They can make us laugh, they can make us cry, and, well told, they can change our perceptions of reality.

Stories are one of the most powerful tools available to each of us to connect with others at an emotional level, to share meaning, and to create memories that last.

And if you’ve read many of my previous posts, you’ll likely have heard me say, time and again, that it’s difficult to becoming a truly inspiring speaker if you don’t embrace and enhance you storytelling skills.

But what about other communications you may use to promote your business – advertisements, direct mail, podcasts, videos or media interviews/appearances? Do stories matter in all of these forums?

Yep, you bet! And in today’s interview with marketing guru and CEO of Brand Advocates, Noel Derby , you’ll learn why this is true.

How and Why You Need to to Tap Into More Stories In Most Every Form of Business Communication You Use

Listen in as we chat about:

• Why stories should anchor most every form of communication you use to promote ideas, products, or brands
• What everyone should learn from the biggest and most successful brands in the world
• Why you need to ‘get emotional’ with your target audiences
• What it takes to uncover and reveal stories that can set one brand apart from another
• The secret to tapping into audience experience and why you should care
• How stories can help you to leap frog past information overload and be remembered
• The one ingredient you must include in every story to win hearts and minds
• And more

Over to You

Please share your ideas and observations.

What brands stories do you rate as outstanding? Why – what makes them so special?

To learn how I can help you to inspire other through your talks, click here.

Interview Transcript

Eamonn: Today we’re going to talk about the power and the importance of story. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s just because you need story when you’re on the stage as a speaker, or indeed, when you’re thinking about it in a broader sense for almost any kind of content, like today, or any other form of content, maybe in written form. So, we have a perfect person to chat with about that today. I should hope. You’re very welcome.

Noel: Thanks, Eamonn. Thank you.

Eamonn: Now I know that you spend a lot of time in the brand side of things, constantly talking to people about the power of story. So whether you’re promoting a product, a brand, a company, or indeed, nowadays, you have to promote, maybe, the people promoting all of those things. Why is story so really important?

Noel: Well because I think it starts… story telling is part of humanity. Every one of us has, at one stage or another, either pestered our mother to buy a packet of sweets that we don’t need or convinced another party, sometimes your wife or your husband, that you’re worth marrying. And that… the success or otherwise of that is dependent totally on how compelling your story is. Often how memorable your story is.

Eamonn: Yeah.

Noel: If some brands are very good at story telling, the big brands tend to be better than the smaller brands because they’ve been at it longer. And they’ve found out how to, if you will, uncover the story, the essence of their brands and the meaning of those brands to people and then form an emotional relationship with whoever they’re trying to sell the product to.

Eamonn: Exactly. Well, that’s a really interesting thing. Because you talked about one of the most important elements that I think is involved in story telling, which is about the emotional connection.

Noel: Yes.

Eamonn: When I talking with people about how to connect more effectively with an audience, this is a central theme, where people really get involved. But why is emotional connection so important? Why does it actually almost have to be a lead in the stories that you tell when you’re promoting a product or an idea?

Noel: Well, because usually if it’s unemotional, it’s not going to be committed to memory. Part of the ongoing art of advertising or communication is telling a memorable story.

Eamonn: Exactly that.

Noel: Or, in your case, speaking memorably.

Eamonn: That’s exactly it. Yeah, yeah. If you don’t speak memorably, then what happened?

Noel: Yeah. Yeah. And comedians, everybody relies on a great story. Even criminals rely on a great story.

Eamonn: [Laughs] Sometimes it’s hard to keep that story straight.

Noel: Yeah. Now, the other interesting thing is that… I’ve found through my career is that very often brand owners, small or big, haven’t really uncovered what their story should be and how it’s relevant. Recently I was speaking with an adhesive manufacturer who was talking about labeling. And I said, “Tell me about…” You know the iconic Heineken bottle.

Eamonn: Yeah.

Noel: I said, “What’s always intrigued me is that there is no visible label on a Heineken bottle. The label is in fact the bottle. It’s almost as iconic as Coke, not quite, because it doesn’t have those lovely curves. But it has a label that I thought was always somehow embedded in the glass. And he said very knowledgeably, “Oh, that’s clear on clear.” As though, that would be clear to me.

Eamonn: Okay. That’s not clear to me.

Noel: No. No. But what it means is that they have a labeling system. It is actually a label.

Eamonn: Yes.

Noel: And it’s part of the bottle. It’s the end of the bottle production piece. But they have this unique technology. And I said, “Have you told other bottle makers that story? For example.” And he said, “Well, not in the compelling way that I might have told you now.” So. And that’s often how conversations about brands and their stories evolve.

Eamonn: And can I stop you there? Because isn’t that funny because all of that is really the human reaction to these things.

Noel: Yeah.

Eamonn: And that’s actually what makes it more interesting.

Noel: Yes. Yeah.

Eamonn: And more compelling.

Noel: Exactly.

Eamonn: And actually tied into that is, you’re quite right, you were talking about, like how we attach meaning to stories, is that it actually boosts our ability to trust somebody because you’re more like the other fellow than if I’m giving you a bunch of facts.

Noel: Absolutely. Absolutely. I recall HB Ice Cream which I’m sure that everybody in Ireland would know about.

Eamonn: Generations. My kids know. Yeah.

Noel: I remember being involved in what they called Brand Architecture, which was really a fancy word of story telling, uncovery or discovery. And one of the things that they discovered early in the piece of developing their particular story line was the emotional meaning of the brand in people’s memories. Like, as a child, I’m sure everybody could remember taking a six penny wafer and licking it from the inside out, if you will, or from the outside in, until all you had in your hands were two wafers. And that, in its story telling, became the essence of describing what they called the organoleptic effect…

Eamonn: The what?

Noel: Of eating ice cream. [Laughs]

Eamonn: [Laughs] Can you say that on camera? I apologize profusely if that’s offensive to anybody.

Noel: [Laughs] But the organoleptic effect has to do with all the senses employed in the enjoyment of the ice cream. The challenge then, for the communicators, in this case, the building of advertising and communicating across all media was how do you encapsulate or refresh the memory that the ice cream had for you as a child, so that you can continue to enjoy it.

Eamonn: And isn’t that wonderful because, you’re right. Because a story really puts you into the picture of where you’re actually seeing, feeling, hearing, all of those kinds of things…

Noel: Exactly.

Eamonn: …what’s going on. But that’s actually what makes it more…

Noel: Exactly.

Eamonn: …interesting and more memorable to you anyway. But stories are hugely important of course for people who need to get up on a stage and to speak in front of an audience. But…

Noel: Yes.

Eamonn: …what about when you want to bring stories online. What are the challenges, if you like, of making it easier for a story to live to get attention to capture imagination, if you’d like, when people are creating a web page or a blog post or a…

Noel: Yeah.

Eamonn: This is ground because obviously we’re having a conversation and obviously people…

Noel: Yes.

Eamonn: … can see what we’re talking about.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah.

Eamonn: So, what about the written format? How does that translate?

Noel: Well, if it’s just in the written format, the challenge is greater because you know pictorial demonstration, and therein lies the art of selling newspapers for example. Now they can and do use pictures in newspapers, but for the most part it’s a reading exercise. And of course we all know that newspaper everywhere are dying because of the printed word has become more interesting in an electronic sense.

Eamonn: Yeah. Everyone has gone online.

Noel: So it’s challenging. And for newspaper editors, the challenge starts with a headline. Is the headline compelling enough?

Eamonn: Yes.

Noel: Is it going to get enough readers in?

Eamonn: Well, actually, I have to say the headline actually [inaudible 00:08:29] the headline is a really interesting one…

Noel: Yeah.

Eamonn: …because I remember as a boy child in advertising and being told that the headline was 17 times more important than anything that you say. You might as well have said it 100 times.

Noel: Correct.

Eamonn: Because if people didn’t pay attention to that, then they didn’t bother with what else is to follow.

Noel: Yeah.

Eamonn: But now, of course online more and more you also have to associate a picture with the headline, which you always did with an advertisement.

Noel: Correct.

Eamonn: Because if you don’t, people won’t spend long enough to pay attention to it to see if the story was interesting in the first place.

Noel: Yeah. I think the interesting thing for me is that I’m old enough to remember the days when we used to say, “You say see 36,000 messages every day, which one are you going to remember?” Now, we’re so inundated by megabytes and tetracycles and…

Eamonn: Oh, there he goes again. There’s another rude word [laughs].

Noel: …but we’re just so inundated with messaging. Starting with the email. Starting your day with radio. Finishing your day with television. Checking your Facebook…

Eamonn: Oh, yeah.

Noel: …your Twitter, your blogging.

Eamonn: 150 times a day.

Noel: You’re the expert on all of that, Eamonn, so you know about that.

Eamonn: [Laughs] I do. I do. Yeah.

Noel: But the thing that I find very compelling still is that great communication, great story telling depends absolutely still on a great idea. So, although multimedia has busied our minds, if you will, or created a lot of smoke and mirrors over years, essentially the stories we all remember are going to be the most compelling. The ones with a great idea attaching to them.

Eamonn: And that’s a wonderful bit of advice. And maybe to maybe just round out on that because that is a… you’re right, that you have to focus on an idea because it’s much easier to develop stories that tie into that idea.

Noel: Yes.

Eamonn: Once you’ve got that in your head.

Noel: Yeah.

Eamonn: But, if there were things that you think now, here are the no-nos. Here are the dreadful sins that you should never ever pursue when you see people trying to create stories or ideas for their products or ideas? What would be top of your forbidden list?

Noel: I think the biggest verboten is to, one to immediately convey what you think, as the brand owner, is the essence of the brand. Without actually asking anybody if they think it’s interesting. [Laughs] It’s a bit like talking to yourself and telling yourself that you’re great.

Eamonn: Oh. Right.

Noel: And having no idea if that’s going to cut the mustard with anybody else.

Eamonn: Yes. And bearing in mind that the audience actually is much more concerned about themselves than how great that you might think you are.

Noel: Well, exactly. And…

Eamonn: There is that.

Noel: …so message construction.

Eamonn: Yeah.

Noel: Story construction is where most people fall down.

Eamonn: Yes.

Noel: It’s not understanding what the essence of the brand is.

Eamonn: Yes.

Noel: Like, for example… and story telling can… the power of an idea can actually overtake and impede brand in some way. For example, Volvo has created it’s story line around safety.

Eamonn: Yeah.

Noel: But the biggest problem with that is the appearance of the product was always like a bit of a box…

Eamonn: Yes.

Noel: …with tank reinforcement. Now, they’ve gotten… they’ve hauled back… through design, they’ve improved that feature. They’ve addressed that problem. So beware of hanging all of your coats on one hook.

Eamonn: Yes, because then of course your brand’s going to be attributed with all of those things.

Noel: Because… yes, that becomes a brand attribute. I think that’s an interesting example.

Eamonn: I knew this was going to be a great topic. So I want to thank you very much for coming in today, Noel. I think that we have had lots and lots of interesting thoughts and ideas about story today. So, maybe we’ll do another version of this at another day.

Noel: I’d be delighted.

Eamonn: Thank you.

Noel: I’d be delighted.

Eamonn: If you would like to know more about Noel and Brand Advocates, you’ll find details of all the kinds of things that he does below. You are very, very welcome to check that out. And so, can I thank you for joining us today.