Storytelling, when done correctly, can clearly be powerful by generating empathy and other powerful emotions, but some industry observers say executing the strategy can be tricky. The marketing world is already replete with promotional storytelling.
Last spring, Sheraton launched its “Go Beyond” video series that focused on its employees and was produced by Venables Bell & Partners. In one example, a hotel employee dressed in a business suit jumps into a swimming pool to rescue a child’s toy, reports AdAge.
In another example, Richard Branson, who is one of the world’s most successful businessmen, won a kudos for describing a bicycle accident that left his face battered and bloodied, reports Social Media Digital Marketing Strategy.
Rather than avoid the public while he heeled, he provided a detailed story of how the accident occurred, complete with pictures of his injured face. In the eyes of Social Media Digital Marketing Strategy, the story humanized Branson’s Virgin brand.
More recently, a UCLA Nursing study concluded that a digital video campaign featuring Latina women sharing their stories about getting treatment for depression and anxiety resulted in more minorities getting professional help for emotional disorders.
Yet, by some standards, marketers’ storytelling is lacking. Legendary Hollywood storyteller Robert McKee is just one of many critics of the marketing industry. He has recently teamed up with Skyword, which is a content consulting firm, to provide STORYNOMICS, which is a lecture style presentation on storytelling skills, reports ContentAdvisory.net.
In the eyes of McKee, most marketing efforts at storytelling fail. Marketing content, he maintains, is just an interactive version of brands' traditional bragging and promise-making. That type of content has made many brands irrelevant. Great stories, he argues, should include betrayal, grief or other antagonistic forces rather than one-sided happy presentations, such as attractive families riding in new cars or couples using new cutlery.
Viewers, he adds, can easily see that such videos are just promotional content. What’s more, viewers believe that such happy stories simply aren’t true. Instead, stories should feature a main character giving up something good to get something better in a way that generates empathy from viewers. Rather than try to be storytellers, brands may be better off encouraging their customers to be story sharers, according to a recent column in econsultancy.
The column explains how brands such as Airbnb, John Deere, and Nike have successfully built online communities that facilitate conversations among customers. John Deere’s Furrow community, for example, features content on farming. Airbnb provides a forum for users to discuss traveling, and Nike facilitate discussions on fitness and sports.
Despite the criticism of storytelling as a form of advertisement, success stories, such as those mentioned above, do exist. Perhaps McKee’s advice is worth following. After all, Branson’s storytelling focused on the suffering he endured during and after his bicycle accident and it succeeded in enhancing Virgin’s brand while the storytelling of depression and anxiety was successful in encouraging viewers to get emotional help.
The challenge for marketers and stakeholders at brands is to build content that can generate viewer interest and provoke emotional reactions without coming across as overly promotional.
