Why Storytelling is the Heartbeat of Marketing

The following is adapted from The Magic Slice by Jack Murray.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with the craft of storytelling. It all started with a story my dad told me when I was small about my great-grandfather, John Murray. He showed me a picture taken of him in the late 1800s.

Ireland was an exceptionally poor place in the 1880s, and my family had a small farm of twenty-nine acres in south Roscommon, in the middle of the country, just west of the River Shannon. John was the eldest of nine children, and times were tough. The Murrays, like many small farmers, struggled to pay the rent and put food on the table at the same time. Evictions were common; if you couldn’t pay the landlord, you would be forced out of your home and off the land.

In 1886, at twenty-nine years of age, John made the most difficult decision of his life: to leave home and go to America. His only motivation was to make enough money to help his family survive.

His ship, the RMS Aurania, docked at Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan on April 18, Palm Sunday. He disembarked, ready to have his immigration papers processed, not knowing what was ahead of him. Imagine what it was like for an innocent country man in a bustling metropolis like New York in the 1880s. It must have been mind-blowing.

Back then, the great city was overrun by criminality and corruption. It was controlled by the twin malign forces of criminal gangs and the Tammany Hall political organization. The first “skyscrapers” were just being built, and each day thousands of immigrants arrived from every corner of the globe.

The arriving Irish gravitated toward the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where they crammed into tenements with little or no sanitation. Disease was rife. Dead animals were left in the streets for weeks. If you survived the pickpockets and the gang violence, then you might have caught cholera, typhus, or tuberculosis. It wasn’t a place for the fainthearted.

Our family history doesn’t record precisely what Great-Grandfather John did while he was in New York or exactly how long he stayed, but we do know something remarkable happened, which resonates to this day — almost 150 years later.

How Branding Our Story Led Us to a 150 Year Old Family Business

During his time in New York, John got an idea to start a business. He opened a general store, a trading post for the farming community. I often imagine him walking into one of those enormous, overflowing American stores and getting the idea. It’s clear he committed himself to it because, extraordinarily, a number of years later he arrived back in Ireland with enough money to set up that same business in his hometown of Ballinasloe.

It is a defining moment in the history of our family. One man’s brave decision to change the direction of his family’s fortunes is still being felt today. My great-grandfather’s business lives on, and today is run by my mother, Noreen, and my brother, Kevin. (If you look closely into the shop window, you can see Jameson whiskey and Oxo cubes — two more brands that still exist.)

The business is where I grew up and learned about the craft of storytelling. We have many old grain lofts, and wherever you look, you are surrounded by history and relics from the past.

When I was small, each evening after the shop closed, we would sit down for a meal and discuss the day’s events. Who stopped by, what did they want, and did they have any news? My dad’s contribution would often begin with the phrase “You’ll never believe what I heard down the yard today.” This was often followed by a wondrous tale, always part fact, part embellishment, all to keep us engaged and entertained. It’s easy to see how I got hooked on stories.

I studied marketing at university before taking a postgraduate course in journalism. By that stage, I had realized I wanted storytelling to have a huge part in my life. As soon as I qualified, I began working for a political party as a press officer. My job was what is sometimes called that of a “spin doctor,” trying to get the best media coverage for the candidates I worked with. I then progressed to providing strategic communications advice to CEOs before I founded MediaHQ. We’re a media database, and we build software that allows people to share their stories with journalists to help make and shape the news. There is a single strand that runs through all of this: storytelling.

My dad loved to work and thrived on getting stuck into a physical job, breaking sweat, and getting dirt under his fingernails. He was a man of action and was more than a little bemused with my career in communications. When anyone asked him what I did for a living, he would pause, then grin and say:

“He’s selling talk above in Dublin.”

That describes my job beautifully. I realized a long time ago that storytelling was the only way to communicate. From the start of my career, the currency of success has always been the quality of the stories I had to tell. On the days I really struggled to get the world to take notice, I would think, If only I had a better story today, life would be so much easier. I knew if I had a better story, I would get more attention, more engagement, and more interest. The quest was always to make the story I had better, and through that drive I learned a valuable lesson.

The next time you are struggling to get the world to care about your work, remember this:

Those with the best stories succeed.

For more advice on developing your business’s story, you can find The Magic Slice on Amazon.

Jack Murray is an entrepreneur, story consultant, speaker, and author. As the CEO and founder of both MediaHQ — a media contacts database and press release distribution tool — and the storytelling agency All Good Tales, Jack helps companies define their storytelling strategies, train their staff as storytellers, and share their stories through innovative technology.

A recognized expert, Jack has worked with hundreds of brands, organizations, and teams over a twenty-five-year career. He advises leadership, communications, and marketing teams through story training courses, story strategy workshops, and keynote talks.

Jack lives in Dublin with his wife, Alison; his daughters, Matilda and Gwen; and a dog called Maxi Lopez. Connect with him online at Murraystory.com.