Chapter 11

Telling Stories

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It’s a collective process.

—Joseph Gordon-Levitt

We learned in Chapter 1, through our story of Ogilvie’s, that doing business is about connecting with people. Successful organizations understand that business starts with a connection, and there is no better way to connect than through a story. Why is that? Because ultimately stories embody the very way we represent and observe ourselves in the world around us. “We all write our stories as if we were novelists . . . with beginnings, conflicts, turning points, and endings. And the way we characterize our past setbacks profoundly influences how satisfied we are with our current lives.”1 Stories captivate us because we are constantly characters in our own life stories, which is why they make such great vehicles to connect an organization to an audience—we see ourselves in the story, we empathize or vilify the characters, and we feel like we are actually there, in the moment. This leads to a lot of real benefits for organizations to employ storytelling. Below are a few of the most poignant:

• Shared experience—when we use a story to connect with someone who is somewhere in the buyer’s journey, we demonstrate our understanding of what they are going through, and we help them recognize that they are not alone in their challenges.
• Emotional value—a good story with a beginning, middle, and end creates an emotional connection that helps immensely to establish the roots of a relationship.

However, not all stories are created equally. We have all had experiences where a story falls flat. Maybe it is because it lacked a clear ending. On the other hand, maybe the “punch line” (the resolution) did not make sense. So, why do some stories succeed in creating that emotional connection and others fail to do so?

The Guts of a Story

Successful stories, those that drive emotional reaction and connection, share common elements. Without these elements, the story is less effective in connecting with us because it creates less emotional reaction:

• Exposition: This part sets the scene. Where is the action (and the conflict) going to happen and to whom?
• Rising action: These are the events that lead up to the climax. For example, what challenges did the customer face?
• Climax: This is the culmination of the action in the story. It is where the character is finally forced to deal with the issues. Either he fails in overcoming his challenges or he succeeds.
• Falling action: Now that the character has overcome or succumbed to his challenges, it is time to wrap things up. This is the part of the story that usually answers the question “What’s going to happen to the character now?”
• Resolution: A good story ties up all the loose ends, leaving us feeling satisfied.

Thankfully, these elements are all nicely laid out in what is called “Freytag’s pyramid” (or the dramatic arc). Gustav Freytag was a German writer who, through analysis of Greek and Shakespearean drama, developed the standard structure illustrated in Figure 11.1.2

Figure 11.1 Action Diagram

Source: Limelight.

What is exciting is that Freytag actually uncovered a structure that has a lot more meaning than helping us through English literature class. It is the reason why we react so strongly to stories that have this common structure.

The Science behind Storytelling

Stories, it would appear, are more than just the words printed on their pages. They elicit powerful physiological and neurological reactions in our brains. According to Paul Zak, who has conducted research on our reactions to stories, stories can actually change our behavior by prompting the release of particular neurochemicals like cortisol (released when we feel distressed), oxytocin (released when we feel empathetic), and dopamine (released when we feel pleasure). What’s more, in his studies, he also discovered that the corresponding areas of the brain (distress, empathy, and pleasure) were active as well.3 Finally, he found that in response to those chemicals, people’s behavior actually changed (in his specific study, people were more likely to give charitably when their brains had released oxytocin). However, this only really happened when the story had those elements of Freytag’s pyramid. Otherwise, there was just no reason to pay attention.

Paul Zak is not the only one studying the effects of storytelling on the brain. One other such researcher, Keith Oatley, has uncovered that our brain perceives little difference between reading the events of a story and actually experiencing them ourselves:

The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction—with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors, and attentive descriptions of people and their actions—offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.4

Now, you might be wondering “Why?” Why do stories have such a profound impact on us? In short, it is because we are wired for them. Stories provide us the vehicle to categorize and organize the world around us. Back in the early days of humanity, this was critical to survival. Stories enabled us to share experiences with each other that could potentially help us survive. According to Lisa Cron in her book Wired for Story, “this was a matter of life and death back in the Stone Age, when if you waited for experience to teach you that the rustling in the bushes was actually a lion looking for lunch, you’d end up the main course.” And so our brains developed reward mechanisms (that’s the dopamine mentioned earlier) to make listening to and partaking in stories pleasurable. As renowned cognitive scientist and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker explains, “Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies we could deploy in them.”5

Stories, Relationships, Emotion, and Business

What does the science behind storytelling mean for us in creating online relationships? It means that through effective storytelling (i.e., with a narrative arc), we can create a neurological event in our digital visitors’ brains that connect us together. “When we tell stories to others that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them too. The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize,” says psychologist Uri Hasson from Princeton. He continues:

When the woman spoke English, the volunteers understood her story, and their brains synchronized. When she had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did too. When her frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains. Anything you’ve experienced, you can get others to experience the same. Or at least, get their brain areas that you’ve activated that way, active too.6

So, imagine a moment in time when we are synchronized with our audience through a story. In the real world, it is easy. We’ve probably all had those moments in a store, like Ogilvie & Sons, where a salesperson has told us a story about a similar problem he had, and how he solved it. Maybe the story elicited some empathy. Maybe some joy or excitement? The real result was how receptive we were to buying a product afterwards. As Paul Zak discovered, such a story might have changed our behavior. Would we have been as likely to buy something if we were left to wander the aisles by ourselves?

Connecting the Dots (Why Stories Are Important)

Of course, the importance of stories also builds on some of the other traits of relationships we already discussed—need and faces.

• When our relationship needs align, stories help get attention because we are wired to want to experience them.a
• Once someone is connected to us via story (i.e., we have their attention), a good dramatic arc can elicit distress, empathy, or pleasure, and furthermore:
  • That emotional connection bonds us together.
  • Once the bond is created, behavior is changed. People may be more receptive to receiving other content, engaging with us in a conversation, or even buying something.

However, telling a story in business is not like writing the Lord of the Rings. When they are shopping, people are not going to engage with 400 pages of content. They want something quick. Here, as we have discussed, video is great because it mimics the trust-mechanism of face-to-face communication, captures attention in a digital world where attention is fleeting, and can communicate more information through a multisensory experience.

What Makes a Story Good for Business?

Business stories are often less about survival and struggle, and more about overcoming a challenge, but they can share some commonalities with the real world’s most beloved stories.

Let’s look at what’s different and what’s the same between real-world and digital storytelling.

The Differences

When businesses tell stories to their online audience, they have to keep in mind two critical things:

The Similarities

The stories that businesses tell should also take advantage of the five things that make us want to engage with stories in the first place:

Telling a Better Story

So, similarities and differences aside, what can we do to tell a better story? Below is some advice from Lisa Cron that appears in her book Wired for Story:

• Get a ball in the air immediately. “What we’re hoping for in that opening sentence is the sense that something is about to change (and not necessarily for the better).” That means you have to kick it off in grand style. Don’t start your story with, “In today’s business world. . . .” Blah. Grab your reader’s attention. Back to our example of Sarah: “Sarah could feel it . . . her job was on the line, unless she could figure out how to drive more customers into the pipeline. The point on her pencil snapped, and she realized she’d been digging it into the spreadsheet that lay before her on the desk.”
• Ratchet up the curiosity. Remember, we seek meaning every day. The more you can elicit that from your audience, the more they will be connected with your story. Why? Because their brains will reward them as they continue to read, uncovering the mystery of why Sarah might lose her job and her quest to keep it.
• Be apparent right away. Who’s the protagonist? What’s happening? What do they have at stake? Remember what that history does—it enables businesses to put their engagement with their customers into context. When we are clear right away, we establish context. As neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak writes, “Within the brain, things are always evaluated within a specific context.”8
• Generate urgency. A good story has to have the ability to develop a sense of urgency from the very first sentence. Otherwise, there’s no hook, nothing to incite curiosity or that emotional connection.

Coca-Cola: A Company That Gets Storytelling

In late 2012, Coca-Cola took a decidedly right turn in their approach to digital marketing. They sacked the “product/fact-based” website of yesteryear for one that was all about storytelling, a reimagining of their internally focused Journey magazine, which you can see at www.coca-colacompany.com.10

The first thing that sticks out is, “Where are the Coke bottles?” Well, they are kind of there but couched within the theme of “health.” That’s because Coca-Cola has recognized that the way to get people emotionally attached to their brand and the company isn’t to talk about themselves. It’s to develop content that makes people want to interact with their website and their videos and their campaigns. This is indicated clearly by the thematic carousel on the site. Where you might expect to see “stories” about “Coke in the Community,” “The Health Benefits of Coke,” and “The History of Coke,” visitors are presented with articles about social media, human trafficking, running races, and rainforest conservation. What do these have to do with the Coca-Cola company? Everything.

Another very intriguing aspect of the site is the menu. Instead of listing anything about products, the Journey website has instead opted to feature “Stories,” “Opinions,” and “Brands.” And when you click on “Stories,” there is more of a “Coke” feel but, again, couched within stories that are distinctly about something “not Coke.”

This is a significant and sharp departure from any CPG (consumer-packaged good) or beverage company out there. But Coca-Cola’s approach is not just embodied in its website. That is only the launching point for its revised digital marketing efforts that reflect, again, the idea that storytelling should be about characters, a narrative, and emotions, not the product. A perfect example is their “Let’s Go Crazy: 60 Second” video.11 The psychology is simple: we connect emotionally with the story and narrative. Characters in the story and narrative are using the product, so we connect with the product (OMG: it’s that transitive property from high school geometry!).

Okay, so let’s take stock of what Coca-Cola is doing on its website and in that particular video:

• Focus is on the character, not the product. All the people featured on the website (in their stories) and in the video, are the focus, not the product. Placement is made as part of the environment or the characters actions, but it is not overt.
• There is a narrative arc. In all of the stories, there is a beginning, middle, and end. There is conflict and resolution. Take the man in the video who puts swings everywhere. What’s the conflict? People have lost their “inner child.” The resolution? Build swings everywhere. The denouement? Everyone is smiling.
• Rich media. Coca-Cola has embraced video. Not only is it publishing video on its site, but it is also syndicating that video on third-party sites like YouTube.
• Emotional. The video, one example of the storytelling focus, is clearly emotional. There is not one storyline in that video that you can’t connect with on an emotional level. But the website features it and so do many of their other advertisements (most notably one about obesity in America).12
• Engagement. Leveraging the YouTube site gives Coca-Cola videos built-in engagement. But what about on its website? How about sharing buttons and inline comments on every page?

Summing It Up

Stories are powerful in creating connections between us. That’s because we are wired for them. We each see our own life as a story, with us as the central character. And because of that, our brains fire off neurotransmitters in response. There’s a physiological response to a story that includes the dramatic elements we are so familiar with—exposition, conflict, resolution. Organizations can tap into this by developing content that leverages a narrative structure while remembering to tell a story that is about their customers, not about them.

Helpful Takeaways

Most organizations shy away from storytelling because they either don’t feel they can pull it off or because they don’t understand how it will help sales. The first reason is genuine. It’s far better not to tell a story if you can’t tell it well. The second reason is the whole reason behind this book. Real organizational success—long-term success, not just short-term sales—results from developing reliable relationships based on emotional connection. And the best way to do that is through storytelling. So dust off those pencils (or go out and find someone like a former journalist who needs some work if you don’t feel that you can write it yourself) and get to work. Here are some helpful tips, tricks, techniques, and things you can do today. Note that these aren’t in any particular order.

• Tell stories about your customers, not about yourself. Stories about your history are okay, but you can’t keep telling those stories over and over again. You need to tell stories about your customers—what challenges they faced, how they overcame them, and so on.
• Create a character or two. The best way to kick-start your storytelling is to create a character. Maybe this is based on one of your customers. Maybe it’s entirely fictional. But having a stable of characters enables two things. First, you’ve got something familiar to draw from when telling a new story. Second, your audience begins to associate the character with your organization.
• Let your customers tell the story for you. There is no reason that you have to tell the story all yourself. You’d be surprised to find out that your customers have stories to tell that your audience would love to hear. And, guess what, those stories may not even be about you. But you, as the organization that connected that story to your audience, reap the benefits of emotional connection.
• Tell your story in multiple formats. Text. Images. Infographics. Video. Podcasts. Don’t limit yourself by the format. Just like creating different kinds of video, you need to create different kinds of stories. Different formats appeal to different people.
• Think small. The problem with telling a story is that you have to tell a story differently from everyone else. “Most companies do the same things, create the same stories as everyone else does,” says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute. “To really get noticed, you have to find that niche. You have to ‘go small to go big’ so you can find a story that is different than everyone else. So you can be the ‘expert.’”

Notes

1. Susan Cain, Quiet (New York: Broadway Books, 2012).

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Freytag.

3. www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DHeqQAKHh3M.

4. Annie Murphy Paul, “Your Brain on Fiction,” New York Times, March 17, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html.

5. Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (New York: Ten Speed Press/Random House, 2012).

6. Leo Widrich, “What Listening to a Story Does to Our Brains,” Buffer (blog), November 29, 2012, http://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains.

7. Cron, Wired for Stories.

8. Richard Restak, The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love (New York: Crown Publishing, 2009).

9. Stanley Fish, “Meanwhile: Murder, I Read,” New York Times, March 28, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/opinion/28iht-edfish.1.5055148.html.

10. Stuart Elliott, “Coke Revamps Web Site to Tell Its Story,” New York Times, November 11, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/business/media/coke-revamps-web-site-to-tell-its-story.html.

11. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAQNvtlGfsY.

12. Todd Wasserman, “Coca-Cola Campaign Takes on Obesity,” Mashable.com, January 15, 2013, http://mashable.com/2013/01/15/coke-ad-takes-on-obesity/.

aIt’s possible that because we are so intrinsically wired for stories, story-based content can actually help push people from one relationship need into another. For example, someone looking for information (i.e., bullet-point specifications) who comes across a story that imparts the same information but in a narrative format might move from “You Don’t See Me” to “Acknowledgment” without any intervention by the organization simply because of the psychological connection made between the person and the organization via the story.