Telling the story is more relevant than ever
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There is a long tradition of storytellers and bards sitting around a fire and telling stories. From the very first tribes there have been people whose role is to hold and maintain the traditions and histories of the group.
These stories provided the fundamental way in which histories and the lessons from history were passed from generation to generation. As folk tales move from generation to generation they have, to some degree, lost their relevance. Hansel and Gretl becomes a story about a gingerbread house, not the perils of getting lost in the woods.
The other core part of the oral tradition is that the stories were placed in the context of the listener’s own world. Deep in the forests by the firelight it was easy to believe that big bad wolves stalked innocent girls. The stories were given immediacy by their context.
This may seem like a different era in the modern world of communications, and of course, to a very large degree, modern society has lost the sense that the world moves around us in broadly inexplicable ways. But there are direct links between these millennia old traditions and modern communications, and real lessons that brands can learn from understanding what makes storytelling so compelling.
Oral traditions provide well-structured ways of containing and communicating information. We all know what to expect when somebody begins with “Once upon a time….” This structure is an essential element of the oral process. In order to ensure that listeners get the message, stories are told in predictable ways.
The fact that oral traditions have lost much of their impact is largely due to a greater knowledge about the world; we are not so easily frightened by the unknown. It’s not about a diminishing appeal from the principle of stories themselves.
No-one who has seen a primary school audience held enthralled in the palm of an expert story teller can doubt that the power of words remains. From childhood onwards we all still love a good story – more so if it’s in a recognisable context and even more so again if we can imagine ourselves at the heart of the story as its hero. The message, the story, the big idea are all vital components of marketing campaigns and a brand’s voice is a key part of the effectiveness of advertising and marketing.
Modern communicators can become modern storytellers by doing 3 things:
- Structure their communications as a story – create communications that have recognisable elements and phases
- Put the story in context for the listener – this means understanding the listener and his or her world. Speak to the things they know (and possibly include the things that frighten them)
- Make the listener the hero – tell stories that enable the listener to imagine themselves as the protagonist, and more importantly to imagine themselves being successful
The great joy about working and communicating in a digital age is that we have the tools to do all of these things well. Digital tools enable us to create stories based on insight from our data. They allow us to reach out into communities to develop that sense of shared experience that is such an important element of traditional story telling. And they allow us to personalise our tales to pull the listener into the heart of the subject.
There’s a great example of listener as hero live at the moment in the Land Rover Hibernot campaign. (www.hibernot.co.uk) The campaign, with the strapline “There are those that hibernate as winter draws in. Hbernate? No chance! #hibernot”, is a perfect example of telling a story that their target audience can identify with. Coupled to compelling TV ads that allude to a wide variety of outdoor activities, from family holiday to extreme sport, the campaign from strapline onward absolutely casts the listener as hero.
It is about understanding who the audience is and finding the common connection between what a brand wants to say and what resonates with the listener. It may be clichéd to say that brands can no longer broadcast, but many still don’t seem to understand why that is true (and a substantial proportion of marketers still resort to the habits of shouting rather than storytelling in their campaigns.)
The Macmillan “No-one should face cancer alone” campaign works very hard to tell a story that is familiar to those in the terrifying position of facing cancer. It is designed to resonate both to those who have cancer and their carers. Apart from the final ‘brand voice’ restating the core message, the advertising is about a recognisable woman and the people around her interacting over a year. (youtu.be/up_ztoeP4h4)
The other recent campaign that really puts a message in a recognisable context is Save the Children’s brutal ‘Second a Day’ telling of the collapse of a little girl’s life through civil war. The fact that the ‘story’ contains such recognisable voices, accents and settings drives home the connection to a UK viewer. There is no editorial, no marketing copy, just a hugely powerful story told in a shockingly recognisable context. (youtu.be/RBQ-IoHfimQ)
Dragons still breath fire in the woods, wolves still stalk the innocent and the unwary. Brands should never forget the small scared tribes in dark woods. Appealing to the personal, putting the listener at the heart of the story and whenever possible as the hero of the story will engage them in ways that are innately appealing to human nature.
