Everyone likes a story. Books, plays and movies are all built on a finite and limited number of story ‘arcs’.

Brands are stampeding through their markets and crashing social networks, interrupting entertainment and information flow by trying to find relevance, trying to offer more value and in some instances, trying to be our friend.

If you’re seriously considering using storytelling to communicate meaning, empathy and expertise so customers invest more in your products and services, you probably need to overhaul what you’re saying and how you’re saying it.

The classic story arc

In his 2005 book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories, Christopher Booker argues you need a hero who passes through a number of stages along the route of succeeding in a particular quest or adventure.

Think about your favourite books and movies. They often involve a story arc that passes through stages such as anticipation of the quest, a dream stage where the quest begins, invincibility following an early victory, frustration with a subsequent loss and a loss of faith, a nightmare stage where hope appears lost before resolution occurs.

Start by knowing who (or what) your business hero is and then consider these seven basic plots as a way of building a story around the hero that will resonate with customers.

The Seven Basic Plots

Booker contends there are seven basic plots that most modern literature and story telling adheres too. Each is listed below with an idea on how to apply it to your business story telling.

1. Overcoming the monster

…where the primary character (hero) sets out to defeat an antagonistic force which threatens them or their  homeland.

Applied to business: The monster becomes a deep-rooted expensive or time-consuming problem and the hero is the solution.

2. Rags to riches

…where the protagonist acquires things elements like power, wealth, and a mate, before losing it all and gaining it back upon growing as a person.

Applied to business: Brands demonstrate through their own experience and learning, trials and tribulations, failures and successes, how their solutions now solve

3. The quest

…where our hero (and perhaps some companions) set out to acquire an important object or to get to a location, facing many obstacles and temptations along the way.

Applied to business:  This could be the focus on a particular accreditation, award, partnership or endorsement that may take years to achieve – drawing on elements of ‘rags to riches’ to provide the detailed content.

4. Voyage and return

…the main character arrives in a strange land and, after overcoming the threats it poses to him/her, returns with nothing but experience.

Applied to business: Most business sell more than one product or sell into more than one market. So, whether it is a product diversification into new sectors or a market diversification into new markets – direct or through partners – there is lots of story telling potential in ‘voyage and return’.

5. Comedy

…the main character triumphs over adversity, resulting in a successful, warm, happy conclusion.

Applied to business: If your founder, CEO or MD is the real and true personification of the brand and there is business return in building the story around them, this might be an option.

6. Tragedy

…where the protagonist is a villain who falls from grace and whose death is itself a happy ending.

7. Rebirth

…where the protagonist is a villain or otherwise unlikable character who redeems him/herself over the course of the story.

Applied to business: It is, of course, much trickier to conceive tragedy and rebirth stories around businesses, as who wants to admit to being a villain? 

Yet in scores of sectors, some products and processes are frowned upon and a story needs to be told to effect a reasonable change in perception.

Is there an environmental / CSR opportunity?

Do you need help finding your story? Get in touch today.

The post What story is your marketing telling? appeared first on Clock Creative.