2017 is off with a bang, as far as branded videos go. Jollibee’s three-part series caused not only a “national heartbreak”, but some ridiculous statistics as well. Several industry blog posts, news features, hundreds of observer opinions, and millions of affected people later, the magic of Jollibee’s content finally surface.
A powder keg of a truth.
Like all great stories that scale and spread, Jollibee’s “Kwentong Jollibee” (or “Jollibee Stories”) answers a powerful ‘why’: Why would people care about yet another Valentine’s Day story? Or put another way, why would people care about Jollibee’s definitions of love?
Three videos, twenty-four hours, and a nation in emotional tatters later, we know the answer.
Jollibee made us care about how it defines love by unlocking and telling a powerful, human, and universal truth. And the truth is that love, in all its glory and pain, in all its iterations and spectrum of emotions, deserves to be celebrated.
The storytelling absolutely matters.
None of the love stories in the “Kwentong Jollibee” series were new, in the strictest sense of the word. An unrequited love in “Vow”. A love that never gave up in “Crush”. A tragic, painful, but unending love in “Date”. Three expressions of love we have all felt; powerful, human, and universal.
There is no monopoly in identifying what stories to tell. The only thing that comes close to that is how a story is told. Jollibee set all three Valentine’s Day stories in backdrops that were immediately relevant and relatable to virtually every Filipino viewer.
Familiar situations? Check. Culturally-accurate? Check. Relatable experiences? Check. The power of the videos – why we ended up caring about all three stories – isn’t in what it was telling us (that there are many types of love) but in why we celebrate love in the first place and how to make as many people as possible relate to each story.
There is no mathematical secret to the success of “Kwentong Jollibee”. There is no ‘playbook’ or template. There is no formula where a script could be plugged in and played. There is, however, a secret sauce: a powerful truth told very, very well.
And with “Date” alone breaking the million views threshold in its first sixty minutes, it’s safe to say that Jollibee well and truly broke the Internet with its truth well told.
Hack Sheet:
- Find a powerful, human, and universal truth; and
- Tell it well.
Notes:
- Jollibee is a Filipino quick-service restaurant (QSR) that has branches all around the world.
- The videos, in order of appearances, were: “Vow”, “Crush”, and “Date”.
- All three videos can be watched at Jollibee’s official Facebook Page.
- Disclaimer: Jollibee is a client of McCann Worldgroup Philippines, the agency I work with.
Jason Cruz 