December 2008
10 posts
2 tags
Need a last-minute gift? How about a great story
What if I told you that for your Hanukkah gift, I gave twenty bucks in your name to a charity that’s important to me?
You probably wouldn’t complain too loudly, because you’re not a complete Grinch, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t exactly be thrilled, either. Perhaps you’d second-guess the gift you gave me, and reconsider my place in your future gift-giving...
4 tags
“It’s like an analogy of a metaphor.”
We were trying to explain the value of telling a comprehensive story, and how it’s different from simply unleashing a media splattering campaign. Having just blogged about Southwest Airlines for two straight days, I had Southwest on the brain, so I pulled them out as an analogy. Yet as soon as I uttered “analogy” and “Southwest Airlines” in the same sentence, the client rolled his eyes. The...
7 tags
Do you have a “get it” problem?
The client was confused. Are you telling me that despite the fact that our PR firm is going to send invitations to everybody in the industry, and press releases to every major media outlet, and that it’s going to be covered in all the newspapers and on all the TV stations, that people aren’t going to know about it? Well, no, not exactly. People will know about it. However, I’m not sure that people...
3 tags
Southwest storytelling, Part 2
A quick update on yesterday’s post:
When I checked in for my flight online, I was reminded of a storytelling tool Southwest is using to help people understand their boarding process: Boarding School.
Even before they went to the assigned-numbers system, Southwest’s unassigned seat policy (which some people derisively tabbed a “cattle call,” but which I would describe as...
1 tag
You are now free to tell a better story
Three reasons I’m excited about my flight to Philadelphia on Southwest tomorrow morning:
It’s a free flight. There’s something strangely satisfying about using a frequent-flyer ticket. It’s like it’s a reward not only for loyalty to one airline (and in my case, one airline’s rewards card), but also for suffering through all those security lines.
Drink...
4 tags
On "failure" and transparency
A little while back, we decided to post some of our “failed” ideas — ideas that we loved, but that for one reason or another the client didn’t.
In every project, we present a number of different directions and concepts before determining the approach that gets used in the finished product. Since clients often opt for more conservative looks and ideas, some of the more...
5 tags
A bad economy calls for better storytelling
In response to the economic crisis, many companies are cutting back on advertising, cutting their prices, or both. In an NPR story that aired yesterday on All Things Considered, Brad Linder suggests these strategies aren’t the answer.
Linder spoke with Bill Madway, who teaches marketing at the Villanova School of Business. Said Madway:
“The traditional way of calculating a marketing budget is,...
8 tags
What does your audience want?
The other day I suggested that your audience doesn’t care about you, but that instead they care about themselves, and their wants and needs. Though this is hardly a revolutionary thought, its simple truth doesn’t stop our egos from letting us imagine that everybody cares about us, what we’re doing, what we’re saying, what we’re selling, and the story we’re telling. We imagine this because we care...
4 tags
What Apple gets about storytelling
I like to think that I’m not particularly materialistic, but I must confess, I’ve been eyeing the new aluminum unibody MacBook lately. I suspect I would be looking longingly even if I had one of the white polycarbonate MacBooks from the previous generation, but I’ve got a PowerPC iBook G4 that is now four years and several generations old, and on its second motherboard, second...
4 tags
Why do experts still tell stories?
Over at the Joel on Software blog, Joel Spolsky gets a little cranky about the new Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers:
This [New York Times review of Outliers] captures what’s been driving me crazy over the last year … an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories...