Last weekend, while catching up on some good old-fashioned print-edition magazine reading, I kept flipping to the same well-placed, cleverly designed two-page Hitachi ad spread. No pictures of Hitachi products in sight, the spread uses beautiful portrait-driven photography to promote Hitachi’s True Stories online film series www.hitachi.us/truestories.

The True Stories site presents a series of smartly spun, well- produced mini-documentary videos featuring “true stories” told by people who work and live in industries or communities impacted by Hitachi-created technology. I was impressed—thought it was a pretty cool marketing concept—so I forwarded the link to some friends and moved on.

Then later this week, it seemed like every other TV commercial break had a spot for yet another touchy-feely “true stories” microsite—Home Depot’s True Stories www.homedepot.com/truestories campaign. Like the Hitachi print piece, the spot’s overt purpose is to drive viewers to the True Stories website—which has mini-documentaries like the Hitachi site but is much heavier on user participation.

A “true stories” trend has been born . . .

Well, born may be a strong word; there’s nothing new about using consumer/user experience to create and reinforce a brand’s image and product value—testimonials have always and will always play a huge role in advertising. And there’s nothing new about companies creating microsites and videos that are solely focused on user experience. But there’s definitely something new about companies spending major production and media bucks on ad campaigns to promote websites with big-budget videos that don’t overtly sell anything other than the brand.

It seems like more and more print, radio, and TV ads are being used to sell websites that sell user experience and value, rather than products or sweepstakes.

So let’s watch the trend—keep your eyes peeled and ping me on the next traditional media ad campaign you see for an online story-driven branding effort.