Digital Storytelling Case Study: Alibaba Roadshow Video

Alibaba, China’s e-commerce giant, released a video of its roadshow presentation before its IPO in New York in September 2014. The video gives prospective investors all the facts and numbers about the company and how it influences China’s retail infrastructure and the lives of ordinary Chinese consumers.

This is the video that inspired us to make a film of a similar structure. In this blog I will try to analyse the digital storytelling method of this video. I will point out what message Alibaba wants to send to investors and how it does the job.

The seven-minute video consists of one introduction, one conclusion and seven stories.

In the first part, Alibaba Group’s founder and Chairman Jack Ma gives a brief introduction of the history and the status quo of Alibaba. Jack ma stands in front of the camera and speaks directly to the audience with a sincere and confident look. He talks about the initial dream of the founders when they started their business 15 years ago, which remains the same till now. Then he leads the audience to “a journey around China, to see the real people and real stories that Alibaba have impact on them”.

The main body of the video is made up of stories of seven ordinary people living in different parts of China. Each of them has a theme which reflects different aspects of changes Alibaba brings to sellers and customers as well as the whole industry.

The theme of the first story is lifestyle, which is reflected through the narrative of a college girl living in Shanghai. Using Taobao and Tmall, the online shopping sites operated by Alibaba, becomes her lifestyle. She is the representative of the 60 million daily visitors who cannot live without Alibaba in their daily life. The second story is told by a logistics executive of a delivery services company. According to him, a single dispatch site here can handle up to 1 million packages per day, among which 85% are from Taobao and Tmall. We can easily tell the large scale of the e-commerce world created by Alibaba through the profound impact it has on the logistics industry. The next one is a story about a severely disabled female painter living in a small town. At first she knew very little about the internet and it was her customers who helped her open an online store to sell her paintings. We would not forget the touching words she said:”Taobao gave me hope. Without it, how would I sell my work in this little town? Who would know about me?” The fourth story is from the angle of a shop owner living in Yushu, a remote and isolated area in northwest China. His physical shop used to have only a limited number of local customers. But now with the help of Alibaba, it is open to the whole world. We are surprised to see that he even uses mobile communication applications to manage his online store. The fifth story is about a “Taobao village” in Zhejiang Province, where an association was set up voluntarily by local online sellers themselves. Among these passionate entrepreneurs there is an elderly stamp store owner. He is proud of that his store has zero bad review. And he shares the secret of his success: being honest. The sixth story is told by a working mother who uses Taobao to buy anything from clothes to grocery and household goods. By doing that, she and numerous working mothers could have more time and energy to play with their children. The last story is narrated by a young entrepreneur who opened his tea company with a start-up money of only RMB 1,200. Thanks to Alibaba’s well-developed platform, he could focus entirely on his products rather than retailing channels and technological problems.

In the conclusion part Jack Ma restates the mission of Alibaba, which is to ignite innovation, create jobs, benefit customers and help entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams.

The roadshow video is successful in every sense. It is touching and inspiring as well as informative. In the first and last part Jack Ma explicitly states where Alibaba stands right now and where it’s going. In the main part every story is carefully chosen and narrated so as to convey the exact meaning Alibaba wants to tell. The “heart and spirit” of Alibaba is not indoctrinated by their senior executives, but instilled through the words of ordinary people while explaining their everyday life. This is a really smart strategy, which we could use when we make our own film.

The Process of Shooting and Selecting Photos

As the art director of our media agency, I am in charge of the final appearance of our video, to be specific, taking and selecting photos. In this blogpost I will explain how I did it.

After we finished the first draft of our scripts, we tried to find some photos in our own albums to match with the scripts. For instance, when I talk about my working experience as a photojournalist, I use photos of me shooting with a DSLR camera. When Katie describes her as a sporty girl, she uses photos of playing hockey with team members in the morning field. This is really helpful when we mention our past experiences. Yet it falls short when we depict our current lives in the University of Warwick, which should be the most important part in the video.

So we made a list of the scenes we lack. First, we shot the scenes of us using progressive communication tools, which is the explicit line to connect the six stories, i.e. letter, email, text messaging, Facebook Chat, instant messaging and the futuristic technology. Second, I took a number of pictures at various locations on campus. For example, I used the photos of the student union to represent the versatile student life, students studying in the library to indicate their academic achievement, and Sharon browsing an employer’ guide to show the support offered by the Students Careers and Skills department. I also took scores of scenic photos to display the beauty of the campus.

In addition, since the video will be used as a promotional strategy not only for CCPS, but for the university as a whole, I decided to cover other academic departments in our video. But what is the most efficient and effective way to present all of them without saying a word? I thought of several solutions and then decided to take separate photos of their signs and logos. In the final video they are presented consecutively in a flash and then put together to create a combination picture to represent the variety of academic fields Warwick excels in.

The most interesting and creative part of our video would be Dana’s imaginary 50^th birthday party. As the six of us celebrated it with a birthday cake, I took a photo of the candles in the shape of the Arabic number “50”, which is a perfect match with the last scene I designed for the video — the number “50” consisting of all the photos above the logo of Warwick.

Video editing process and audio production

For this project, we used Sony Vegas as our video-editing tool. During the editing process, I not only recalled the memory of what I have learned in university, but also started to get familiar with some new skills.

There are two special points that we tried to present in our film:

1. The progress of message sending

From the hand-write letter, mobile message, instant message, social network platform to the future message sending technology, we use the development of technology as a time travel machine, and eventually, back to the original spirit of letter, SHARING, during last letter in the film.

2. 50 years old celebration

It is not just a story of our memory in Warwick, but also a celebration of Danae’s 50 years old birthday. The ‘50’ concept coincidentally connected the core topic of Warwick project and our own history of friendship. In the last part of the film, after receiving the message from Danae, six of us surprisingly reunite together again. In addition to showing communication without borders, this also presented that people can be together with no distance because of the globalization and fast development of technology.

Step1. Voiceover and music

In order to present the letter concept, we found that what was the most important in our film would be the feeling of sharing. Letter itself contains the expression of caring and the eagerness of contacting. Therefore, we tried to express the emotions through voiceover. At first, we chose to record it in the same space so that we could double check the quality for each other. But during the process of recording, we noticed some problems, such as the speed wasn’t easy to be control because of the time limitation. And it also wasn’t easy to express the emotion in voice as we expected. After watching the first cut and the presentation, we received many helpful suggestions about the performance of voiceover. Interesting voiceover makes film less redundant and raises the entertainingness.

For improve the sound performance, we changed to record the voice alone, and revised it several times. Afterward, we found that it would be much better to express the emotion if we cut off some lines, adjust the speed, and make some appropriate stop in the end of paragraphs.

One of the best part of our video is the music. The two soundtracks were made by Katie’s flatmate. Besides of the originality, the sound of guitar also functioned as comfort, which bring up and down of the emotional expression, and it was also the key element of connection among six stories.

In addition to combining the music and voiceover, we also attempted to present ‘the sound of digital technology progress’ in beginning of each one’s stories. The combination of the voiceover, music, and sound effect completed the sound performance of our video.

Step2. Links between six stories

‘The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.’ – Jean-Luc Godard

According to Godard’s quote, which is also the basic principle of film, I understand that videos are not just one and another photographs, but it is how a link between images connects with the true impressions and stories in human brain.

In the story of letters, we wanted to use the memory to tell a story of Warwick. The sequence of each stories presented ‘why Warwick’, ‘Warwick and personal life’, and ‘ what did Warwick give us after graduation’. Luckily, we had so many different kinds of resources for our video. For example, we have a professional photographer responsibly presented a lot of beautiful pictures on campus, and the past three years of Katie staying in Warwick also provided another special angle for the story.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013 thanks to the social network. And another earlier study of TubeMogul in 2010 also showed that at the 30 second mark, we already lost a third of the audience and after a minute we lost more than half.

In order not to bore our audience, we found that the most appropriate performance was combining 5-6 photos per minutes in static and dynamic states. By moving the lens, and make some transitions for each stories, the audience will be more concentrated on the video.

An example of still pictures with voiceover：

Another example with dynamic camera lens makes the video more vivid.

There are lots of online self-learning materials of video editing. From this experience, I became more skilled in editing, and I realized the importance of patience and carefulness when experiencing the exercising of theory and practice. The infectivity of film conquers the audience sense perception and emotions, which is more powerful than other medium. Not to mention the importance of videos as a tool in digital communication. This project still has some spaces to be improved, what I learned the most was how to tell a story in limited duration, and a good concept can be more convincing and sharable with a good storytelling.

Developing our creative idea

In this blog, I’d like to the explain the process of how we choose our story idea, and provide a capture of the structure and flow of our story.

After positioning our target audience as the Millennial group, our group came up with two initial ideas and brought them to discussions at the week 7 tutor session. The first one is to take the form of writing a letter from our imagined future selves to our younger selves, in which we express our concerns and thoughts over taking a new, life-changing path, and offer reassurances that doing a master at Warwick is a fantastic step to take. The second one is to explain why we come to Warwick from six different perspectives through six detail-focused stories.

The ‘letter’ turned out to be a more favourable scenario in the tutor session, Jo and Sara reminded us that maybe we can write to each other instead of writing to ourselves. The session also helped us to understand the brief more precisely. Our final idea turned out to be a mix of our two initial ideas, that we adopted the form of ‘letter’, however, we decided to have six individual letters instead of one. And our challenge turned out to be how to link the six letters together, logically and emotionally.

We had a brainstorm in the following meeting, which turned out to be quite effective with many sparkling ideas flowing. Always having the number 50 in our mind, we found it better to write from our 50th birthday rather than the us after 50 years, which would be too old. Then we decided to use Dana’s 50th birthday as our clue. Her 50th birthday reminds her of celebrating the 50th birthday of Warwick with her classmates during her study abroad days in UK, and she decides to contact her friends to invite them to her birthday party. The story will start from Dana sending an email to Wu. Then each of us will pass on the story by contacting the next person with one kind of social media. We will use a photo of the whole class, and zoom in to each people when we remembering her in the letters.

We will demonstrate ‘why Warwick’ from six angles in our letters. Being married and having a stable job in China, Wu represents our target audience, who reject the notion that life is a ‘track’ to be followed from milestone to milestone, but rather an experience to be enjoyed. Therefore, she will talk about the drivers and motivations for her to make the difficult decision to be in Warwick. Then in the main body, I will focus on describing the international experiences I got here from academic studies to cultural experiences. Wen will show the inspiration she got here, such as Sarah’s workshop. Katie will exhibit the activities and societies in Warwick. And Sharon will write from a more futuristic perspective, elaborating how the study in Warwick helps her to find an ideal job.

The story will finally come back to Dana, and she will present her stories about friendship in Warwick. In the end, there will be a picture showing the six old ladies with wrinkles and grey hair get a reunion at Dana’s birthday party, corresponding to the first photo of the whole class taken in 2015.

By such means, we are building our collective memories of Warwick through a coherent story. The next step for us is to make surgeries to our individual scripts with these clear ideas in mind, Choose photos that fit to our emotions, and think about what social media to use in the transition between letters, taking a futuristic view to some extent. We will further develop our idea through discussing these aspects in our next meeting.

As the public relation director, my following work will focus on integrating media resources and developing our PR strategies, with the core target of enhancing the spreadability and stickiness of our story and motivating our audiences to make more engagement and contributions to the project.

Video Example

This is the short film i was planning to show you, i found the 2mins version.

[sharing] 5 Ideas to tell our stories

For our video references, I tried to find some examples of storytelling, though it seems impossible to make a storytelling presentation as the same standard as those videos,  we can still produce one by combining pictures, short clips and some voice over with the formats.

Through the examples I found online, they all have a same essence which is ‘ the story must be common but not cheesy.’ In other words, their scripts describe the stories we can easily relate with, attracting people’s attention and raising our emotion.

A. 6 stories, 1 concept

Using 6 stories through the same element (ex. map) to tell the concept(ex. finding the new way).

Example, we can talk about the story  #courage @beijing, and then #freedom@Taipei,etc..  All the stories lead to the core concept, which is connection, sharing and collaboration.

In this format, we need to prepare: photos, voice over recording, some clips, and music

• Advantage: Audiences can understand each of our Warwick stories clearly, and the core concept can be presented fluently.
• Challenge: The element to connect each stories has to be strong, or the video would be flat.

B. Focus on the concept

Without  tell everyone’s story specifically, the video focus on the concept by  inserting our photos to connect each one’s story.

Example, “In our whole life, we all look for something, we have goals, we chase for a better life. someone dreams about change, someone dreams about happiness. but what exactly did you do to win it?…..” using the opening to link with each other’s clips.

In this format, we need to prepare:  Touching or fun scripts, one voice over, photos, and music

• Advantage: Simple, and clean point of view, the temple could be controlled so the video would not be slow and boring.
• Challenge:  An interesting script and we would probably need  more time on preparing materials and after effect.

C. A letter to someone

Make the film like a massage to someone.

Example, “Dear mom and dad, this is my 123 days in Warwick…..”  Writing a letter to express our personal experience and emotions.

In this format, we need to prepare: a script, voice over, photos and music

• Advantage: Easy to tell stories, and the audiences also play the roles of recipients.
• Challenge: 10 mins would be a too long for reading a letter.

D. A day in Warwick

By presenting a day in Warwick, we can make Warwick CCPS the best study environment without using words to sell this concept.

Example, Using pictures/ clips from morning to night on campus and combining with the sound effects and music.

In this format, we need to prepare: photos, our daily schedule, music and sound effects

• Advantage: Distinguished from others video, and much  closer to the facts.
• Challenge: We have to select the events and spend a lot of time on preparing materials.

E. Interview style

Real interview would make the video more solid and trustable.

Example, We have to record the dialogues when discussing about the first day in Warwick, how we got our offers, what we’ve learned so far, what happened last weekend, and who did funny things, etc..

In this format, we need to prepare: interview preparation, clips, photos ,sound effects, and music

• Advantage: This video can be the answers of a lot of questions from the international students.
• Challenge: The scripts must be fun and inspiring, or it would loss the audiences very soon.

Why do people choose not to come to Warwick? Reputation and brand perception

An integral part of our research was to work out why people do and do not come to the University of Warwick. Amongst British students, Warwick is renowned for many things. By examining sources such as forums on ‘The Student Room’, articles on Buzzfeed, and by talking to students who turned down the opportunity to come to Warwick, we have pieced together a picture of reasons why people do and do not come to Warwick. An excellent academic reputation, a relatively new campus, a strong business school with many links to industry are just a few of the ‘pull’ factors Warwick has. In popular culture, it is famous for its ‘naked rowers’, being full of people who failed to get into Oxford or Cambridge, and has a reputation for having poor nightlife for students. The campus usually polarises opinion; some love it, others hate it. The term ‘a love child of the Soviet Union and Heathrow terminal 2’ has been used to describe its architecture.

More internationally, Warwick is known (though not perhaps as much as it deserves) for its excellent rankings and teaching and research standards. Location is often a deterrent for international students, who perhaps overestimate how far the campus is from London. Another concern found to put international students off coming to Warwick was the reputation of having awful weather.

Another facet of our research was to identity some preconceptions we held ourselves before coming to Warwick, and how these matched reality. The international students amongst us were pleasantly surprised at how much academic support was offered to students. Other things noted were the flexible teaching and learning style that they weren’t expecting.

The Essence of Warwick and CCPS

Since our client is Warwick University and Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, it is important to recall the essence of Warwick and CCPS  before the client presentation.

The Essence of Warwick and CCPS

Warwick, as a worldwide reputable university, has the strategy of looking forward and the vision to be a world-class university

Warwick’s value are to pursue excellence, become a community that encourages and challenges ideas, be ambitious and driven, become accessible to all participants, etc. In our eyes, Warwick is a dynamic, promising and prospectus community that is now attracting more and more potential students’ attention.

The Essence of CCPS

Centre for Cultural Policy Studies is established in 1995 and focuses on teaching and research in cultural management, cultural policy, media and communication, social enterprise and the creative and media industries. CCPS has a wide variety of students with various backgrounds. It has dynamic and brilliant staff as well as extensive research. With rich resources of both academics and business, CCPS is aligned with Warwick and become more energetic.

The sources of Warwick Essence: 

• The official Warwick rhetoric (the website, prospectus):

   Innovative, dynamic, supportive. Independent thinking

• Wider cultural opinion

1. In the UK – sources: Buzzfeed, The Student Room

2. ‘Clever in an understated way’ – esp. maths and business. (WMG)

3. Impressive student theatre

4. The Campus – some love it, some hate it

• Alumni Opinion

1. ‘The Bubble’

2. campus – including the geese, the posters, the library stereotypes

3. The friendships they built there, the societies they joined

The Brand Essence of Warwick：

MEANS

• Inspires you to be curious and question everything you learn.
• Creates new ways of thinking and new ways of life, taught in a flexible way.
• Full of opportunities to develop yourself as well as your career.

IS

• Challenge
• Flexibility
• Diversity

Brief our task before client presentation

Brief our task  

This project is about My Warwick Story which requires us to make a digital story on Warwick as a creative media group. We can use different forms of digital technology and try to present a final showreel /presentation.

Frist of all, it is important to target our market. Since this showreel is for our potential target market. Our target market is:

a). they are international and UK potential students

b). they are looking for a Master’s programme

c). they are aged between 24 to 31

Once it has been decided, we shared our personal experience of Warwick:

a). why we applied Warwick?

b). why we finally decided Warwick instead of other British universities.

c). what is our first impression of Warwick?

Then use our experiences to consider how to attract potential students to come to Warwick.

Next we have our initial ideas:

a). One concept and six stories: we connect six stories with one theme

b). Six key words and six stories: we have six key words to connect our six stories.

c). Write a letter to the present selves: we image writing a letter in the future to the present selves.

Finally idea: write a letter on Dana’s fifty birthday to each other

Main challenges when proceeding the project:

a). how to attract our target market by our video

b). how to connect our six stories into one video

c). how to make our video vivid with limited technology skills

d). how to present both Warwick and CCPS’s essence

Connecting our ideas and stories… the beginning

In our first two meetings we talked about our working and student experience, since some of the team members have not worked yet. We found that we are a very versatile group, and this could be an advantage for our final project.

With this information we assigned the roles, and started to discuss about the type of agency we wanted to be. Due to the fact that digital strategies are taking a lot of importance in the business and marketing world we decided we wanted to be a digital agency. Furthermore, we realized that although the centre for cultural and policies studies is focused in creativity, global communication, media and cultural development, it does not have a strong digital platform and communication to attract new students.

We decided to focus in International and UK potential students looking for a master programme, aged between 24 and 31. Our target market is focused in what today is called the Millennial generation, we found many interesting insights that match perfect with each of our stories, thus we assume it would be easier to connect with our audience.

Here is one of the bets videos i found which describes the millennial generation and its most important insights.

I also found a site with emotional storytelling advertisements, one of my favourites is the one about the down syndrome day, this video has inspired us to develop a script as a letter to ourselves. The person that is talking is us 50 years forward this moment, telling us what was to choose warwick and what happened while we studied here.

http://www.saydaily.com/2014/04/emotional-storytelling-7-ads-that-did-it-so-well-we-cried

And finally i found this video of Yale university. MBA students describe their experience of studying there. This is a straight way to talk about the university and each of them have their own story.

We decided we want to focus in this phrases to develop our stories: finding and thinking about new possibilities in the future, challenge which includes think beyond, push boundaries, being innovative and curious. We chose these ideas, because they describe why we choose warwick and connect with our story and also could connect with the values of the centre and the university.