Since 2016, I've been charged with representing the DutchCrafters brand through video.
Over these 7 years, I've done that through a variety of approaches. I promote new products with cheery music and the display of their features. I help shoppers to learn about Furniture Styles, How to Order Stain Samples, and The Benefits of Shopping with DutchCrafters. And, I tell the DutchCrafters story. It's a glimpse behind the scenes at how the company came to be the leading online Amish furniture store.
This year, the company decided to commemorate their 20 year anniversary with sales for customers, celebratory events, and telling their 20-year history to customers, employees, and friends. For the last piece of this, they turned to video...the most effective form of storytelling for a broad audience that we have (so far). Though it's impossible to tell a comprehensive history of a company's 20 years in business, we decided we could approach this history from two different angles. Take a look and why we opted for two drastically different ways to tell the same story.
For the majority of her 20 years in business, JMX Brands has been focused around their biggest brand, DutchCrafters. Over those 20 years, DutchCrafters grew from a disruptor in the Amish furniture marketplace to a respected competitor and now the the leading brand of Amish furniture online. How did that happen?
We decided to tell this story with a focus on the DutchCrafters brand in a style consistent with our 7+ year history of DutchCrafters videos...it's scripted, with a curated story and complementary music. It focuses less on the facts and details; more on the tone and feeling. Where the 20 year anniversary is mentioned, it's framed as a message of thanks to customers for getting us here. Our devoted and trusting customers are a critical component of the 20 year history and they absolutely deserve to have an entire video focused around them. So I made that video; watch it here:
The second story I was asked to tell is the story of JMX Brands, the parent company of the DutchCrafters brand. This is a long story...a complicated story...and a human-centered story.
The JMX story is undoubtedly a success story, and that shines through in the video we produced. But it's also a story of overcoming obstacles: technological challenges, interpersonal conflicts, global economic and public health catastrophes.
Again, there's no way to go into the detail this story deserves. There's no way to tell a comprehensive story. But, through selective focuses, the audience can see how the company got to the place it has.
The only way I felt we could effectively tell this story was through the words of three different people. To each lend their perspective on the history of JMX Brands. From over an hour of interview footage and tens of thousands of photos, we created this 5-minute story of JMX Brands:
So, what do you think? Do these two stories complement one another? Do you feel that one of them carries more value or connects more deeply than the other?
I'd love to hear what you think. Send me an email! I'd love to hear what you think.
