Last week I was driving my gray Mazda Tribute down the road, doing what I love to do, drinking coffee and looking at billboards. Some may call it distracted driving, I call it marketing research. Over the past trips through town and on the interstate, I have noticed an influx of something on the billboards. Now, you’re probably thinking…bird poop. No, not exactly. What I have noticed through my barely-hanging-on, 10-year-old Lasiked eyes is the use of the word “story” on billboards to educate consumers. When I returned from my billboard trip, I started noticing the use of “story” throughout all marketing communication elements (e.g. website pages, magazine ads and national television commercials).

Examples:

My first instinct was “what marketing conference did everyone attend” to start pushing this “literal story” concept? So, I Googled “story concept speakers at marketing conferences,” and I ran across an advertising agency involved with the conference named Story Worldwide. Guess what they do? So “story” was swirling all around me and it caused me go Magnum PI on the subject, minus the mustache. We compiled some research on the power of story in marketing.

Out of all the articles, I found The Psychological Power of Storytelling by Pamela Brown Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A., the most interesting. Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Rutledge:

“Stories are authentic human experiences. Stories leap frog the technology and bring us to the core of experience, as any good storyteller (transmedia or otherwise) knows. There are several psychological reasons why stories are so powerful.

  • Stories have always been a primal form of communication. They are timeless links to ancient traditions, legends, archetypes, myths and symbols. They connect us to a larger self and universal truths.
  • Stories are about collaboration and connection. They transcend generations, they engage us through emotions and they connect us to others. Through stories we share passions, sadness, hardships and joys. We share meaning and purpose. Stories are the common ground that allows people to communicate, overcoming our defenses and our differences. Stories allow us to understand ourselves better and to find our commonality with others.
  • Stories are how we think. They are how we make meaning of life. Call them schemas, scripts, cognitive maps, mental models, metaphors, or narratives. Stories are how we explain how things work, how we make decisions, how we justify our decisions, how we persuade others, how we understand our place in the world, create our identities and define and teach social values.
  • Stories provide order. Humans seek certainty and narrative structure is familiar, predictable and comforting. Within the context of the story arc we can withstand intense emotions because we know that resolution follows the conflict. We can experience with a safety net.
  • Stories are how we are wired. Stories take place in the imagination. To the human brain, imagined experiences are processed the same as real experiences. Stories create genuine emotions, presence (the sense of being somewhere) and behavioral responses.
  • Stories are the pathway to engaging our right brain and triggering our imagination. By engaging our imagination, we become participants in the narrative. We can step out of our own shoes, see differently and increase our empathy for others. Through imagination, we tap into creativity that is the foundation of innovation, self-discovery and change.”

After reading her article, my mind filled with validation as I realized that “story” is what I do every day for a living. I just never thought of it in a literal way, as a marketing professional responsible for the billboards.