pecha kucha @ vision bristol 2011

1• Hello• Busy day, dark, and nearly

bedtime• How about a story to help

you unwind and relax.• Because that’s very now isn’t

it? To talk about brand narrative, story arc and the like.

• Why should this be?

2• Once upon a time we were

constrained• By 30 seconds on TV• Or the 48 sheets of a poster.• But now, there’s so much of the

internet. We must fill it up. How do we fill it up?

• As so often, the removal of constraints on creative people does not help.

• The stories are getting worse• Their impact is diminished.

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• But, perhaps because of the nature of the media, its’ ability to measure the effect rather than the effectiveness of everything has led us to talk of…

• Content and engagement

• Which are horrid words, with no joy or art in them.

• So what makes a good story?

4• You need a hero. You don’t have to

like them, but you do have to care what happens to them.

• Heroes are not perfect - they have flaws.

• A brand can be flawed too. Maybe it stubbornly only does one thing, which limits NPD, but makes consumers love it all the more.

• Celebrate these flaws - don’t remove them.

5• Now what do you do with your

hero? Well, Kurt Vonnegut put it like this:

• “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”

• This is the classic advertising torture test.

• Show the brand under duress

6• From stubborn stains to ground in

grime, brands have always been good at putting themselves in difficult circumstances to show how they perform.

• Ok, so it’s not Hamlet having his Father murdered and his Uncle marrying his Mother.

• But it is the same structure.

• You show what you’re made of when faced with Mr Kipling’s triumph or disaster

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• More about heroes and characters. They must ‘quest’ they must want something.

• For brands it must be more than you simply to buy them. A good example of this would be Ikea and their ‘chuck out your chintz’ campaign from a few years ago.

• Aligned to more than just a profit motive, but also to Ingvar Kamprad’s original vision for Ikea which was ‘to create a better life for the many’.

• Called on us to stop Tudorbethaning and chintzing and become modern.

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• So it was also a test of us, the consumer, or to go back to storytelling – the reader.

• It challenged us, through the prism of our hero’s quest and desire, to question our own choices and perhaps to change.

• This is what art does. What a good story does. It tests us.

• It challenges, forces us to reconsider our beliefs or our perception of things.

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• A hard nut for marketing to crack in stories.

• To move. To affect. To prompt action and hardest of all, change.

• It’s especially hard because we are, for the most part, trying to get people to do casual everyday things.

• All of which leads me back to where we started, in looking at the way brands are behaving in new media, at the stories they are crafting and communicating…

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• Brands are opting for history.

• History is written by the victors, or at least the brand owners.

• Provenance can be scripted.

• On the web, no-one can alter your ‘About Us’ page

• What do you think of…?

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• Why is this so wrong? It’s because it’s tell, tell, tell tales.

• It breaks one of the fundamental rules of creative writing – which is SHOW, don’t tell.

• Tell. At 40, Peter was bald,and still nervous about public speaking.

• Show. “Peter rubbed a hand across his shaven head, the bristle of his departed hair distracting him momentarily from the tight knot binding his stomach. He was losing his place, and losing his audience…”

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• It’s no surprise really

• We don’t take care, consider, and craft anecdotes for each other anymore.

• We are simply in transmit mode, constantly recounting endless stories verbatim to each other as they unfolded.

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• Brands are therefore simply mimicking the behaviour of their consumers.

• We’ve become all tell, and no show.

• Which is why, when a brand uses a bit of rather wonderful old fashioned ‘show’ in their story, we are all awed and agog.

• The brand I’m talking about is John Lewis, and in particular their Christmas TV ad.

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• One of their major competitors, M&S, may have co-opted the show contestants to appear in their TV ad, but it’s John Lewis that has the X Factor.

• Why? Because it understands, like the TV show itself, that the provenance of the artists is merely context.

• It’s what, in the movie business, they call ‘exposition’,

• Background information. Interesting, but not central.

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• So it can be very dull. In fact, Humphrey Bogart memorably said

• “Whenever I have to deliver exposition, I hope they put two camels behind me fucking so the audience'll have something interesting to look at”

• X Factor understands that it’s the back story you tell, but it’s the show you sell.

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• We’re invited to vote on the artists performance. To judge them on the show they put on,and their ability to move us, to act, even to buy.

• The ‘Live Show’ is storytelling with a purpose.

• Which is what, on a commercial level, is what advertising and marketing remains.

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• The John Lewis ad doesn’t feature any kettles, jumpers, bedspreads, or most importantly, prices.

• It doesn’t tell me anything. It shows me a sentimental, schmaltzy, but powerful evocation of the commercial meaning of Christmas.

• Why has the potent storytelling of the John Lewis ad become so rare? Why have we stopped showing, and simply resorted to telling? Perhaps because it’s harder.

18• Putting on a show. Entertaining and

truly engaging

• Is harder than just telling somebody some facts.

• Show a brand in conflict or triumphing in adversity is a more difficult task than simply telling the consumer that it washes whiter.

• But it’s worth doing. Because this is the best use of your creativity, of your art, in a story.

19• For anyone can tell a story, but

show, design, illustrate, photograph, shoot, basically CREATE, and

• If you capture the point, the theme, the feeling that you want to convey

• You’re far more likely to get people to take it on at a deep, emotional level.

20• And if we can all do that this

Christmas, then we, and the brands we work on can all live happily ever after.