other emotions that you might evoke in your videos. When you think about how a video makes you feel, also consider how that video relates to your brand, and what your audience will think.

Storytelling Strategies to Evoke Emotion

Storytelling is an important part of making videos that evoke emotion. It’s important to develop a narrative, including a beginning, middle and end, that builds to an emotion. Often, this story mirrors a real-life story in some way, though it generally exaggerates and dramatizes it. If you’re struggling to find a narrative for your video, consider these storytelling strategies to evoke emotion.

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Solving Problems

Thai Life’s video creates a powerful narrative about overcoming adversity and helping one’s community.

A narrative, whether you’re talking about a short video or a full-length novel, is often about solving a problem. Consider what problems your customers face, and how you might show it being solved. If your brand is generally more serious, you might lean into the inspirational by illustrating a character or group overcoming adversity, like the previously mentioned MetLife and Thai Life ads. Or, if you’re looking for humor, you might show the problem being solved in a silly way, like the Snickers ad did.

Highlighting Qualities

Nike tells a story, but is more focused on highlighting particular qualities in this video.

Consider the best qualities of your ideal customer. Or, consider qualities that your brand might inspire in someone. Then, consider how you might highlight these qualities in your video. For example, Nike’s women’s empowerment ads highlight athleticism, determination, individuality, and both physical and mental strength. They loosely tell a story of overcoming adversity, but they use this story more directly to show these qualities.

Carefully consider what qualities you want to highlight, and how your brand or organization connects to them. These should be inspirational, but also aspirational; qualities that your customers want to see in themselves—and, ideally, your brand can help them get there. For example, a parent might seek out life insurance because they want to protect their child’s future; they probably want to see themselves as hard-working and dedicated. Or, a woman might purchase Nike shoes because she wants to perform better in sports; she may see herself as strong and uncompromisingly competitive.

Creating a Character

Coca-Cola’s polar bears are certainly some of the most iconic and lovable characters in advertising.

Some of the best narratives are driven by characters we like and relate to. Allstate’s “Mayhem” commercials turn a concept—chaos—into a character that is over-the-top intense and funny because of it. Coca-Cola’s polar bears are iconic characters that have become symbolic of the brand. They are also cute, memorable, and highly sellable, especially around the holidays.

To create a character for your video that matches your brand, consider a general feeling you’d like to evoke—In Coca-Cola’s case, it’s approachability and comfort, while in Allstate’s case, it’s amusement. Then, put your character in a relevant setting—sipping on an ice-cold beverage in a snowy landscape, or upsetting homeowners or drivers in unusual ways.

Showing a Situation

Air BnB’s “Live There” ads contrast a traditional vacation with one using Air BnB, and immerse viewers in a particular situation—a vacation.

In some cases, a particular situation—a setting or incident that plays out similarly across different groups and times—is more relevant to a brand than a story, problem, or character. This is especially true for brands focused on experiences, such as hotels. You might make a video that evokes emotion by using two contrasting situations; perhaps one good and one bad. Or, you might also show a before, during, and after to show the effects of a situation.

Combinations

Some of the most memorable videos combine these strategies. Often, you can create a memorable and likable character by highlighting particular qualities about them. Or, you can highlight qualities in a character by solving a problem. Often, there aren’t clear divisions between these strategies, but using any of these as a starting point can help you make a video that evokes emotion.

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Tips to Evoke Emotion in Videos

Many emotional videos tend to have a few things in common. By studying some of the most memorable and emotional videos, we can extract a few tips to help you evoke emotion in videos, too.

Music

Notice how impactful the swelling music is in this P&G video honoring moms.

Music is a huge part of evoking emotion. Notice how inspirational videos often use a swell of instrumental music when a character overcomes adversity, or to highlight the most emotional part of the video. Also, notice music changes when the tone of the video shifts. The music often gets slower, softer, and lower in pitch when showing a problem. By contrast, funny videos will use upbeat music with a faster tempo and higher pitch.

Animation

This video by well-known British department store John Lewis effectively uses animation, music, and animals to tell a heart-warming story.

Though it’s not always possible to use animation in your videos, it can be a great avenue if it’s available to you. With animation, you don’t have to work within the confines of reality; you can create a character that is exceptionally cute or illustrate a situation that would otherwise require expensive stunts.

Animals

There’s no shortage of animals in advertising. Even when it’s bizarre, like this Heinz ketchup ad, it’s hard to go wrong with cute animals in costumes.

Though animals can be difficult to work with, they don’t have to behave perfectly to create an adorable and emotional video. Whether it’s a dog, cat, parrot, rabbit or even a horse or a goose, people love videos with animals. Ads with animals have been used for decades to make an impact on audiences and inspire affection or amusement.

Betterment

This ad by Australian Lamb tackles a prickly issue—generational disagreements—in a humorous way, while adding a particularly heartfelt send-off line; “We were never that far apart.”

Generally focusing on betterment—a problem resolved, a situation improved, characters who have grown—is a good idea for making videos that evoke emotion. Though many emotional videos might leave us misty-eyed, they very seldom illustrate a bad ending. Videos warning against a bad situation, for example, often use an alternative, good situation, instead. Or, videos often focus on people coming together, cooperating, or loving one another. In general, even if you miss the mark on creating genuine emotion, a video focused on betterment will still connect your brand with positivity and improvement.

Conclusion

Making videos that evoke emotion isn’t easy. However, for advertisers and marketers who get it right, the pay off can be huge. Consider your audience and your narrative carefully as you bring your story together. With any luck, you might just create a viral video that evokes emotion.