I came across an old Native American statue of The Storyteller \u2013 a simply clay molding of a woman with many children around her. It\u2019s such a simply caricature that shares such a powerful message for anyone trying to get heard today. That message is about two things. First: people are innately yearning for stories and they\u2019re drawn to people who tell them well. Second: in order for something to be communicated well, it has to be related simply \u2013 very much like how you would relate a story to a child. In essence, you could say we\u2019re all children waiting to hear the next story. It\u2019s an idea that becomes more concrete each time I see a powerful ad campaign on TV, simply because despite technology and an enormous ad budgets, it has done the same thing as our clay figurine\u2026and that\u2019s to tell a story.<\/p>\n
Forbes\u2019 Jayson DeMers believes that stories create an emotional investment through which viewer emphasis can be on a story rather than a product. This is sort of a Trojan Horse of marketing \u2013 everyone so busy paying attention to A (the story) that they\u2019re allowing through B (the product). In an article titled \u201cHow to Maximize your Marketing Campaign Through Storytelling,\u201d DeMers writes, \u201cMasterful storytelling will show the viewer\/reader that the company understands the problem and how their product solves it. This is why visual content is so effective in social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Pamela Rutledge tells us that stories leap frog technology, taking us to authentic experience. In a Psychology Today<\/em> article titled \u201cThe Psychological Power of Storytelling,\u201d Rutledge writes how stories are the \u201cultimate mashup of ancient traditions and new communications models.\u201d Her argument pivots most interestingly on our own evolutionary ability (or hindrance) in catching up with technology, adding that \u201cthe human brain has been on a slower evolutionary trajectory than the technology. Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience.\u201d Fundamentally, this is why storytelling is so wildly successful, especially today and why it\u2019s made such a strong comeback in a technologically saturated market.<\/p>\n Equally as important as what\u2019s done right, is what\u2019s done not quite so right. Take the case of Dove\u2019s campaign advocating realistic standards of beauty. In UK\u2019s Marketing Magazine<\/em>, writer Suzy Bashford notes some key points in her article titled \u201cDeconstructing the art and science of storytelling.\u201d There she quotes Sarah Walker, global director who leads Millward Browns\u2019 neuromarketing practice. Of \u201cDove onslaught\u201d campaign, Walker feels that \u201cit was a great ad, but often when a story is so hard-hitting, people look away from the screen. Even if they don’t, there’s often an ‘attentional blink’, which shows they are having difficulty processing the tough content.”<\/p>\n Bashford agrees, writing that the campaign breaks a key rule in neuroscience. She notes how Dove is only \u201ccredited at the end of the film, leaving the viewer to make the link between the story and the brand.\u201d For Walker, this is a marketing \u2018don\u2019t\u2019, who says that \u201cif you can describe what happens in your story without mentioning your brand, the brand isn\u2019t well enough integrated.\u201d<\/p>\n As a counter example, consider the victorious hail of iPad Air\u2019s recent viral campaigns\u2026where the entire campaign brilliantly both is completely about the product and not at the same time. There\u2019s no distinguishing product from story. The two are the same.<\/p>\n In a bold move against blatant commercialism but supplanting stories as natural organic ads, take Chipotle\u2019s brave new video which released last year. One writer called it \u201cthe most beautiful, haunting infomercial you\u2019ll ever see.\u201d Gawker<\/em> added to the kudos, writing \u201call other ads should just give up.\u201d This, pulled from a Content Marketing Institute<\/em> article by Michael Weiss, titled \u201cHow Powerful Brand Storytelling Can Supplant Commercials,\u201d reasserts the power of a story (with zero ad placement dollars) over the (expensive) efforts of its competitors. Weiss describes the Chipotle story featuring \u201ca sad-sack scarecrow living in a processed-food dystopia dreams of turning his tiny garden into a bountiful farm (and eventually opens up a little burrito stand). As Weiss notes, it\u2019s not an ad. It\u2019s brand storytelling, and moreover it moves from the \u201cbeige to brave\u201d mark by taking on a heavily populated social issue which is processed foods. There is no question of The Scarecrow\u2019s success, which reaped 11.6 million views on YouTube, more than 12,000 Facebook posts, over 31,000 tweets, and an overwhelming 126 million impressions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I came across an old Native American statue of The Storyteller \u2013 a simply clay molding of a woman with many children around her. It\u2019s such a simply caricature that shares such a powerful message for anyone trying to get heard today. That message is about two things. First: people are innately yearning for stories…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":3918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\n