The rise of the Branded Doc & the “Slow” brand movement.

“There is an urgent need for the stories of people’s real-world experiences, as this year’s Oscar contenders tell stories that explore timely issues amid political churn and “alternative facts.” - Simon Kilmurry, the executive director of the International Documentary Association

The short history of documentary films.

The documentary has been around since the earliest days of film. The movie called “Nanook of the North” made in 1922 is generally considered the world’s first documentary. As most know, documentaries are factual films that attempt to capture reality, usually for the sake of teaching, instruction, or the preservation of historical records. While the early documentary films, termed “actuality films” at the time, were only one minute or less in length, documentaries have evolved in length and scope and now fall into a variety of types, such as educational, observational, and docufiction.

Documentaries gained popularity in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s and were highly instructive mostly utilized in schools to educate a variety of concepts. However, they were extremely painful to watch with monotone voiceovers and bad music.

Today’s documentaries have come a long way from their earlier beginnings. Documentaries are much more engaging and watchable, with very high production value, narrated by famous actors, and layered with compelling music and cinematography.

What makes them so important today is their ability to help us grasp some of the world’s most pressing and complex issues. While the news lets us know, documentaries help us understand and have the potential to change minds.

The three reasons docs are on the rise.

The documentary film genre has seen a recent rise in the last few years aided by two factors. The fact that the barrier to finding and viewing these films has been lowered by digital streaming channels. Traditionally you had to seek out a local privately-owned theatre to see a well-made documentary film. However, with the advent of the internet proliferation of video streaming channels documentaries in their messages come into our homes and under our mobile devices.

The second is the increased need to understand. As people have become less trustful of the news media and the manipulation or the fake news phenomena, they are looking to other forms of information like documentaries.

The documentary has gone mainstream through ease of access.

Documentaries are no longer the stereotypical “healthy” cuisine they once were. They are now engaging, motivational, and powerful storytelling that captivates our hearts and minds, thanks to increasing budgets and production values.

The way viewers consume content is evolving, which is interesting. Movie theatres and film festivals, for example, are losing ground to the plethora of ways to access an ever-increasing amount of documentary content from the comfort of one’s own home. Documentary content is easier to come by now than it was a few years ago due to the increased capacity and demand from streaming services such as YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Hulu, Disney and Prime, and cable and/or satellite TV packages.

As people consume more of this kind of content the popularity of documentaries continues to grow.

There are some interesting facts from a HotDocs 2018 Documentary Audience Research study.

• 72% percent of doc audiences watch documentaries at least twice a month, while the remainder does so less often (i.e. a few times a year or less frequently).
• 55% percent are watching more documentaries than three years ago. Not only are there more documentaries out there that interest them, say respondents, they also perceive there to be simply more documentaries on offer.
• Viewings are largely taking place at home (94%) and/or at the movie theatre (79%).
• Ninety-three percent have discussed a documentary they’ve watched in some capacity, with 81% having discussed it with friends, family, and/or colleagues, and 62% saying they’ve searched online to learn more about the topic.

The appetite to understand.

The second factor in the dramatic increase in documentaries is that people are becoming increasingly aware of the grave situations in which we currently find ourselves in the world. And with this urgency is more demand and to know.

In today’s “post-truth” society, it’s more necessary than ever to educate ourselves on key subjects and find a variety of trustworthy information sources.

The recent re-emergence of social justice concerns in the world such as LGBTQ+, Black Lives Matter, Asian Hate, and Indigenous Injustice has created a need to know and understand.

And social changes are not the only thing driving this appetite to understand.

Climate change or climate justice is a hot topic (pun intended) today — prophesized by the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. Debuting in 2006, the film foretells the implications of global warming to our lives, there were many calling the film bunk and arguing that the earth was just in a natural warming cycle.

However, since its launch, An Inconvenient Truth has been a powerful voice for the state of the future, credited with improving global public awareness of global warming and reenergizing the environmental movements and legislation since its debut. The film has also been included in science curricula in schools around the world where Millenials and Gen-Zs have watched and talked about it. If you are wondering why Gen-Z’s are activists — you can look to this film as one of the reasons.

The year after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, a 47-country Internet survey conducted by The Nielsen Company and Oxford University revealed that 66% of those respondents who said they had seen An Inconvenient Truth stated that it had “changed their mind” about global warming and 89% said it had made them more aware of the problem. Three out of four (74%) said they had changed some of their habits because of seeing the film.

Lytton BC — before the fire and after.

As I write this, there is a lethal heatwave is sweeping through the west coast of North America. The ‘heat dome,’ as it is called, has propelled the thermometer to its highest recorded temperature ever. The town of Lytton BC made headlines last week after breaking the record for highest temperature recorded in Canada three days in a row hitting 49.6 C, and beating the all-time heat record for Las Vegas. And this is Canada!!

The intense heat has now set off forest fires around the town which at the time of posting this, is now 90% burned down.

As if dying from a Pandemic wasn’t bad enough this year, people, many elderly, are now dying from the extreme heat in many cities in the Northwest.

Wheat crops are being decimated from the early heat and lack of rain, driving futures prices to new highs, which in turn will result in higher food prices, disproportionately affecting the poor.

Lake Mead, the water reservoir that feeds Nevada’s Hoover Dam which supplies electricity to California, Nevada, and Arizona, was about 158 feet below its full level and is now producing Hoover Dam is now producing 25% less power. Less power needed for what? You guessed it, air conditioning.

As people become increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues, and they will rely on documentary filmmakers and their films to provide them with the information and insights they need to understand, challenge conventional wisdom, and to shock to really take action.

The role of the Documentary in a democratic society.

Some of that action will be expressed by protests in the streets and some will be expressed at the ballot box. Many people, including myself, believe that documentaries are necessary for a healthy and democratic society. The documentary film is a medium that allows us to walk in someone else’s shoes, build a sense of shared humanity and empathy. It gives voice to the disenfranchised and vilified, and holds those in power accountable; it has a role to play in moulding the kind of society or community we want to live in.

However, the price of being a doc filmmaker can be high. Michael Moore maker of films like Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko has received hundreds of threats on his life over the last few decades. And many filmmakers around the world have been hurt, killed, persecuted, or incarcerated because of their work.

The documentary filmmaker does indeed have a special role in democracy. Understanding and truth are vital to an open democracy. The documentary has the unique ability to uncover the truth, transform opinions, and radically alter or expand the worldview of injustice for the better.

The opportunity for brands to tell more powerful stories.

What is the role of commercial interests in documentary films? Can the brand move from 30 and 60-second ads to sponsor the making of documentaries?

Still photo from “The Need to Know”

In April 2019, DNA testing company 23andMe took an interesting marketing approach to bring awareness of their brand and technology. Instead of TV commercials, it made a documentary film and premiere it at the Tribeca Film Festival. A year before the premiere, 23andMe had commissioned the festival’s sibling division Tribeca Studios to produce a series of 23 documentary shorts because, as Tracy Keim, VP of consumer marketing and brand at 23andMe puts it, “the most powerful storytellers on the planet are documentarians and we believe that they could do a better job than our marketing team as far as being authentic and true and not having the advertising spin,”

Here is a link to one of the films.

In February 2019, The North Face sponsored film called, which profiled rock climber Alex Honnold on his quest to perform a free solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in June 2017, that went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, followed by huge streaming views of the film. The documentary was not only about a climber on a mission, and some North Face logo placements, but the film also highlighted serious issues regarding the environment and preservation of outdoor spaces.

Brand should choose quality over quantity.

When it comes to developing content that their audience will want to engage with, brands must stay current to reflect the evolving online consumer landscape. There has been a trend for many brands and their agencies to promote “content”. The concept is to produce hundreds or thousands of videos and let algorithms that track viewing and sharing — optimism to get eyeballs on the branded content. However, the barrier of this kind of content and approach is very low and the tactics can be equally used by the most famous brands in the world, and injury law firms alike. While the video is fantastic, simply producing a large amount of mediocre video content is no longer sufficient or engaging.

For quality brands that are looking to truly stand apart from others, they should prioritize quality over quantity in the form of branded documentaries.

Documentary-style branded video is coming into its own as the focus changes to longer-form, more meaningful and memorable content that consumers actively want to watch, that video platforms want to distribute and that get people talking about.

Branded Docs reflect a shift away from overt marketing and “content” noise, and allows brands to leverage true human stories to subtly say something about themselves. It allows marketers to be more creative, to target specific audiences with custom content, and, most importantly, to change minds on issues and align a brand with its brand and its customer’s values!

Conclusion

More than any other medium or art genre, documentaries can put a human face on a problem. The ultimate purpose of documentaries is not just to evoke an emotion, but to provide an impulse to realign thinking to a new mindset. To be changed and transformed fundamentally.

Brands that want to take a stand can also get involved. By helping to support the important work of Documentaries.

Of course, this commercial interest will mean a delicate intertwining of relationships between non-overt brand promotion, a cause highlighted and entertainment and information delivered.

But many brands are now finding a way to do this balance. To connect their brand authentically to the things their customers care about. By supporting and sponsoring well-crafted and beautifully told stories on topics we need the understand, the brand has a unique opportunity to not only stand up but also stand apart.

At Catalyst 17, Storytelling is our fourth service area and we are now exploring the use of long-format doc to better promote brands.

Originally published at https://www.catalystseventeen.com on July 5, 2021.