The Power of Video Storytelling

Ron Watermon • February 4, 2023

How A Founder's Story Can Enhance Your Business's Brand

St. Louis, MO – February 3, 2023 - Branding is all about creating a strong, memorable image for your business in the minds of customers. One of the most effective ways to do this is through authentic video storytelling.

The story of how your business was founded, and the vision of its founders, can be a powerful tool for enhancing your brand and connecting with customers on a deeper human level. Many businesses forget how powerful their origin story can be to connect with customers and to help employees feel a deeper connection to the business. We want you to be smart and recognize the power behind your story.

The Power of Storytelling

Stories are a powerful way to create emotional connections with customers and everyone within your brand community. When people hear a story, they tend to remember it better and feel more connected to the brand or person behind it. A founder's story is no exception.

Your founder’s story provides a personal, human touch to a business, allowing customers to see the people behind the brand and understand their motivations and values. This can be especially valuable in today's world, where consumers are increasingly looking for brands they can trust and connect with on a deeper level.

The same goes with employees. They want to work for special organizations that make them feel like they more than just a cog in the wheel. We all crave that sense of belonging. Your founder’s story can help nurture that sense of shared history and belonging.


Enhancing Your Business's Brand

Incorporating a founder's story into your brand's marketing strategy can have a significant impact on your brand's credibility, identity, and differentiation. When customers see the story of how your business was founded on screen, they are more likely to see it as a credible and trustworthy brand. The story of your founder's challenges, triumphs, and vision can also help to create a unique brand identity that sets your business apart from the competition.


Investing in Video Storytelling

Telling your founder's story through video is one of the most impactful ways to enhance your brand. Video is a dynamic, engaging medium that allows you to bring your story to life and connect with customers on a deeper, more emotional level. By investing in professional video production, you can ensure that your founder's story is presented in the best possible light and reaches the largest possible audience.

Case Studies

There are numerous examples of successful brands that have used a founder's story to enhance their brand. One of the most famous is Apple, which has used its founder Steve Jobs' story to build a strong, loyal following among its customers. Another great example is Patagonia, which has used its founder's story to build a reputation as a responsible, environmentally-conscious brand.

We have included a few video examples of founder’s stories within this post to give you a sense of how we approach storytelling in this area.

In conclusion, incorporating a founder's story into your brand's marketing strategy can be a powerful way to enhance your brand and connect with customers on a deeper level. By investing in video storytelling, you can bring your story to life on screen and reach a wider audience in a dynamic and engaging way. Written stories are great, but let’s be honest, few will take the time to read a book about your business. They will watch a compelling video.

So, if you're looking to build a stronger, more memorable brand, don't underestimate the power of video storytelling or telling your founder’s story.


--Ron Watermon with ghostwriting assistance from OpenAI (ChatGPT)


About STORYSMART

You have a story to bring to the screen, but you don't have the time or resources to do it yourself. Telling your story well with video can be hard. And let’s be brutally honest. No app will turn you into a great filmmaker. Few can produce a do-it-yourself (DIY) video or film we actually want to watch, much less remember.

To do justice to your story on screen, you need the right skills and equipment, not to mention time, money and talent.

That is why STORYSMART developed our premium video storytelling as a service. We help clients tell their story in the amazing way they deserve with a proprietary done-for-you video storytelling service unlike any other.

STORYSMART provides a nationwide premium video storytelling service that empowers clients to have their stories told professionally while retaining their intellectual property rights as though they did it themselves.

STORYSMART provides clients an experienced television reporter or journalist filmmaker to help them tell their story following our proprietary high-integrity brand journalism system. Our transparently priced premium services for agencies, businesses and families ensures that each client gets an authentic, high-quality story they own the intellectual property rights on forever.


About Ron Watermon

Ron Watermon is the founder and CEO of STORYSMART, a premium video storytelling technology startup that empowers anyone to have their stories told professionally while ensuring they retain the intellectual property rights on their productions.

A creative and innovative communications leader with nearly three decades of experience, prior to founding STORYSMART, Ron was responsible for modernizing the St. Louis Cardinals communications by leading the team’s investment in video storytelling, brand journalism, fan engagement and social media.

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There are moments in your career that don’t feel particularly significant at the time, but years later, you realize they changed everything. The television show we started when I was with the St. Louis Cardinals, Cardinals Insider, is now heading into its 11th season. In an industry where most things don’t last, there’s something meaningful about building something that endures. While I've already shared the story of how the show almost didn’t happen, what’s been on my mind recently is what we were doing before it ever aired. For me the show was never the starting point, it was a destination on a journey that began seventeen years ago when I decided to fully commit to becoming a brand journalist. A Baseball Brand Journalist When I moved over to the Baseball Operations Department to work with our Media Relations team in September 2009, the media landscape looked very different than it does today. Social media was still in its infancy. We had exactly one platform we controlled, Twitter, and even that was a bit of a mess. Our account was @MLBstlcardinals, while Major League Baseball operated @stlcardinals out of New York. It was confusing for fans and limiting for us. But it also created an opportunity. Instead of waiting for others to tell our story, we decided to start telling it ourselves. Not as marketers, but as actual storytellers. More specifically, we adopted a mindset rooted in journalism. The fundamentals I learned years earlier in college—who, what, when, where, why, and how. The discipline of getting it right. The importance of clarity, structure, and credibility. We weren’t trying to spin the story. We were trying to tell it honestly, accurately, and from a clearly defined point of view. That point of view mattered. We made a promise to our audience: we would cover the team like journalists, but from the inside. We weren’t going to pretend to be something we weren’t. We were insiders. That was the advantage. And instead of hiding from it, we leaned into it. At the same time, we understood the responsibility that came with that position. We didn’t need to be first. We needed to be right. That meant establishing standards. It meant covering the good moments like the wins, the milestones, and the behind-the-scenes access fans couldn’t get anywhere else. But it also meant not ignoring the harder stories when they arose. Credibility was always at stake, and we treated it that way. I knew were building something. A system. A mindset. A way of approaching storytelling that went beyond promotion and into something far more durable. Over time, that approach evolved into a weekly TV show that’s still on the air more than a decade later. But none of that happens without what came first. The decision to think as brand journalists with a point of view. Brand Journalists with a Point of View What we were building in those early days didn’t look like much from the outside. There was no studio. No formal production schedule. No distribution strategy beyond posting to social media and linking out to photos and video. In fact, some of the earliest tools we used would feel almost laughable today.
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