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StoryTelling
storytelling techniques
1
As
Access
1
As
Access

Some of the best narratives come from an unfiltered look behind the curtain.

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2
In
Incongruent
2
In
Incongruent

To see or read something that appears out of place grabs attention. The mind strives to reconcile, “what the hell?”

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3
Fa
Failure
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Fa
Failure

No failure, no drama. Virtually all movies and novels depict something going awry.

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4
Cv
Conversational
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Cv
Conversational

Talk and write like a real human being. You can do it!

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5
AC
Atomized Content
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AC
Atomized Content

Packaging bite-­size chunks of a story often resonate with journalists.

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6
Ow
Outward
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Ow
Outward

The opposite of “Me, me, me … and here’s a little more on me.”

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7
Sm
Sausage Making
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Sm
Sausage Making

Sometimes, a backstory on how something happens is more interesting than the core narrative.

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8
Qa
Quantification
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Qa
Quantification

Everyone likes to keep score. Numbers can bring shape to the intangible.

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9
Op
Opinion
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Op
Opinion

Nothing bores like the middle of the road, often viewed by execs as a safe harbor. Have a take.

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10
Wo
Words
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Wo
Words

Words matter. A single word amidst a vanilla page can jar the senses.

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Cx
Context
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Co
Contrast
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Co
Contrast

Comparisons – like the difference between “what was” and “what is” – can help the audience ascertain significance.

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14
Vi
Visual
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Vi
Visual

Even if a picture isn’t worth 1,000 words, visuals accentuate storytelling.

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15
Hu
Humanity
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Hu
Humanity

Faces dominate the covers of business magazines for a reason. Cultivate human touch points in your storytelling.

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16
An
anecdote
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An
Anecdote

Underutilized in business communications, the anecdote brings realness and entertainment value to the story.

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17
Le
Levity
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Le
Levity

Considered the killer app in business storytelling, the mere cracking of a smile is a win.

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18
Dr
Drama
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Dr
Drama

Business storytelling with an entertainment dimension stands out. Enter drama, stage left.

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Pr
Protagonist
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Pr
Protagonist

Transform an executive into a hero, and you’ve got the makings of a happy ending (and a brand-­building moment).

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Ba
Barrier
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Ba
Barrier

Here’s one surefire way to cultivate drama: Communicate a barrier and tease out the journey of overcoming that barrier.

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Vo
Voice
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Vo
Voice

A distinctive voice can elevate a business story, whether that comes from the company or an individual.

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Business Storytelling Lessons from the Budweiser “Puppy Love” Ad

Business Storytelling Lessons from the Budweiser “Puppy Love” Ad

A good percent of the U.S. population has watched the Budweiser “puppy love” ad that ran during the Super Bowl. At last count, YouTube views were about to crack the 50,000,000 mark.

I believe that qualifies as a viral video.

What exactly in the video caused so many people to watch and share?

Of course, it’s a terrific story that touches the heart. But how did Budweiser structure the storytelling to trigger so many “you’ve got to see this” reactions?

Communication professionals can learn a ton about storytelling from their advertising brothers. When you’re shelling out $4 million and change for a single ad, it has a way of tuning one’s senses, a dynamic that typically doesn’t exist when PR crafts a pitch or writes a news release.

As a result, advertising often structures their creative with the same classic story arc taught in your high school English class.

Even in the 60 seconds devoted to the “puppy love” ad, a classic story arc emerges. You can see the break down of how this plays out in the graphic below:

Budweiser puppy love ad video

In short, bad stuff happens in good storytelling (and yes, I took liberties in having the puppy channel Jimi Hendrix).

When the stranger adopts the puppy and starts driving away, we assume the puppy is headed for a dull life in the burbs away from his best friend. This creates the tension which in turn enables the “payoff” with the horse and his posse coming to the rescue.

The traditional PR mindset is to hide or diffuse or sprackle over the “bad stuff.”

Again, no bad stuff, no story.

Yes, I recognize that paid media allows advertising to control the narrative. They can dish out a crisis knowing with 100-percent certainty that a payoff and happy ending await.

Not so with PR.

Still, PR needs to push for content related to activities that didn’t go according to plan. This way, you frame the storytelling with a before and after narrative. The more distance between the two, the greater the drama. But without the “before,” the journalist or reader has no way to understand the context for the “after.”

Beyond the story arc, here are three more takeaways from the Budweiser video to guide PR-generated content:

1. Provide context

If you only see the stranger driving off with the puppy and don’t know that the puppy has tried three times to see his buddy, the horse, you figure what’s the big deal. After all, it IS a puppy adoption business.

2. Outward focus

Shouting “me, me, me” is the quickest away to turn off the audience. The company needs to be in a supporting role, not the hero.

3. Humanize the story

If your company makes software for troubleshooting computer networks, it’s going to be a stretch to bring a puppy (or a cat) into the picture.  But this dimension can still brought out  through the people involved.

Side Note: Al Topkins offers an excellent breakdown of the “puppy love” videography at Poynter (hat tip to Ben Whitmore at IDG).

A Surprising Lesson from GE on B2B Branding

In preparation for our storytelling workshops, we request that participants complete some light homework. We often ask them what B2B company does a particularly good job in building its brand and public profile.

With rare exception, GE wins this unaided awareness test.

In a “cement mixer” with thousands of B2B companies, what is GE doing to stand out? How is the company building a brand that people remember?

In reverse-engineering the B2B side of GE’s communications to the outside world, one overriding principle emerges —

GE strives to touch both sides of the brain, the intellectual and the emotional. In analyzing B2B communications over the years, I would say one out of every 100 B2B companies makes this leap … even 1 percent might be generous.

Whether you’re selling bulldozers, semiconductors or lubricants by the barrel, it’s hard to see how a buyer would care about anything that smacks of emotion. Yet, it’s not like these products automatically strip decision makers of their emotions, leaving them in a Spock state.

GE gets this point.

You might be thinking that GE enjoys a unique position as one of the best-run companies on the planet going back to the Jack Welsh days — with the type of  marketing resources that only come from being a $146B company. While true, here’s a takeaway lesson from GE that any B2B company can apply to its outbound communications and brand-building efforts —

Use storytelling techniques to educate, inform and even amuse in contrast to the conventional B2B playbook that shouts “Me, Me … and here’s a little bit more about Me.”

The company’s blog, GE Reports, provides a good example of how this plays out in pragmatic terms. The blog executes on the promise to explore stories on innovation, science and technology, as well as GE viewpoints.

Take a post on the Panama Canal.

The storytelling starts with a double entendre in the headline, “Dig This: The Panama Canal is About to Get Busy”

Next, look at the opening paragraph:

The Panama Canal is a full century old, but it’s going through a growth spurt. The 48-mile-long waterway that cuts across “the backbone of the Western Hemisphere” is going through the final year of a massive expansion. When work is completed this year, bigger locks will allow the giant “New Panamax” class of container ships and supertankers to slip through and boost the canal’s capacity by half.

No mention of GE.

But the part I find most revealing involves the visual storytelling in the post. This is a tough leap for most B2B companies, believing that depth of content, not “pictures,” wins the day. Yet, this is one of the best ways for B2B content to wiggle its way to an emotional touch point.

The GE post’s hero image features a GIF with an explosion sure to capture the most fleeting attention span.

More than scrutinize the visual assets individually, it’s also interesting to consider the “look” of the overall post. Just like newspapers have figured out that a page of black type turns off readers, the same principle can be applied to a blog post.

With this in mind, I’ve come up with two metrics that shape the reader’s immediate impression of a post (before reading a word):

  • Ratio of words to visual
  • Percent of column inches devoted to visuals

GE scores an 81:1 words-to-visual ratio, impressive when the typical post of 300 to 500 words carries one visual. And visuals dress 68 percent of the GE post’s column inches, again far beyond the norm.

The value of visual storytelling also impacts the increasing use of mobile devices to access information. Again, the GE post looks good on a smartphone (two snapshots below).

As I dig – there’s that verb again – deeper in this area, I’ll try to come up with industry best practices for the two metrics on “looks.”

BTW, this post scored an 79:1 words-to-visual ratio with roughly 41 percent of the column inches devoted to visuals.