Now what does this
yellow rectangle remind you of? Is it a picture of animals roaming through the
wilderness of the Serengeti? Or a postcard-worthy view of mighty Mount Everest?
Or portraits of aboriginals of Australia?
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| Source - www.nationalgeographic.com |
In my mind, this rectangle would conjure an
image of the ‘Afghan Girl’, mainly because I have read a few articles about how
this picture came about to be one of the most celebrated portraits of our time;
one of the few lightly likened to the Mona Lisa in terms of the emotions they
subtly convey. I know for a fact that this portrait was featured in a magazine
that bears the yellow rectangle as its logo – National Geographic.
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| Afghan Girl | Source - upload.wikimedia.org |
It’s fair to say that
most people tend to remember images better than words. It’s just how our brains
seem to work; visual over verbal. For those of us who are familiar with National
Geographic, the associations we make (safari, Africa, the Himalayas) with the
brand’s symbol are pretty much entrenched in our minds, largely because the
brand understands that we are driven by visual appeal, and visual storytelling is
the way to go in delivering engaging content for us, their audience. And yeah, they
are pretty good at it.
Dubbed as one of the leading
brands on social media, National Geographic is on a mission to share narratives
from all over the world with their 730 million audience through visual
storytelling. “There is nothing like the power of the visual to get people to
stop and engage.” said Claudia Malley, National Geographic’s Chief Marketing
and Brand Officer (CMBO), at Social Media Week Los Angeles a few months back.
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| Claudia Malley at Social Media Week Los Angeles | Source - www.socialmediaweek.org |
To Malley, high
engagement requires good visuals to be treated as a method of connecting with
the audience, without omitting its relevance and timeliness of course. It’s a content-saturated world, and brands
should embrace flexibility and adaptability in approaching their audience. For a
brand to stand out, it must seek to cater to their audience’s needs promptly
and with high regards to quality.
Malley highlighted
that the key to Nat Geo’s success is “leaning into purpose”. While pursuing its philanthropic goal, the
brand invests efforts into personalising messages for consumers. To illustrate
personalised storytelling, Malley put the spotlight on Anand Varma, a
photographer for Nat Geo who utilised a series of photos to tell a story about
how scientists are attempting to restore population of honeybees, as well as
the obstacles they face while doing so. The whole story didn’t only involve
Varma taking pictures of the insect; he passionately merged into the world of
honeybees, learning everything about them in order tell a great story through
great visuals. In order to “use images to inspire people’s curiosity about the
world”, Varma documented the whole experience and let the pictures do the
talking first before verbalising the story.
This reinforces the
fact that we would be more interested to know further about something if the
visuals presented are appealing to us. We would read an article if there’s a
good headline and pictures accommodating it. We would click the Like button
instantly based on our instant judgement of a great picture. With Instagram
championing visual content-sharing, it’s no wonder that Nat Geo is the most
followed brand on that platform.
We think it is wise
for Nat Geo to back visual storytelling as their overarching strategy in
content-building, and it would be wise for brands out there to follow suit.
Fithri
Faisal is a Public Relations Executive at Orchan Consulting. He is dedicated to
having fun in the pursuit of delivering excellence. To Fithri, public relations
is just one of a plethora of integrated tools a brand can use to get its name
out there, and he is here to assist with making that happen for clients. If
he’s not at his desk, he’s most likely sipping tea somewhere contemplating life
(and business).
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