Salitre: True Colors of Puerto Rico.
Producer – Barbara Crudeli
Director – Otto Flores
Director of Photography/ Editor – Alex Berge

When we think of branding, we think of ads, radio and television commercials, special events; any form of  medium that will communicate to the audience. Normally we have imagery and text that are combined in a way to tell a story to the intended target market the value of a product or service. That’s what branding and advertising is all about, good storytelling.

You want to create content that will grab the audience’s attention both emotionally and visually. This can be possible using today’s online media, particularly online videos. With good video shots, music and editing a video can successfully capture both the visual and emotional elements that can successfully produce a narrative. What’s more, any creative individual can make it possible with little or no cost and post it online to online video sites such as Youtube and Vimeo.

I think this one video I found on Youtube successfully created the digital video narrative and so far it has over 4,000 views and it”ll be interesting to see how far it’ll go. The video is called Salitre: True Colors of Puerto Rico and it’s a narrative of Puerto Rico seen through the eyes of a surfer.

The moment you play the video you’re whisked away to a collage of landscapes and ocean waves being surfed with some soothing music enhancing the mood. What’s great about this video is that they also reveal shots of some of the Puerto Rican locals, those you might see walking along Old San Juan or playing dominos, that’s the true Puerto Rico.

I’m sure this will make an excellent branding tool to drive tourism back to Puerto Rico, especially for surfers looking for new waves and travelers wanting to explore a new place and culture but stay close to the US. What do you think? Would video narratives like this make great branding tools?

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