What makes a good communication trailer for social change

There is only so much marketing copy you can write about your cause before you have saturated your target audience. But in one minute or less you can tap into the visual, auditory and emotional senses of your potential supporters with a trailer. Like its cousin the movie trailer, a social change trailer is designed to get the buzz going and drive sales, or at least more interest.

What makes for a social change trailer?

* Make it brief: Getting and keeping a viewer is essential, so respect their time and their attention span and keep it under three minutes. Consider that most television commercials only last for 30 seconds and even that can feel too long.
* Keep it real: Make sure your message is authentic to your overall brand. The tone and feel of the video should reflect your content.
* Make the connection: It should be fairly transparent how the trailer ties into the cause content. No explanation should be needed for your viewer to "get it".
* Maintain balance: Your images, text and audio should all flow well together and not feel like they are separate pieces being pasted together.
* Create good pace: A trailer that consists of a slide show with still images and music scan be effective, but the pace has to be just right. It needs to allow the viewer time to read any caption but not put them to sleep or make them anxious.
* Tap into emotions: Make sure you remember that the essence of any video is to entertain the audience as well as inform. Earning a laugh or a tear makes for a powerful message.
* Name drop: If you have strong, recognizable endorsements, don't be shy about dropping the testimonial into your piece.
* Manage the money: When deciding on a budget for your social change trailer, you don't have to think box-office smash to get results. With the right images and editing, you can produce a quality trailer that does not look like it came out of Warner Brothers studios or your garage.
* Soften the sell: It is fairly understood that the intent of the trailer is to illicit a sale and call to action, but it does not have to be a strong call to action to ignite interest. The desired result is to get the viewer interested, either in offering support or in finding out more.
* Finish strong: As simple as this may seem, you would be surprised at how many people forget the minor (rather major) detail of ending with an image of the cause and convenient hwo to suport or join instructions.

YouTube has played a huge role in the viral brand expansion for many social causes and social change campaigns and it is well worth the time to develop an engaging piece.

You may remember this trailer as it created a viral explosion. Different versions of the video were forwarded to so many in-boxes around the world that it had more than 30 million views on YouTube. It is a homemade video telling the story of Christian the Lion, a pet lion released into the wild and his reunion with his "parents". Within it's 1:18 running time, it spurred so much interest for the 1972 non fiction book entitled A Lion Called Christian by Anthony Bourke and John Rendall that it was the sixth most wanted out-of-print book of 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVNTdWbVBgc Enjoy!