Website Hero Video - Vignette Brainstorming

Date: 21 March 2026

The Brief

I want to create short video content for the hero section of my website. I recently did similar work for a client who ran a health clinic - a series of 7 to 90-second vignettes showing people physically enjoying life. It was effective. I want to do something similar for my own business.

My work is about removing the stress and anxiety around technology. The temptation is to show people happy on computers, but that’s too narrow. I want to tell stories that establish rapport and trust from the first moment a visitor lands on the page.

The Audience

Primary demographic: middle-aged women who are solopreneurs, small business owners, or busy successful women. But I’m not exclusively targeting them - men and anyone stressed by technology are welcome. Realistically, my clients skew 40s and up, with the sweet spot in the 50s (I’m 52). I want premium clients - people who are already successful in their own work and lives, but feel vulnerable, frustrated, or incompetent on the tech side.

The Stories

The theme is turnaround. My best moments are when someone goes from frustration to relief. The pain points are universal - getting locked out of an account, a scary message on their phone that looks like a hack, unpacking a printer and not knowing what to do next. That feeling of being left behind, confused, or upset.

I don’t need every vignette to have a beginning, middle, and end. Many can just be tiny realistic moments in everyday life - a phone on the counter while someone bakes, friends having coffee with a phone visible, someone at a computer when something funny happens. The main goal: when the page loads, viewers think it’s real footage.

Some vignettes could show tension to resolution (something bad becoming something good - joy, relief, pleasure). Others might just show people living their lives well, with technology present but not dominant. Diversity matters - not just white middle-aged women at iMacs. People doing other things, possibly with younger people around them.

What I’d Like From This Session

This is an exploration stage - ideas, audiences, and scenarios. Not prompt-writing yet. I have a tool for that.

Let’s brainstorm around 6 or 7 vignette storylines. For each one, I’d like to explore the scenario, the person, the setting, and the emotional arc (if there is one). Once we have a shortlist we’re happy with, we’ll move into developing detailed prompts.

Please share your thoughts on how to approach this and where to start.

Full Voice Transcription

iCloud, this is a note to make a prompt. However, I’d like a copy of the full voice transcription at the end. The next piece of this I’d like to look at is creating a bit of video content for the hero section of my website. I’m basing this off some work I did recently for another client, where I used an AI tool to generate some video. It seems to me like a really effective way to establish rapport with a new client. My work is responding to an emotional need, so in order to attract interest and establish rapport and trust, I think I need to tell stories right off the bat. One way to do that is with video, and I think it’s worth trying.

My approach with my client, who ran a health clinic, involved doing a series of 7 to 90-second vignettes to tell the story of people who are physically enjoying life. I think I want to do a similar thing for my business, which is about removing the stress and anxiety around technology. The temptation would be to show people who are happy on computers, but I think that is too narrow and too specific. My goals in these vignettes are to be relatable to my audience.

The headline is that I’m trying to appeal to middle-aged women who are solopreneurs or small business owners or busy, successful women. However, I’m definitely not just appealing to them; I want my story to also appeal to men and anyone who is stressed out by technology. But just by the sheer nature of it, it’s unlikely that young people will come to me. My demographic for work is people my age and older—I’m 52. There are some younger people than that, but really the sweet spot is early 40s upwards, with a focus on those around their 50s.

I want premium clients. This will hopefully be a premium product, so I don’t want to appeal to penny-pinchers or people who worry about invoices. We want to appeal to individuals who acknowledge that they need this service and are willing to pay what it costs to have it done well. These are people who are already successful in their own work and lives, but the tech side of their life is where they feel vulnerable, frustrated, or incompetent.

The story for the vignettes is about turnaround. My best moments in my work occur when I’m working with someone and I hear about their frustration and constant negative feelings around the struggles of technology. These happen in everyone’s daily lives—getting stuck trying to log into an account, receiving a frightening message on their phone that makes them think they’ve been hacked, or being confused while unpacking a printer. The feeling is being left behind, confused, or upset. I’ve made lists of these pain points in my Excel spreadsheet.

The reason this prompt exists is to start a conversation about running video prompts. I would like some creative work in brainstorming half a dozen vignettes. These don’t necessarily have to tell a single story; they don’t need to have a beginning, middle, and end. They can be vignettes capturing a place, time, person, and thing. They need to be different, realistic, and believable—my main goal is that when the website page loads, viewers think it’s real footage.

I want to capture tiny moments in everyday life. If some can show a transition from something bad to something good, where we see joy, relief, or pleasure, that would be ideal. If they can involve technology or show people in the demographic living their lives, that would be even better. For example, maybe the phone is on the counter while someone is baking, or friends are having coffee and one of their phones is visible, or someone is working at a computer and something hilarious happens.

I don’t expect each vignette to show a transition from negative to positive; that’s unlikely. Some might just depict people running their businesses while feeling good, but I think it would be worth exploring some tension in a few of them. Again, these videos should appeal to everyone, so I don’t want just white middle-aged women in their home offices expressing frustration with their iMac—though that’s probably the baseline.

People need to be doing other things outside of their tech struggles, possibly interacting with younger individuals. At this point, it’s a brainstorming session, so let’s not get too deep into specifics yet. The ultimate goal will be to come up with a bunch of storylines, explore each of them, and then ideally, today we should work through about 6 or 7 little stories to develop really good prompts. I have a tool for that. So we’re not at the point of making prompts; we’re at the exploration stage of ideas, audiences, and scenarios for these vignettes. Please take that on and let me know how you think we should proceed.