Storytelling

All good marketing is essentially storytelling.

Marketing at its essence is connecting with people and since the beginning of time, one of the best ways to connect with others is through telling stories.  Whether you call them fables, tales, parables or pictographs, storytelling connects  us emotionally with what the speaker is saying.

Marketing is about sharing how you can solve a customer's problem.  Often, however, you need to convince the customer that you know what you are talking about.

Therefore, the following rules, originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist, have relevance, even if you aren't crafting the script for a major studio animated feature.  I would be interested to know what rule or rules resonates most with readers.  For me, number 2 is an important, and often challenging,  rule to keep in mind.

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Happy storytelling!

• Read More About The Story Spine: Pixar’s 4th Rule of Storytelling

The Many P's of Marketing: Parables

Marketing has gotten more and more nuanced, as new technologies and strategies have opened up many options for marketers.  It is my contention that today, the marketing mix contains much more than the traditional four or five P's that are taught in school.  In this series I am exploring the Many P's of Marketing.

Parables:  We are storytelling animals.  The most successful communicators, whether they are spiritual or political leaders, teachers, business leaders or activists, know that there is nothing quite like a story or parable to drive home the point.  Stories engage the listener or reader.  Stories frame issues and make points in a way that is easier to relate to AND easier to remember.

There is a reason that one of the most famous and successful ads of all time is a very wordy print ad that starts with the headline "They all laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play!..."  You don't have to have paragraphs and paragraphs of copy like John Caples famous ad, but if your marketing can engage prospects in a story you can engage them both intellectually AND emotionally.  It also allows you to utilize all the tools of a storyteller to hook and draw in your audience. You can read the famous ad here.

In the area in which I live, there used to be a storytelling festival.  It was a remarkable thing to see.  Every year, for a long autumn weekend, a large grassy field would be filled with tents, large and small.  You could go around from tent to tent listening to professional and amateur storytellers spinning yarns, cracking jokes and telling tall tales.  Virtually every tent was filled with a cross section of society that were brought together by the special magic that only a great story holds!  The remarkable thing is that it has been almost 10 years since I have been to that festival (it is no longer held) and I can still remember half a dozen of the stories I heard that weekend.  I went to a conference about a month ago and have to check my notes to remind myself about the Power Point presentations I saw.

A parables or story stays with you because it engages your intellect and emotions.  It connects with you verbally and, since it creates images in your mind, visually.  Stories, when used well in marketing, often "sell" the product without seeming pushy or aggressive.  Stories can also tickle your funny bone and give you a good general feeling about the company.  I remember several years ago reading a full page ad in the newspaper announcing that Taco Bell, to help with the national debt, had just purchased the Liberty Bell.  The company, the ad announced, was renaming the national historic icon the Taco Liberty Bell.  A glance at the date that this ad ran, April 1, told me that this was a company that wasn't afraid to be a bit irreverent or to take some chances.  The ad and the story it told generated HUGE additional media for Taco Bell.  You can read that ad here.  The point is that a story, even a made-up story, helps you cut through the media clutter and become memorable.

It is important to realize that storytelling does not always have to look like John Caples' ad, with paragraphs of copy and little else.  A smart, creative marketer can tell a story with a photograph, a short video, a radio skit, creative packaging and so much more.  Penzey's Spices and Lands' End often include stories about their customers in their catalogs.  Sometimes these stories involve the use of the products, but that is not the primary focus.  Instead, it gives the catalog reader an opportunity to relate to fellow customers.  It also gets readers to spend more time with the catalog, which more often than not ends up in more money spent on products!

You need to strongly considering making parables and stories a part of your marketing tool box.  If you don't, well, you're only telling half your story...