May 2018. It’s a warm day in Manhattan, New York. A beautiful spring morning.
A few weeks ago I joined Contently, a martech startup . My hotel is in Soho. I still suffer a bit from jet
lag. Ten minutes walk and I’m across Broadway, near Houston. If you asked me, I’d move to New York tomorrow.
The office is just around the corner. It’s a lovely old building, right in the middle of that little area
squeezed between the eastern and western villages. So different from the shiny glass towers of the city
centre.
I wait for the elevator and then go up to the fourth floor. I go in and introduce myself to some young
people. I’m looking for familiar faces.
They tell me to go all the way down the hall. The marketing team is just around the corner. And then I
see that phrase emblazoned on the wall.
Storytellers rule the world.
It’s a Native American proverb painted on Contently’s Broadway office. When Contently moved to
Wall Street in 2018, the wall wasn’t reproduced in the new office.
I have been using that quote so many times as an introduction to my keynotes. For so many years.
It’s been three years since then, so many changes. We’ve been through a global pandemic; in fact, we’re not completely out of it yet.
I left that company almost a year ago. Today I work for a new and exciting Martech startup . Same category.
Content experiences and storytelling. I am still fascinated by the power of stories, which is probably why I never left this business category.
What is not a story?
The intention is not to write france phone number list about how we can rule the world, but rather
how to be good business storytellers. I will write about stories, storytelling, business narrative.
Salman Rushdie, the famous writer, said: “We are story-telling animals. We are the only creatures
on earth who do this unusual thing of telling ourselves stories in order to understand what kind of
creatures we are.”
So true. Stories fascinate us. They move us, thrill us, provoke us, entertain us. We continually seek out
stories, in good times and in difficult times. But what exactly is a story? Perhaps we should start with
what a story is not.
“When a child is born, the first thing it needs is care, security and love. When
these things are fulfilled, almost the next thing the child asks is “tell me a
story.”
Salman Rushdie
A story is not a process. Like a story, a process has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Unlike a story, a
process has no desire, no conflict, and no central character (the hero).
A process accumulates the progress of the story. A story is not a chronology either. Executives and
marketers often think of strategic storytelling as the story of their company.
The history of the company is just a temporal process, told as a list of growth milestones accumulated
in a sequence of dates.
So what is a story really? Let’s start with a formal definition.
A story is a dynamic sequence of events driven by conflict that brings about a significant change in a character’s life.
Ultimately, strategic storytelling is the art of telling stories, merging and organizing many streams of desire into a flow of events that points to a single object of desire.
Change is key
Change is the techtarget recognized as b2b marketing & sales data provider by independent research firm basis of all stories. Robert McKee, Hollywood screenwriter and author of the fascinating book Story , says:
“ What attracts human attention is change… if the temperature around you
changes, if the phone rings, that draws your attention. The way a story
begins is an initial event that creates a moment of change .”
In a story, if the value charge at stake in a situation does not change, what happens is a trivial activity
of no importance.
When a value changes from positive to negative or negative to positive (for example, from love to hate
or hate to love, from winning to losing or losing to winning), the event becomes significant and
emotions flow.
Specifically, when the mind’s senses shift from negative to positive, it releases pleasurable chemicals.
If the mind registers a movement from positive to negative, it unleashes a painful flow.
Emotion is the side effect of change. Throughout the day, the body absorbs millions of fragments of
raw sensory input.
Somewhere below the level of conscious awareness, the mind sorts through this mass and imposes
decision rules that separate the relevant from the irrelevant. It ignores 99% of all data and focuses on the 1% that catches its attention.
Change.
It is a biological reaction
Since a well-told story afb directory wraps its narrative around emotionally charged values, its meaning remains etched in our memory.
When we receive information as a story, rather than a series of simple facts, our brain activity increases fivefold .
The parts of the brain responsible for emotional reactions, imaginary sensations and visual images
are activated. We start to worry about the main character of the story and wonder how we would react if we were in his position.
When we immerse ourselves in a story, our brain produces oxytocin, the chemical that creates empathy.
Oxytocin means we feel connected to the hero of the story. We feel committed to him, we want to help if we can.
It is a biological reaction
That’s why stories of people (or customers) whose lives have been transformed, empowered or simply
improved by our company or organization, are some of the most powerful things we have.
Stories help us connect with our audience, they are memorable, and on a biological level, they make
our brains light up, meaning information is connected more reliably.
Stories help create memory structures, which as we know, are the foundation of all bra
nd-building activities.
That’s why we can’t start writing about strategic storytelling if we don’t first clarify why stories and
narration play a crucial role.
We will analyze, here and in the next episodes, how the stories develop.
We’ll learn more about some stories we’re all familiar with. We’ll go over the typical elements of classic stories and then get back to business.
Content Marketers Get It Wrong
Unfortunately, content people get it wrong when they think about strategic storytelling.
In fact, they consider storytelling as the opposite technique to advertising. Most theories
behind Content Marketing assume that since buyers hate being interrupted by ads, the only way to
attract them is by using content and stories.
The evidence is clearly different.
Storytelling has always been used in advertising to make brands come to the minds of potential
buyers. Advertising uses stories to convey emotions, entertain, inform and educate.
Stories told through TV commercials are memorable and help brands stay relevant.
And if you’re familiar with the beautiful TV commercials from John Lewis and Coca-Cola, just to
name a few, you know exactly what I’m talking about.