From Shouting to Sharing Value: brand storytelling in a new paradigm

Storytelling is a marketing buzzword. You should neither ignore it nor ride the bandwagon blind. Stories are powerful — they influence, sway, manipulate, deter, and alter our courses everyday — they capture our conviction and consumption. From ISIS to Coca Cola, everyone has a story and the ability to broadcast.

Which means marketing can feel like a rodeo: loud, crowded, and unpredictable. No matter how exacting and enlightening your analytics, metrics, and data may be — no matter how much money or time you have — the game and the fame can still be won by anyone with an internet connection. Millions can be reached in a moment.

But reaching and capturing the audience has never been harder and there is no magic formula for finding the most authentic, effective, viral transmission of your message — the kind of sharing that can launch a brand into mass public perception, turn cats into celebrities, or dismantle democracies.

The magic happens when a brand (or whatever influencer) reaches not just the eyes and ears of their audience, but their hearts as well. As marketers, we have to rethink what it means to be heard, remembered — and most importantly — loved in today’s world.

We have to think very carefully and consciously about the story we’re actually telling. And how we’re telling it.

The rules have changed

Traditionally, marketing efforts focus on — and are measured by — the ability to control what the message is, who will get it, how it will be received, and when it will get through. This is the foundation of traditional advertising.

It worked for decades when airtime and attention were purchased by the highest bidder and messages flowed in one direction, through the tightly held mediums of print, radio, television, and the early internet days.

If you could pay for it, a colossal 70% of a very captive American audience could be reached via one of three broadcast networks when TV hit its peak in the 1970s.

Anyone who’s lived in the last decade, however, knows a different reality. Enter the age of the internet, social media, mobile devices, and hyper-connected lives. Consumers have the ability to talk back, in real-time, with nothing more than a couple swipes. Messaging and broadcast are two-way streets now. The audience gained a soapbox where none existed before.

As online and mobile advertising exploded, consumers also gained access to the very same tools as advertisers to broadcast whatever they have to say.

Not only can an angry public tweet be blasted off to any @brand, but the consumer’s dollar buys the same targeting technologies and amplification that big advertisers have traditionally dominated.

Take the example of an angry British Airways customer who reached well beyond his own network of 500+ followers to target all 300,000+ “fans” of British Airways with a promoted tweet unabashedly shaming their customer service. That cost him a few bucks out of his own pocket, but the real tipping point came when Mashable covered the story, with the PR spawning a virality that proliferated tens of thousands of negative impressions.

The anecdotes are abundant — just look at the current state of United Airlines.

Talking back and tuning out

Here’s another reality: the premium on attention has never been higher. Consumers have become over-exposed, over-informed, and over-loaded as bids for their time have increased tenfold.

In the 70s, it was estimated that we were exposed to 500 ads a day. That number is 5,000+ today. Meanwhile, according to some studies, the average human attention span may have officially dropped below that of a goldfish in 2015.

It’s loud, it’s crowded, and the audience is increasingly tuning out…or muting. From 2014 to 2015, the use of ad-blockers increased by 48% in the U.S. (and most of them were Millennials).

While we may be consuming more content than ever, when it comes to ads, 84% of people surveyed by Arris wanted to skip them altogether on TV, most of whom were willing to download and watch later.

Even the almighty Super Bowl ad has lost its throne in advertising. A 2014 study showed that 80% of the ads do not increase sales for companies running them. Not great when you consider the average cost in 2017 was “5 million for a super bowl ad and another million or more to market the ad.”

Winning the new game by keepin’ it real

The rules of engagement have changed and marketers have to play a new game. We’ve shifted out of a broadcast paradigm. Channels are global, democratic, and real-time (brands and consumers alike broadcast on the same platforms and with the same tools). And, the consumer’s power of choice is increasingly underscored by research, education, deep-seated value systems, and their finite resource of time.

Effective marketing can’t be achieved in the ways that helped reduce our attention spans to eight seconds. Brands need to listen and engage in real conversation. Cutting through the noise to change someone’s mind or stir their heart requires an exploration in engagement and deeper exercises in reciprocity.

The beautiful thing about a world where consumers no longer fall for an inadequacy approach is that marketers are forced to create a message that is real. A message that is profound and honest. The story we tell and the way we relate to our audience have never been more important. We live in a world where the best story wins. What story will you tell?

Written by Lauren Lee Anderson

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