Episode 10: The Secret History of Storytelling in Marketing

We believe a brand is a story told in the marketplace. But when we got started, marketing and storytelling were worlds apart. Here is the tale of how we made the connections and built a methodology that now leads the industry (along with many other brilliant marketers).

Marissa: Welcome to Episode 10 of Brand Frontlines: The Secret History of Storytelling in Marketing. Today we're going to learn how the 1984 Olympics, the marketplaces of Tijuana, and the Hollywood, machine came together to create a brand new wave of marketing that today informs pretty much every ad and social posts that you see. And then next episode, we'll talk about the backstory as a tool, how we write them, how we use them, how they become part of messaging moving forward, but today, we're gonna get a little personal and share a story. But before we get into all of that, Eric, what are you up to this week?

Eric: This week is a big RSA conference. And that's going to be a lot of fun. It's kind of the main conference for cybersecurity, and the RSA Conference, which we actually helped to rebrand back in 2013, I think. It's kind of the main conference for cybersecurity in the country. And we have a lot of clients who are going to be there so I'll be down there, checking out the exhibit hall and listening to some of the keynotes. It's always a big deal. Also, this week, not as many deadlines- kind of finished a lot of things. So this is a week where I'm enjoying reaching out to old friends, old clients, and seeing what they're up to.

Marissa: Yeah, I'm at the very tail end of all the preparation for launching my new brand strategy and storytelling studio Hyperflore. So I'm just working with a lot of new team members this week, which is really fun. I've been a one woman consultancy for several years and of course, there's always a lot of connection with clients and colleagues that I bring in for particular jobs, but it feels so good to have a bunch of people that are excited about the project of my studio, and who are , involved in it. It's just I haven't had that kind of collaboration in a long time. And it's very welcome.

Eric: Awesome. Yeah. Heard about some of the people you're talking to and they’re really interesting.

Marissa: Yeah, I am also excited for my clients to have access to all these new talents.

Eric: Let’s talk about storytelling and the brand world and where it came from.

Marissa:Jjust want to preface this conversation by saying that I think storytelling in branding and marketing now seems very natural and obvious, but it wasn't 30 years ago.

Eric: It wasn’t even like 12 years. Okay. So I got a really interesting chart from LinkedIn a few years ago, called ‘The Rise of Storytelling As A Marketing Discipline’. And when I look at this chart, in 2010 2011 and it's basically flatline. There are no storytellers as far as as a marketing discipline, there is nobody doing. What they're looking at is people's job titles and job descriptions. And by 2017, which is when this particular chart ends, there are more than half a million. So the weird thing for me was in 2010 I had already been applied storytelling, pursuing and practicing storytelling as a marketing discipline for at that point about 15 years easily- 10 where I was really focused on the method and tools and so on, and making some connections before then.

So yeah, I wish I could say that I birthed a whole discipline. I didn't of course, I was doing something off in my own corner, and not connecting it to the world at large. Other people figured out what I had figured out on my own for myself.

Marissa: You invented it. Other people also invented it around the same time.

Eric: I didn't invent it. That word doesn't feel right, but stumbled upon it. I had started to use storytelling as a handle in the marketing way in the mid ’90's. And then it became the name of the company in 2006: Applying Storytelling. Prior to that, it had been under my own name.

I think the triggering event for the industry, there were a number of things that were happening, but Seth Godin, who's a big name in marketing and advertising, great writer, very provocative thinker, wrote a couple of books where he talked about storytelling. I think he brought it up in a book called ‘All Marketers Are Liars’ in 2005. And then he really zeroed in on it a bit more around 2010. And then that's when you see storytelling as a discipline taking off and people starting to use that in their name and so on.

It felt different in the early days before there was anybody else talking about this. There was a lot of education, we had to spend a whole lot of time upfront with clients, explaining why this was a good approach. How you take the idea of a story and apply it to all the different kinds of brand marketing needs that you had, and so on. And sometimes they got it and sometimes they didn’t. We obviously got better at explaining it over time. We still do a lot of talking about what it means and how it works, but the audience is more receptive, I guess. So we spend a little bit less time on it.

Marissa: Yeah, it's more technical. Now. they accept the general concept, but it's more “How are we going to apply this?”

Eric: So if I could go through the mists of time. To get to so what was going on back in the mid ’90’s

that was getting me to kind of see this as a way to build brands as a way to start thinking about brands. Arriving at the fundamental truth, which is that a brand is a story told in the marketplace, which is kind of one of the truths that we live by. One level, I'd have to say go way way back to my own upbringing, which was ripe for learning about storytelling in the marketplace. Growing up in San Diego, I had a father who was bilingual and grew up in the Latino community and was very comfortable spending time in Tijuana and taking me to Tijuana and there there were a lot of traditional markets and stalls and people hocking things. Whether it was pottery or chess sets, or dishware, food items, you name it and the whole idea of hearing people tell you stories about their products and why they were special and using the stories to make you want to choose them and pay more just almost became second nature because these trips were very frequent for us. And I began to kind of tune into that elsewhere and more traditional kind of selling environments where there was a direct relationship between me the buyer, you're the seller, and I'm trying to talk you down and you're trying to talk me up a little bit.

Marissa: Yeah, it reminds me of my experiences in malls of the suburbs: the great storytellers of the Sunglass Hut.

Eric: I didn't realize that was going on in those malls.

Marissa: No, it was mostly bored teenagers.

Eric: But that was one thing. And then I think it was just incredible, starting my career in LA, and being around people who were telling stories in other ways, specifically in the film industry in Hollywood, so

Marissa: And you also work coming to marketing as a storyteller. I mean, you're a writer, you were in the theater…

Eric: All of that- writing plays and so on. So there's a third or fourth thread there too. Yeah. So first of all, the Hollywood production model, storytelling in Hollywood involves a lot of people. And I was fortunate to be around people who were taking the idea of the Hollywood production model and backstories and treatments and using them not to create movies, but to create themed retail environments. Linda Berman and Jonathan Katz were people I knew and worked with quite a bit. Linda had come out of retailing, Jonathan came out of one of the big LA prop house Cinnabar and they were creating retail environments for companies like Guess and the Discovery flagship store. This was an era when theming was big. Theme dining, theme retail, and they were taking it deeper than that and trying to bring even more meaning to not just the overall concept, but like the whole experience when you would go through the environment. What was happening to you? What part of the story were you being told, as you enter it? How is that evolving as you experience different product collections, all the way to the way that the people would greet you and work with you. It was pretty meticulous. They were extremely good at it. So that was an incredible influence.

A little bit earlier in LA just starting working with Deborah Sussman and Paul Prezja, Sussman/Prezja was a renowned environmental graphic design firm. Their flagship project was the 1984 Olympics, which was brilliantly done on a shoestring budget. But Deborah and Paul loved to go to traditional markets and photograph displays and just really soak up the color and the textures and the flavors. My job at the time was partly to sort out all the slides that they had and create these presentations about their inspirations in the market. Paul had a book that was really influential that he shared with me from the extensive library, ‘Streets For People’, which also talked about the verbal side of what was happening in traditional markets, like the little jingles that people would sing and that resonated with me and gave me a new frame of reference on my own childhood experiences.

I guess lastly was playwriting. And there was, I don't know the aha moment was sometime in the mid 90s, when I was reading a book on playwriting technique called The Art of Dramatic Writing, by Lajos Egri. And I realized that the concepts that you use to put together a play were essentially the same ideas as what you would use to create a brand foundation.

Marissa: Like what?

Eric: Well, for a play, you have a premise. And the premise is very close to the positioning in a way or kind of the vision of a brand. And so the way he was describing a premise and how it worked, really kind of oriented around that. Obviously, character personality was the same term but just a much richer understanding of what that could mean for a brand than it had meant up to that point. I think, understanding how conflict works in relation to vision was also important and then themes. So up to that point, you didn't see the word themes in the brand lingo brand/marketing lingo, you'd see things like brand drivers, for example. Themes and value propositions also have a relationship to each other. Even things like the essence of a brand really looks like the genre of a movie or a play. So a lot of really powerful overlaps. So those are some of the streams of influence that were leading me to come to that realization that other people have come to since.

Marissa: So what was the shift in your work once you started to connect those dots?

Eric: I have to thank some friends who gave me an opportunity to put it to work. Those were the folks at Meyers Ball. There were three principals in the firm, a very successful design firm in San Diego. At the time, I was working with them they had some really big clients Intel, Qualcomm, which is kind of the biggest player in San Diego, and lots of other kinds of clients. And we were introduced by a mutual client who thought we might do well working together. And at the point of the introduction, I had just kind of roughed out the idea of the Brand Wheel, I wasn't too happy with the different kinds of models of brand architecture brand constructs. A lot of them take the form of pyramids. I couldn't really see the relationship clearly between all the pieces, right? So I created this new model. It was an early version of the Brand Wheel that we still use today. It's gone through a lot of refinement. The first chance to to work with that was with Meyers Ball on their own brand. And it worked out pretty well. They were looking to kind of reposition themselves a little bit in the marketplace and do more than straight-up graphic design.

Then there were some early clients that we were able to apply the model to I remember one I mean, not a big client Delay Clay Tile. One of the very first instances of of using the storytelling model and it seemed to work pretty well for them. So there were many other clients of theirs. I was sort of attached to them as a strategist, while at the same time, I had my own business as well. So that was really the shift that was when the first instance of the Brand Wheel got applied. To the point where they had a strategist on board after a certain point, they needed more than just somebody coming in part time. So that was kind of a nice affirmation, as well. Yeah, those were some of the early instances. It was really gratifying along the way for other folks to pick up on the model. I couldn't even list all the clients that we use the Brand Wheel with, who benefited from it and based our marketing on that approach.

One of the real great kind of proof points for this there was Lexus actually so this is now in the early to mid 2000s and Lexus not only got the idea of storytelling and engaged with us to work on their global brand, but actually adapted a version of the Wheel and incorporated it into their brand guidelines. That was the first time that that had actually happened. And Lexus is a very well defined brand, at least from our standpoint, prior to that. But the specific challenge that they were facing was that the brand meant different things in different markets. So the way European market understood Lexus was very different than the way the US market understood it or the way the brand was understood in the Middle East or in Japan. Our idea of Lexus as being this kind of smart up and coming luxury brand informed by Japanese technology and precision craftsmanship. It's kind of their own flavor of that was very different than how it was seen in the Middle East, for example, or in Japan, where it didn't have the same kind of upscale connotation, I guess. The idea was to try and unify that as much as possible, while still acknowledging that there's local relevance. Can it be a little bit more consistent partly not just to elevate the brand perception overall, but from a very practical standpoint, to be able to use assets and share assets and communicate better as an organization?

Marissa: Not to recreate the wheel in every market.

Eric: Exactly. And so the Brand Wheel was a really useful foundational tool for for doing that. So that felt great. And other times we would come in to different companies, different sized companies, and we'd see the Brand Wheel pinned on a board and the marketers using it and referencing it. That’s also really gratifying.

That led to some really interesting discussions inside the company. What do we do with it? And do we trademark it? And my view was to leave it open. Let's share it. Let's let other people modify it, do whatever they want with it, right? Maybe at some point, we'll be recognized for bringing something nice to the profession. But the idea here is let's just elevate the standards of brand practice. Let's help storytelling on its way. By this point, the storytelling idea is catching on pretty well.

And then, by 2014, we're starting to realize that things that was novel is becoming pretty mainstream. Does that mean we need to position off of it? Does that mean that we need to move on to the next version, of whatever a brand is? And I just couldn't see it. This is really how they work. So we're going double down on it. We're not going to try and position off of that. This is our stock and trade. We are going to own it, if you will, in the sense that we're just going to share it. We're going to talk about it. We're going to be a good knowledge resource for Ipeople in their own practice with it. And that was the path that we decided on moving forward that that inflection point was like 2014. Yeah. And here we are. Yeah, here we are talking about it and sharing it and working with a growing community of colleagues who kind of see the world the way we do which is which is really wonderful.

Marissa: We talked about how a story is the most time honored, clearest way to add emotion to a series of events. And in our case, to add emotion to the brand. Are there examples you can think of where maybe a brand felt a little bloodless, or wasn't able to make that connection with their audience and you brought a story in and it brought that other element that created a more fervent following?

Eric: Oh, I've got a great example. I have to say the challenge is not thinking of one- it’s disciplining myself to talk about just one. Sharing the narrative has just caused people to be very excited in the room. Sometimes they cheer, sometimes they weep. But an example of a company that is in an industry that has had a perception that's kind of flat that's going through a really striking transformation through storytelling right now. Yeah, absolutely. AMI is the world's largest maker of firmware. And firmware is the software that sits on a chip that puts everything in front of you when you open up your computer, so it boots everything up. And it's kind of considered conquered territory in the computer like, firmware how boring okay, we know what it does. Thank you firmware. Thank you AMI, for making sure that we're all up and running. We don't really think about it, right? But the point is that it's becoming really innovative and exciting again, through what AMI is doing. And AMI is excited about it. And so the story is really intense. Yeah, , basically we're in this situation right now, where in the world of compute, there's so much data, there's so much processing that has to happen that computer manufacturers, people in the computing industry are asking themselves, ‘Well, how are we going to keep up? How are we going to process all this stuff?’ And it's just a it's a huge problem. I mean, those of us in the everyday life, don't think about it, but it is a huge problem. And people are working on different solutions. There are a lot of software type solutions. The challenge with them is that they sometimes create more computing complexity in their own workings,. Well, this is where AMI is going, ‘hey, what role can firmware play?’ Firmware is a huge part of what's going to get us through this terrible logjam that we're foreseeing. So it's this kind of existential problem in a way, because the modern world runs on computers. And there's we're working with them to reimagine that. To come up with a whole new idea of what firmware is and what firmware can do, and the role this company can play, and how you even as an end consumer might experience it, and even become aware of them. Yeah, so it's all very much in process. We haven't got it all worked out yet, but the beginnings of the story are starting to take shape. And it's coming across in livelier language and more interesting graphics and the kinds of things that you use and develop once you have that backstory foundation built. So we're really excited to see where it's going.

Marissa: Yeah, I mean, I think we've even talked about this before, but I always feel like the presentation of the process that we're gonna go through for the building of your brand, right, and the backstory is like people kind of trust that it's useful but they don't fully wrap their minds and hearts around it. And even when we get close, and I'm like, ‘Okay, I've gathered all this information. We've done all these thought exercises, we've done these interviews, blah, blah, blah. I’m gonna write the story.’ And they're kind of like, ‘Let's just get through this so we can get to what we're gonna write on social media or in our next ad campaign, right?’ And then you read the story, and it's emotional.

E: I think there's one or two other quick things to say about the emotional side of brand building, which storytelling helps. And that is that, I guess our premise would be, there's no such thing as a purely rational decision. There are largely rational decisions, but there's inevitably some kind of emotion attached to something. If you've had an experience with it before, then that emotion has to do with the nature of the interaction you had. But everything is touching other things in your life that resonate with you. So that's one thing, but I also want to make sure that we pay homage to the other side of the equation, which is meaning. Stories bring emotion and meaning together and where we do see people craving that story right off the bat is in organizations where there's not a lot of clarity about what the path forward is and so often, the story that we're creating has a strong internal focus and it'll be shared at like an all staff meeting, right, for example, and that's where the excitement is really manifest. People are excited because now they're feeling it as an emotion, but they're also feeling connected to the company. They're feeling like they can see their role, their career, a big chunk of their life, having more value, having more meaning. And that's really important, too. I heard an anecdote once where the vision or whatever the core was, where people got it like they suddenly felt like they were part of something bigger than themselves. And it was very, very worthy. And they literally walked taller. Their posture improved. Yeah, like you feel it and you can't feel something only in your head, right? You feel it in your body and it changes you.

Marissa: So I think that was a very powerful note to end on. Thank you for sharing your experiences. It's cool to hear how these things come to be if you're a brand nerd like us, and like to know a little bit of a backstory.

Eric: Yeah, the secret story, the threads that come through other kinds of creative enterprise, the role of LA and Hollywood production, the role of traditional marketplaces and their spirit carries forward into this world we live in.

M: Yeah, so next time we'll we'll get into the nitty gritty on writing a brand backstory, and in the meantime, see you on the brand frontlines.

Eric: See you there