Skip to main content

Home/ @Publish/ Group items tagged Storytelling

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Pedro Gonçalves

The Four Truths of the Storyteller - Harvard Business Review - 0 views

  • Storytelling plays a similar role today. It is one of the world’s most powerful tools for achieving astonishing results
  • a force for turning dreams into goals and then into results
  • Authenticity, as noted above, is a crucial quality of the storyteller. He must be congruent with his story—his tongue, feet, and wallet must move in the same direction
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • the great storyteller takes time to understand what his listeners know about, care about, and want to hear. Then he crafts the essential elements of the story so that they elegantly resonate with those needs, starting where the listeners are and bringing them along on a satisfying emotional journey.
  • a great story is never fully predictable through foresight—but it’s projectable through hindsight.
  • LMU’s Teri Schwartz picked up on Hodge’s idea: “Make the ‘I’ in your story become ‘we,’ so the whole tribe or community can come together and unite behind your experience and the idea it embodies.”
    • Pedro Gonçalves
       
      And HOW exactly does the writer know this?
  • The context of the telling is always a part of the story
  • Great storytellers prepare obsessively
  • Orchestrate emotional responses effectively, and you actually transfer proprietorship of the story to the listener, making him an advocate who will power the viral marketing of your message.
  • Most of the throng changed from true believers to thoughtful skeptics in just a few moments.
  • At the same time, the great storyteller is flexible enough to drop the script and improvise when the situation calls for it. Actually, intensive preparation and improvising are two sides of the same coin. If you know your story well, you can riff on it without losing the thread or the focus.
  • the job of the teller is to capture his mission in a story that evokes powerful emotions and thereby wins the assent and support of his listeners
  • This explains the passion that great storytellers exude. They infuse their stories with meaning because they really believe in the mission
  • When truth to the mission conflicts with truth to the audience, truth to the mission should win out
  • Colin Callender, president of HBO Films, noted that several of HBO’s most acclaimed productions are ones that audience pretesting marked as losers.
  • it isn’t special effects or the 0’s and 1’s of the digital revolution that matter most—it’s the oohs and aahs that the storyteller evokes from an audience
  • At the end of the day, words and ideas presented in a way that engages listeners’ emotions are what carry stories
  • the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management. It works all along the business food chain: A great salesperson knows how to tell a story in which the product is the hero. A successful line manager can rally the team to extraordinary efforts through a story that shows how short-term sacrifice leads to long-term success. An effective CEO uses an emotional narrative about the company’s mission to attract investors and partners, to set lofty goals, and to inspire employees.
Pedro Gonçalves

Why Storytelling Is The Ultimate Weapon | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce - 0 views

  • Guber argues that humans simply aren’t moved to action by “data dumps,” dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time…”
  • Is “telling to win” just the latest fashion in a business world that is continually swept with new fads and new gurus pitching the newest can’t-miss secret to success? Or does it represent a real and deep insight into communications strategy?
  • I think it’s a real insight. I’m a literary scholar who uses science to try to understand the vast, witchy power of story in human life. Guber and his allies have arrived through experience at the same conclusions science has reached through experiment.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.
  • Why are we putty in a storyteller’s hands? The psychologists Melanie Green and Tim Brock argue that entering fictional worlds “radically alters the way information is processed.” Green and Brock’s studies shows that the more absorbed readers are in a story, the more the story changes them. Highly absorbed readers also detected significantly fewer “false notes” in stories--inaccuracies, missteps--than less transported readers.
  • When we read dry, factual arguments, we read with our dukes up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this seems to leave us defenseless.
  • stories can also function as Trojan Horses. The audience accepts the story because, for a human, a good story always seems like a gift. But the story is actually just a delivery system for the teller’s agenda. A story is a trick for sneaking a message into the fortified citadel of the human mind.
  • storytelling is a uniquely powerful form of persuasive jujitsu
  • we are beasts of emotion more than logic. We are creatures of story, and the process of changing one mind or the whole world must begin with “Once upon a time.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Story 2.0: The Surprising Thing About The Next Wave Of Narrative | Co.Create | creativi... - 0 views

  • Here’s the problem with interactivity: There’s no evidence people actually want it in their stories. No one watches Mad Men or reads Gone Girl yearning for control of the story as it unfolds. Interaction is precisely what most of us don’t want during story time. The more we interact with a story, the more we have to maintain the alertness of the mind operating in the real world. We can’t achieve the dreamy trance that constitutes so much of the joy of story--and the power. And the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Finnegan’s Wake, for all its splendor as a kind of impressionistic word painting, repels readers because of its interactivity. Most critics think that Joyce was trying to get away from what he called “wideawake language” to re-create the chaos of dreaming life. Paradoxically, however, the sheer difficulty of Finnegan’s Wake forces readers to maintain a “wideawake” frame of mind as they attempt to puzzle their way through. They can’t slip into the waking dream of story time.
  • Story resists reinvention. As the example of Finnegan’s Wake shows, storytelling is not something that can be endlessly rejiggered and reengineered. Story is like a circle. A circle is a circle. The minute you start fussing with the line you create a non-circle. Similarly, story only works inside narrow bounds of possibility. Imagine narrative transportation as this powerful brain capacity that is protected by a lock. The lock can only be opened with a specific combination. For as long as there have been humans, the ways of undoing the lock have been passed down through generations of storytellers. Going back to the earliest forms of oral folktales and moving forward through stage plays, to printed novels, and modern YouTube shorts, the fundamentals of successful storytelling have not changed at all.
  • When it comes to the fundamentals of story, there is not now--and never will be--anything new under the sun.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • A tablet computer is a bit like the clay tablet from 3000 BC or the printing press from 1450--a technology that is radically changing how we consume stories, without changing the fundamental elements of the stories themselves.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Four Truths of the Storyteller - Harvard Business Review - 0 views

  • the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management. It works all along the business food chain: A great salesperson knows how to tell a story in which the product is the hero. A successful line manager can rally the team to extraordinary efforts through a story that shows how short-term sacrifice leads to long-term success. An effective CEO uses an emotional narrative about the company’s mission to attract investors and partners, to set lofty goals, and to inspire employees.
Pedro Gonçalves

Oliver Egan: Why Coke's Crowdsourced Commercial Fell Flat [Super Bowl 2013] - PSFK - 0 views

  • The irony of course is that in 2007, Coke set out simply to make a great Super Bowl spot but in doing so, they also drove brand participation as the spot was shared and linked and imitated. In 2013, they have forgotten the storytelling in pursuit of creating an ‘event.’ I suspect that in six years time, we won’t be reminiscing about how we all got caught up in the Coke Chase of 2013.
Pedro Gonçalves

Channeling Anna Wintour: When Creating Branded Content, Think Like An Editor-In-Chief |... - 0 views

  • These days, developing a successful online presence requires approaching traditional digital efforts like link-building, web traffic, lead generation, and sales from a decidedly more editorial, content-rich approach: a hybrid marketing and storytelling strategy that drives customer actions by creating, documenting, distributing, and optimizing content. Some companies have created their own internal content development departments or are working with agencies to create everything from infographics to documentaries that highlight where the values, interests, and personality of brand and customer overlap. Coca Cola believes so strongly in the power of content that they are relying on this approach to help them double the size of their business by 2020.
  • While your office probably looks a lot different than a newsroom, approaching content strategy by thinking like a magazine publisher or a television producer is an effective way to approach content development and promotion. Utilizing influential voices to develop and promote content can help ensure that you meet the first requirement of securing readership and viewers--be interesting.
  • The people who already create for you: We often hear “write about what you know” because it comes easiest. Identify the talented storytellers within your own walls. Those with an intimate knowledge of company activities are primed to create impactful content, even on a tight deadline. Identify employees who are weekend filmmakers, amateur photographers, poets, and guitar players and invite them to bring these talents to the table.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The people who use your product or service: The voice of the customer is the most influential of all. Provide loyal consumers with an opportunity to get involved by sharing their stories. Identify digital influencers that fit your brand aesthetic and explore partnership opportunities. This approach is heavily evident in the fashion industry, where brands routinely work with fashion bloggers on everything from Twitter chats to advertising campaigns.
  • The people who support you: Why not collaborate on content development with partners or vendors? By working together, budgets become more manageable and both parties can benefit from the potential PR story. By working together, you can deliver deeper impact and cast a wider net. 
  • With more brands developing more and more content, we will naturally reach a point of over-saturation where only the very best stories will make an impact. As such, it is absolutely crucial to begin to refine and optimize current content marketing practices. Also, with the line blurring between marketing or brand managers and content developers, it’s worth noting that those best suited for positions in content marketing have a rare combination of business and marketing acumen, digital savvy, as well as journalism, public relations, film, and even creative writing. For those with this mega-mix, employment opportunities abound.
Pedro Gonçalves

Making News Useful - 0 views

  • The news audience is evolving faster than news providers, though. Gingras told us that, only a few years ago, 50% of the inbound audience went to the front page, and the other 50% went straight to stories or other pages. By now, 75% of traffic is going to stories. A minority of visitors ever see a site's front-page curated presentation of the news.
  • the value of information is not just in the knowledge of it; it's in what you can do with it.
  • News isn't just about information. It's also storytelling. Anyone can publish text, photos or even video to the Web now. But technology enables new, compelling storytelling techniques that could shine in the hands of dedicated news organizations.
Pedro Gonçalves

20 top web design and development trends for 2013 | Feature | .net magazine - 0 views

  • “If you’re designing a website and not thinking about the user experience on mobile and tablets, you’re going to disappoint a lot of users,” he warns. Designer Tom Muller thinks big brands getting on board will lead to agencies “increasingly using responsive design as a major selling point, persuading clients to future-proof digital marketing communications”. When doing so, Clearleft founder Andy Budd believes we’ll see an end to retrofitting RWD into existing products: “Instead, RWD will be a key element for a company’s mobile strategy, baked in from the start.” Because of this, Budd predicts standalone mobile-optimised sites and native apps will go into decline: “This will reduce the number of mobile apps that are website clones, and force companies to design unique mobile experiences targeted towards specific customers and behaviours.”
  • During 2012, the average site size crept over a megabyte, which designer/developer Mat Marquis describes as “pretty gross”, but he reckons there’s a trend towards “leaner, faster, more efficient websites” – and hopes it sticks. He adds: “Loosing a gigantic website onto the web isn’t much different from building a site that requires browser ‘X’: it’s putting the onus on users, for our own sakes.”
  • Designer and writer Stephanie Rieger reckons that although people now know “web design isn’t print,” they’ve “forgotten it’s actually software, and performance is therefore a critical UX factor”.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Bluegg studio manager Rob Mills reckons 2013 will see a “further step in the direction of storytelling and personality on the web, achieved through a greater focus on content and an increase in the use of illustration”.
  • Apps remain big business, but some publishers continue to edge to HTML5. Redweb head of innovation David Burton reckons a larger backlash is brewing: “The gold rush is over, and there’s unrest in that apps aren’t all they promised to be. We now live in a just-in-time culture, where Google can answer anything at the drop of a hat, and we no longer need to know the answers. The app model works the old way. Do we need apps for every brand we interact with? Will we even have iPhones in five years’ time? Who knows? But one thing is certain – the internet will remain, and the clever money is on making web apps that work across all platforms, present and future.”
  • Designer/developer Dan Eden says that with “more companies focussing web efforts on mobile,” designers will feel the pressure to brush up on the subject, to the point that in 2013, “designing for desktop might be considered legacy support”. Rowley agrees projects will increasingly “focus on mobile-first regarding design, form, usability and functionality”, and Chris Lake, Econsultancy director of product development, explains this will impact on interaction, with web designers exploring natural user interface design (fingers, not cursors) and utilising gestures.
  • We’re increasingly comfortable using products that aren’t finished. It’s become acceptable to launch a work-in-progress, which is faster to market and simpler to build – and then improve it, add features, and keep people’s attention. It’s a model that works well, especially during recession. As we head into 2013, this beta model of releasing and publicly tweaking could become increasingly prevalent.“
  • “The detail matters, and can be the difference between a good experience and a great experience.” Garrett adds we’ll also see a “trend towards not looking CMS-like”, through clients demanding a site run a specific CMS but that it not look like other sites using the system.
  • “SWD is a methodology for designing websites capable of being displayed on screens with both low and high pixel densities. Like RWD, it’s a collection of ideas, techniques, and web standards.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Only 30% of Brands' Pinterest Engagement Come From Own Pins | Adweek - 0 views

  • Seventy percent of brand engagement on the social scrapbooking platform is driven by users—that is, users pinning brand content outside of brands' own Pinterest accounts—versus only 30 percent generated by brands pinning something that users repin, comment on or otherwise interact with.
  • fashion/retail brands that see 82 percent of their engagement come straight from the community. Meanwhile, auto brands saw 75 percent of their engagement from the community, and electronics brands saw a more even-keeled 53 percent engagement from the community.
  • Brands that want to join those conversations should create images that users will want to share.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • fashion brands have always understood storytelling in a way other brands haven't." That might explain why the fashion/retail brands examined averaged 46 repins for their every pin, whereas user-generated fashion/retail pins usually only notch 6 repins. On the other hand, auto brands typically see only three repins versus 10 repins for users’ auto-related pins, and electronics brands average five repins compared to their users’ 14 repins.
  • best day and time for brands in each vertical to pin—3 p.m. ET on Friday for fashion/retail, noon ET on Friday for auto and 10 p.m. ET on Monday for electronics—but both Bitterman and Gupta said it's hard to decipher how marketers should view those findings. Bitterman inferred that Friday afternoons make sense for fashion/retail and autos because many people shop or take test drives over the weekend and begin planning those outings on Friday. "Electronics kind of stumps me," he said before inferring that Pinterest users interested in electronics may be a relatively smaller population whose prime Web browsing time correlates with prime-time TV.
Pedro Gonçalves

Social Shares Is Where the Money Is Especially on Facebook | Adweek - 0 views

  • Facebook's News Feed algorithm gives up to 1,300 percent more weight to shares than likes when it comes to what’s shown near the top of a user’s feed, affecting a promotion’s viral performance, said Dennis Yu, CEO of social media insights firm BlitzMetrics.
  • "Brands should focus on storytelling to create real engagement."
Pedro Gonçalves

Brand Journalism Enhances Your Social Media Strategy « Radian6 - Social media... - 0 views

  • “PR is about pitching the brand to the media.  You help shape the story, but you don’t craft the story.  Brand journalism is about creating the actual content, finding the best ways to share it, and telling the stories of your people, customers, and brand.” You’re skipping the middleman, essentially. You’re no longer hoping for a third party to tell your brand’s story, you’re doing it yourself.
  • “Brand journalism is the use of a journalistic approach to storytelling on behalf of a brand.  It is the mindset of assembling and delivering a compelling story, but it is not impartial.  It presents the brand’s messages and perspectives.”
  • A brand that is creating and sharing terrific stories and entertaining content, however, will get noticed and those sales leads will come as you establish yourself as not only a source of information regarding your particular industry but a place to regularly stop by for good reading material in general.
Pedro Gonçalves

3 Psychological Triggers that Can Move Your Audience from Indifference to Desire | Copy... - 0 views

  • Psychology and economics professor George Loewenstein conducted an in-depth study and discovered that the peak combination for triggering a high level of curiosity included: Violating the right expectations Tickling the “information gap” Knowing when to stop
  • In both headlines there is something readers may not expect. As a result, disorder is created, which requires investigation to restore sense and meaning. Curiosity headlines are some of the hardest to write, because simply turning something on its head usually isn’t enough to encourage your reader to take action. To create a real desire for your reader to click, read, or sign up, you have to violate the right expectations. Loewenstein discovered that curiosity increased when you highlighted a gap in someone’s knowledge, particularly when it related to a topic that interested them.
  • It’s not enough to create disorder. You have to stop your reader from thinking, “Oh, that’s probably going to be about X, Y and Z — I bet I already know that.” To sustain curiosity, Loewenstein suggests using feedback to quash this thought before it arises. Tests revealed that most people assume they know more than they actually do, so you definitely want to make sure you’re not losing readers who “think” they know what you’re going to tell them.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Ultimately, you’re directly poking at their area of expertise and saying, “I know you know a lot, but you don’t know this.” And this really encourages the curiosity gremlin to wreak havoc.
  • A common problem in sales copy is overdoing curiosity, believing the reader will stay interested forever. It’s true that your headline is important in getting the attention of your reader. But it doesn’t guarantee continued interest. The headline gets them to read the first line of your copy, and the first line gets them to read the second line and so on until the end.
  • You don’t have to reveal everything straight away. Telling them to read the article to the end to discover what they want to know can nudge them sufficiently into the body of your copy. From there you can start relying less on curiosity and more on compelling benefits, rich imagery, and strong storytelling to keep their attention and encourage them to take action.
Pedro Gonçalves

If You Don't Like Your Future, Rewrite Your Past - Rosabeth Moss Kanter - Harvard Busin... - 0 views

  • "kaleidoscope thinking," a mental process of shaking up the pieces and reassembling them to form a new pattern, the way a kaleidoscope creates endless patterns. This metaphor suggests that reality is not necessarily fixed. The stories we tell ourselves — our cultural assumptions — are the limiting factor.
  • Narratives should be rewritten when they inhibit rather than inspire. Individuals and institutions can get bogged down by narratives that suggest inevitability — "it has always been this way, it was meant to be this way, and it couldn't possibly change."
  • Even in companies doing well, narratives prevent change if the stories are ones of destiny, and eventually entitlement
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Narratives are powerful leadership tools. People remember stories more readily than they remember numbers, and stories motivate action. Recent research showed that levels of charitable donations rise when donors are given statistical evidence of a problem, such as children living in poverty, but levels of giving rise even higher when donors read a story about one poor child.
  • Stories should be evidence-based, meeting a plausibility test. They should be principle-based, with enduring truths embedded in them that won't shift on a whim. They should permit action that is open-ended, creating not-yet-imagined possibilities.
Pedro Gonçalves

How Marketing Will Change In 2014: The Creative Forecast | Co.Create | creativity + cul... - 0 views

  • According to the many advertising leaders we surveyed, connected devices and wearable technology--or, more broadly, the Internet of things--are top of mind for 2014. But where the last decade of digital experimentation has generally made technology front and center of an experience, the feeling is that the general relationship with technology has now matured to a point where it doesn’t need to be the star of the show. Instead, people are predicting a more seamless integration of technology into brand’s efforts. Or, as Scott Prindle, partner/chief digital officer, Made Movement puts it: “I think we'll see interesting opportunities to use technology to save us from technology.”
  • We'll see a trend towards ambient intelligence where our devices learn about our individual habits and interests, anticipate the kinds of information we're looking for, and surface it at the right time and in the right place. Our technology will be doing more work for us in the background, helping to free up the time that we're currently spending staring at screens.
  • It's better to try to invent the future rather than predict it.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Our social feeds will continue to be under siege by the world of inane crap. Truly great content and masterful storytelling will be the only thing that breaks through the morass. The best brands and agencies will focus on this.
  • Share-worthy content will become the Holy Grail.
  • There are no experts in this business, and we find that everyone can use a digital brush-up, including clients. If you want to sell innovation, everyone needs to know how to evaluate and measure it. Creating the right conditions for innovation is essential. And you don't just do it once. It has to be done regularly.
Pedro Gonçalves

Slaying The Dragon And Other Ways To Create Killer Content Narratives | Fast Company | ... - 0 views

  • According to a massive body of psychological research, a powerful phenomenon called the "mere exposure effect" compels people to develop a preference for specific content simply because they are familiar with it. In social psychology, it’s called the "familiarity principle." We are all drawn innately toward that which we recognize. It makes sense that we would prefer stories that are architecturally similar to other stories we’ve heard in the past.
  • An intrinsically human narrative, the Slaying the Dragon strategy is the platform for many of humankind’s most celebrated stories. From Beowulf to Jaws, the American Revolution to the Arab Spring, this is the story of the hero (for most marketing content, this is the product or brand) who ventures bravely forth to selflessly slay the dragon in order to protect those the hero loves (for marketing, the consumer).
1 - 20 of 21 Next ›
Showing 20 items per page