Boring Brand?! Try these 12 Storytelling Techniques

You have to do advertising for a boring brand? That’s sad :(

These 12 Storytelling Techniques Will Make

Your Brand Rock!

Don’t worry!

Technique 1

Understand Expert Storytelling

1. Understand Expert Storytelling

• Everybody is a storyteller. But the truth is, most of us suck at storytelling.

• Sadly, there is no shortcut to the mechanics of great stories.

• If you are serious about learning the techniques of storytelling, I recommend reading “The Anatomy of Story” by John Truby.

Technique 2

Come up With a Colorful Idea

2. Come up With a Colorful Idea

• Take everything you learned about brainstorming.

• Grab two friends.

• Get a lot of coffee.

• Pick up a notebook and a pencil.

• Start thinking.

Technique 3

Write a Premise

3. Write a Premise

• A premise is your story in one sentence.

• It helps you ensure that your story is interesting enough.

• Example: Nike Football “The Last Game”. An ex-football player assembles the greatest football stars to battle the clones that have taken over the football world.

Technique 4

Use Key Storytelling Ingredients

4. Use Key Storytelling Ingredients: Heroes and Desires

• In “The Last Game” Nike tells the story of men versus clones.

• The video hit +88 million views and was full of heros and desires.

• A hero doesn’t have to be a single person.

• It can be a cause, a company or a group of people.

Technique 5

Don’t Sell Your Product

5. Don’t Sell Your Product

• Nowadays, people can sense advertising immediately.

• Of course, you can’t leave the brand out completely, so the secret is to hide it from the surface.

• The fast-food chain Chipotle did this in their campaign “The Scarecrow”.

Technique 6

Deliberately Hide Information

6. Deliberately Hide Information

• Withholding, or hiding information is crucial to the storyteller’s make-believe.

• It forces the audience to figure out who the character is and what he is doing, and so draws the audience into the story.

• When the audience no longer has to figure out the story, it ceases being an audience, and the story stops.

• Don’t take my word for it (the knowledge here comes from John Truby's book The Anatomy of Story)

Technique 7

Be Tremendously Human

7. Be Tremendously Human

• Greeting cards are not the most impressive things these days. A tough place for storytelling? Not if you’re human!

• Cardstone created a fake job description, named it “director of operations” (aka. mom), published it in newspapers, interviewed every applicant on Skype and made a video about it.

• The video got +24 million views

Technique 8

Be Authentic

8. Be Authentic

• Make sure your story is real.

• The best way to do that is to base it directly on real life experience.

• The Cardstone commercial “World’s Toughest Jobs” did so well because the Skype interviews look so real and authentic. Aim for the same in your story.

Technique 9

Go for the Laugh

9. Go for the Laugh

• DIRECTV’s advertising is a great example of how humor can reach millions of people.

• Their stories are kind of pointless but they drew millions of people into watching it. Why?

• Because they are extremely funny.

Technique 10

Make it as Visual as Possible (Use Video!)

10. Make it as Visual as Possible

• Close to 80% of Internet users remember the video ads they watched online.

• If your ads are moving images, they stick.

• If you want to read more about the power of video check out this article: “Why Video Marketing on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is So Powerful.”

Technique 11

Stand Out

11. Stand Out

• Remember when Avatar was the first movie ever to use 3D in cinema?

• Or the TippEx commercial where they allowed viewers to rewrite the story of a hunter who is going to shoot a bear?

• That got +45 million views and +1 million shares on social media. (Not Avatar ;)

Technique 12

Make it Easy to Relate To for Your Target Group

12. Make it Easy to Relate To for Your Target Group

• You need to speak your customer’s language.

• The story has to fit into the existing worldview of your target group.

• You can figure this out by creating buyer personas.

Key Takeaways - 12 Storytelling Techniques

1. Learn the mechanics of great stories

2. Brainstorm and develop ideas

3. Write a premise

4. Include a hero and a desire

5. Don’t sell your product

6. Hide information

7. Be human

8. Be authentic

9. Use humor

10. Make it visual

11. Stand out of the crowd

12. Make it easy to relate to

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