Let’s quickly imagine a scenario. You’re at the movies and waiting in anticipation for the movie to begin. As the upcoming movie premieres are being showcased you start to get bored. Maybe these movies don’t really fall in line with your tastes, or they just don’t seem “unique” enough to grab your attention. As you scroll through your phone you hear a familiar tune playing in the background. You look up and notice that the movie preview is utilizing a song you enjoy, suddenly your attention is grabbed.
The funny thing is that the movie doesn’t seem to be one that you enjoy. But as the preview continues it continues grabbing your attention and is making you feel some form of emotion, this could be either curiosity or interest. After the movie title is revealed, you remember it since it left a lasting impression on you, and maybe in the future will go out to watch it. This is emotional marketing.
Emotional Marketing
Emotional marketing is everywhere in today’s day and age. You may not realize this, but emotions can play a huge factor into our actions when it comes to purchasing products or services. This can include video games, a brand-new phone, a watch, clothes, or buying a ticket to watch a movie. Emotional marketing is pretty much marketing a product or service to the consumer’s feelings to gain an emotional response from them. Once the consumer gets that emotional response, they are more likely to purchase that product or service.
Now let’s quickly bring it back to video game marketing, which is probably the reason why you are here. I have been editing game fan trailers for the past five years now and over time I’ve come to understand one vital aspect when it comes to creating a trailer. The emotion that your trailer conveys will massively affect the consumer’s decision on whether they’ll follow the product or not. Yes, there are some other things that also play a big part in this, but I will be focusing on how to create a trailer that leaves a good reaction for the audience. Something to also remember is that people care about feelings that the product will convey for them, as well as people buy feelings, not products.
Hyping up the viewer
The best way to produce a captivating trailer for your game is to let the music be the announcer. Let’s quickly think about it. Let’s say you’re at a sports game, and your team scores a point. The natural thing would be for the announcer to scream at the top of his lungs to match the audience’s chaotic energy. It would feel weird if he just casually said that your team scored a point. It would also possibly bring the energy levels down.
With this in mind, the first thing you should do is find music that fits the tone of your game and the tone that the game’s trailer will convey. Of course, you won’t be using the entire song in the trailer. So, you’ll want to make sure you select the necessary or “good” parts of song and align them with the footage you’re using. You wouldn’t want to have the exciting parts of the song come up when there’s a calm scene happening, would you?
One Sentence Pitch
Now that the announcer for the trailer has been set, it’s time to set the stage. This being the parts of your game that you’ll be showing to the audience. The simplest way to do this is to focus on your game’s strengths and to do it at a quick pace. You want to leave a good, strong first impression to the viewer with your trailer. This is a vital skill almost every video editor should know.
Think of it this way, when you’re meeting someone new, possibly a new client, you want to leave a good first impression because it shows who you are and how you act. The same applies when editing your trailer.
In order to focus on your game’s strengths, you first want to think of a one sentence pitch for your game. Here are some examples:
- Hades: A story-rich rouge-like based on Greek mythology
- Hollow Knight: A dark, beautiful, and mysterious 2D Metroidvania filled with heroes and insects.
- Sholver Knight: A sweeping, classic action-adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 80bit retro aesthetic!
These one sentence pitches’ sell their game’s aesthetic and what genre their game is. If you watch their trailers, then you can clearly see that the sentence pitch is present in each game’s trailer.
There is more that goes to editing a trailer, such as the structure, some psychological aspects to it, and more. I’ll leave some useful resources down below that will certainly help you create a good and effective game trailer. With that being said, remember:
1- People buy feelings, not products.
2- Music can easily trigger an emotion from people.
3- Treat your music as the announcer.
4- What is your game’s one sentence pitch?
5- Focus on your game’s strengths.
6- Less is more.
Resources
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