For this week’s newsletter, I want to talk about what makes this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKpNwVd_Olk), which has around three and a half million views a month after it was uploaded, so successful.
The premise is one that we’ve seen before – he hired a bunch of rappers on Fivver, at varying price points, to rap over his beat. Some are bad, some are OK. But the video didn’t reach three and half million views because people were interested in hearing a song with rappers they’ve never heard of.
What made this video connect with a wider audience is how it showed the creative process.
There’s an inherent novelty to getting that peek behind the curtain. Whether it’s a song, a wine, a car, we mostly only ever get to see the end product. Rarely are we invited into the actual creative process to see how the sausage gets made – which is why, when a piece of content actually does dive into the process, we’re so interested by it. We’re finally getting an answer to that burning question: “how did this get made?”
There’s also a built-in narrative journey that engages with the part of our brains that love stories. The creative process is full of interesting people who make tons of considered choices every step of the way. That story, with all its struggles and challenges, can make anything compelling, even if you don’t know or don’t care about the actual product. You might not really know what makes a rap verse good or bad (I certainly don’t), but that story makes you want to watch someone who does.
Above all else, this is just a great way to get people that don’t care about your brand or your content…begin to care.
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