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Jordan Bower: Embracing a Different and Better Approach to Brand Storytelling
52 Plays4 years ago
Every company (well, most companies) wants to tell stories that engage, entertain, educate, and encourage.
It's what drives and differentiates their marketing and sales.
But developing and delivering stories that make an impact is a challenge.
In this episode of Marketing Spark, Jordan Bower and I take an in-depth look at how companies can approach storytelling and why storytelling has everything to do with the customers and the experiences that a product or brand delivers.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Marketing Spark Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, it's Mark Evans, and I'd like to welcome you to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight from marketers and entrepreneurs in 20 minutes or less.
Interview with Jordan Bauer on Brand Storytelling
00:00:09
Speaker
On today's show, I'm talking with Jordan Bauer, who runs Transformational Storytelling in Vancouver, which does training, consulting, and coaching around communication strategy. Welcome to Marketing Spark. Thanks, Mark. Happy to be here.
00:00:21
Speaker
It's great to have a fellow storyteller on the podcast. I've been waving the flag about storytelling for at least the last five years. I wrote a book about storytelling. It's finally good to have to connect with Kindred Spirits. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast. Let's start with the $64,000 question. What is brand storytelling and why does it matter?
Symbolic vs. Literal Language in Storytelling
00:00:40
Speaker
Because you hear an awful lot these days about brand storytelling. What I've found this year in particular is that as conferences have disappeared, storytelling seems to become
00:00:50
Speaker
embrace more enthusiastically so what do you see out there and what is the value brand storytelling at the end of the day i'm dating myself because i can't remember the sixty four thousand dollar question used to be a game show a long time i remember i think i mean when you started the first principles what storytelling is is basically symbolic language.
00:01:10
Speaker
And symbolic language stands in contrast to literal language, which is often the language of business, right? So when we talk about data, when we talk about features, we talk about benefits, when we talk about logic, what we're talking about is like explicit facts and figures that we can analyze and understand. And so storytelling stands in contrast to that.
00:01:28
Speaker
And so when we talk about storytelling, we're talking about meaning, we're talking about emotion, we're talking about the more nebulous aspects of what something means. The fact says what, and then the story says why.
Evolution of Storytelling in Design and Distribution
00:01:40
Speaker
And I think there's been two big trends in storytelling that have shifted over the last little while. One is design.
00:01:47
Speaker
And so if you think it was the 1950s and you wanted to open a coffee shop, your options are quite limited, right? There's only going to be a certain set of tables, a certain set of chairs, a certain set of cutlery, and so on that you're going to be able to purchase. Now, of course, we have a much more unlimited or literally unlimited set of choices.
00:02:05
Speaker
So we can think well what's the type of coffee shop we want to make is it a vintage coffee shop is it an authentic coffee shop is it a modern coffee shop. All of that is in the realm of narrative because we're saying is well what how do we want to position this particular product someone's mind.
00:02:21
Speaker
The second thing relates to content distribution. You know, you think 30, 40, 50 years ago, the number of channels that we had to tell our stories was exceptionally limited. But now there are, again, an infinite number of channels and an infinite number of storytellers who are telling stories all the time. So the old stuff, the kind of jingles or even the TV commercials just don't fly anymore because audiences' expectations are much different.
00:02:46
Speaker
So there's a need not just to educate the customer, but also to entertain the customer, to galvanize the customer, to bring them on board with a mission that you're working towards.
Aligning Storytelling with Social Impact
00:02:55
Speaker
Those are totally different functions in storytelling and in marketing than existed even five or 10 years ago.
00:03:02
Speaker
So when you look at the marketing landscape in 2020, given what's going on, do you think that brands are approaching storytelling differently or do you think that they're considering storytelling in different ways? I mean, what's your feel out there about the way that storytelling is being leveraged or the different ways that companies are approaching storytelling? And for that matter, how business leaders are approaching storytelling. Obviously, social impact issues have jumped to the forefront.
00:03:31
Speaker
You know, when we saw what happened with George Floyd earlier in the summer.
00:03:35
Speaker
there was no option as business leaders and businesses to not take a stand. And that's something that was totally unprecedented, right? So suddenly we have to say not just what our stand is, but we also have to back it up. You know, I see all the time people who are criticizing companies because their about us page is full of white faces and white male faces. So suddenly there's all this pressure to not just believe in something, but to express that belief through the way the company actually operates.
00:04:05
Speaker
So the narrative can't just be a marketing narrative. It's got to be a narrative that runs through purpose and strategy and operation simultaneously. It's a way different way to think about what story means. It's not just entertaining someone, but it's actually saying like, hey, we're working towards some kind of a better world. And by purchasing our product or working with us, you're going to be participant.
Embedding Storytelling Across Corporate Levels
00:04:27
Speaker
You're going to be part of our mission towards building that different world.
00:04:31
Speaker
If I was from the outside looking in, if I wasn't a storyteller and I didn't sort of understand the concepts of brand storytelling, that strikes me as a bit intimidating because all of a sudden you're saying that storytelling and different narratives should be weaved into your corporate DNA is that it's not only the marketing department that should be telling stories, but sales and HR and corporate leaders. And that's a lot to ask an organization to embrace because it obviously doesn't happen overnight.
00:05:01
Speaker
Totally and I think we're just at the dawn of awareness around this. Because obviously this stuff still happened in the past like all those different non-marketing functions like sales and like the executive and like operations and finance were always telling stories about their goals and so on but they weren't ever they weren't under put under the microscope in the same way.
00:05:24
Speaker
But suddenly the microscope has increased and the expectations of the world and society of it have increased too. So yeah, it makes total sense to me why an outsider would be daunted about this. And what I would say to someone like that is this is the world we're moving into, whether we like it
Products as Experiences: The Airbnb Example
00:05:39
Speaker
or not.
00:05:39
Speaker
So there's a real need to adapt and to build our skill in this area because when you think about where the future will be in business and society in a couple months, let alone a couple of years, this is the direction that we're all heading in. I think one of the realities is that.
00:05:56
Speaker
In the past and traditionally marketing have, has been the storytellers were the ones who do the creative and write the words and paint the pictures and that other departments have not been storytellers, at least not front and center, like sales, for example, I mean, sales guys and sales girls are the good ones are natural storytellers. They they're not so much Hawking product as, as opposed to talking about the experience and creating that narrative.
00:06:22
Speaker
but now the entire organization has to embrace storytelling and that's the question is how does that happen like how do you start as an organization to recognize the value of storytelling and then not only talk the talk but walk the walk. Well i think i think what you said is really insightful so i just want to make one point explicitly clear to your to your listeners. The product is the experience now.
00:06:48
Speaker
which means that the product is the narrative. When we purchase a product, we're also purchasing that company's social media language. We're purchasing the relationships that they have to other companies and other partners in their sphere. All of that is embedded in our purchase decision. So I think it's really important that the first step in terms of moving forward with this is just letting that be real, that the narrative and the story is the product right now.
00:07:18
Speaker
Once we can understand that we can move to step two, but that's a really easy step to kind of drift over quite quickly. It makes sense, completely makes sense because when I talk about the best storytellers, brand storytellers, and I often come back to experience because it is about the experience that you're trying to convey to a consumer about what happens if they use your product. So I often use Airbnb as a perfect example. So Airbnb technically allows people to book
00:07:47
Speaker
Places to stay online wherever they want to stay but their marketing and their brand narrative is about the experiences of travel the people that you meet the foods that you that you eat the different places that you'll visit and has nothing to do with.
00:08:04
Speaker
an online booking service. And I think that's all about the experience and the product. You're right. The product is the experience.
Embracing Emotional Storytelling Beyond Metrics
00:08:10
Speaker
And I'm not so sure that a lot of companies are really sort of get it or embrace it. They're still sort of telling traditional straight ahead stories about the product as opposed to product and the experience. Do you agree with that? I do agree with that. And I'll tell you like I'm a sports fan. So I watched a lot of hockey and basketball through the bubble recently.
00:08:28
Speaker
And what I noticed, which was so strange, is that companies would hit me with the same advertisement over and over and over again. So they would make me watch the same commercial like in the same like there was no story there because it got boring over time.
00:08:43
Speaker
And so they kept thinking that the story they're telling is this one 30 second piece, but after I've seen it 30 times, it actually backfires and it makes me feel a sense of aversion to the brand rather than a sense of connection to the brand, even if it was a really great story. So for me, the way I think about this is like, well, what is the experience? The experience is a combination of the product, the content that we put around the experience, and then the personal or the human element to it.
00:09:11
Speaker
And ultimately, it's those three things like a Venn diagram that come together to create this kind of deeper, what I called before symbolic narrative that we associate with a product. And I mean, Airbnb is a great example. Like you're saying Airbnb, on one hand, is what it's like to be in somebody's home, but it's also the way that the product is designed, right?
00:09:34
Speaker
The product is designed in such a way that I can't as a host make a judgment on whether or not to take someone based on the way that they look because I don't get to see their picture until after they booked. So there's a social or a kind of racial element that's built into the way that the product is designed and for certain people that makes me feel better because I know I'm participating in something that's bigger. And it also helps to define what kind of content is Airbnb putting out about itself.
00:10:00
Speaker
They're saying, yeah, we create great experiences, but we also create experiences that are building towards a world of greater belonging for people. And it's that kind of higher order offering that raises the game. So it's not just like you're saying, it's not just a booking site. It's actually a site that's moving towards a more progressive world through creating bookings and in-home experiences. That's a much more nuanced and deeper and therefore more valuable story.
00:10:27
Speaker
So aside from hiring a consultant like yourself, and I'm sure there's lots of good reasons why people would want to hire you to train their staff and to provide coaching. How does a company get started with storytelling? If they recognize that storytelling is important, that they buy into the precept, the product is the experience, but they don't know where to start. It's just not native to how they've done marketing, sales, and HR. What are the first steps that they should take?
00:10:54
Speaker
Well, I think the first step is to ask themselves, what style of experience do you want to create? And I mean, everyone experiences such a buzzword these days. But, you know, think of in the world, there are such a vast array of experiences. Every time you want to go out to a restaurant, you know, you ask your friends, your partner, your kids, whoever, what type of experience should we have? Do we want like busy family restaurant? We want romantic experience. I think companies need to think the same way about their experience.
00:11:23
Speaker
And what I always suggest is to do this visually rather than literally. Because if you do this literally, you're going to come up with the same things. We want our customers to trust us. We want our customers to find value. We want our customers to be happy. All that stuff is really good, but it doesn't mean anything as long as it's simply facts. So the challenge is to transition it into a more imaginative, creative, and emotional space.
00:11:48
Speaker
So one simple exercise that i do is i go to google search and i search for something abstract not like if i'm a store i don't search for beautiful stores i might search for backyard barbecue. And i would go through the image and i would say like yeah i want this but i don't want that image and so having that image and if i can say it differently having that visceral vision.
00:12:11
Speaker
of what the thing should feel like and look like in my mind can then become almost like a North star that influences all my decisions around what the experience is like. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. You're hearing a lot more these days, at least what I'm reading is about the impact of emotions and how people feel about a brand or a product, or in many cases, the experience that a brand is promising.
00:12:36
Speaker
One of the softer parts of marketing that i'm seeing these days along with the focus on brand storytelling is that we're recognizing that we're not numbers were not were not these entities that you can track and pump into a database we are actually living breathing people who. Make rational and irrational decisions about the products that we buy in the brands that we love and that's.
00:12:57
Speaker
There's lots of different variables that go into brand and marketing and sales and emotions and the experience are one of them. It's a really fascinating landscape right now because I think in some respects, the rules of engagement are changing. The fact that we can't interact face to face to drive those transactions is really forcing companies to operate differently. Totally. And I would add, this might be heresy to say to a group of marketers, but branding as an exercise is dead.
00:13:23
Speaker
And I say that because in the old days, those were the tools that we had. We had a logo, we had certain colors, we had certain typography and so on, even a website. But an experience is a three-dimensional thing. It's both what we see, but also what we feel while we're experiencing the product.
00:13:42
Speaker
And so we, as marketers, need to be able to move into this extra dimension, this deeper dimension, where we're really thinking through, what do we want someone to feel? Not just happy, not just satisfied. Those are kind of entry-level emotions. But we need to be able to take our customers into a deeper emotional feeling around things. And we, as the marketers, need to be able to speak with sophistication around this stuff. So it's definitely going to be a challenge for us. But it's also the next growth edge of where marketing is going.
Balancing Data with Creativity in Marketing
00:14:12
Speaker
The other word that I like to use sometime the time is delight. It goes back to your, your notion about how we feel about a brand, how, how we experience a product. When I think about the consumer brand relationship, I think of how do you delight somebody right from the beginning? How do you create?
00:14:29
Speaker
that experience that involves using your product that every single touch with your product from beginning to end is delightful so the advertising is delightful social content and then when you finally attract a customer and you on board them that experience of. Having them cross that little chasm from non customer to customer is delightful and that sets the stage for everything and so i think there's a lot of soft parts to marketing that that is marketers we really need to.
00:14:57
Speaker
change how we emphasize and focus on different things and i would say to like delight is beautiful but something that delighted you yesterday is not going to let you today. No imagine you have that delicious cookie just the right time and you're eating the cookie and it feels great but if someone immediately served you a second cookie.
00:15:14
Speaker
then your desire for it goes down. And so the challenge is to figure out what is in your language delightful in the moment and almost in an improvisational way. And I think that's the deeper challenge for us in organizations is that we try to systematize this stuff, but you can't systematize delight. You can't systematize joy. You can't systematize empathy or authenticity.
00:15:37
Speaker
I think what we have to challenge ourselves to do is to start to shift the way we define these words so that we ourselves as marketers are more creative more improvisational more attuned to the in the moment needs of our customer rather than just trying to get one boilerplate email that we think is delightful.
00:15:54
Speaker
Because again i might be delightful the first time but subsequent times is gonna be less and less delightful like that i kept watching. Well let's wait into something a little more controversial for people like you and i who are obviously focused on the brand and the brand storytelling side of the side of the fence and that's about the ability that everything is measurable these days and because everything
00:16:17
Speaker
can be measured it should be measured and marketers are making decisions based on microscopic changes in website traffic and conversion rates and heat maps and that we've almost become automated and how we how we make decisions and the things that we do and we're not thinking out of the box were not being as creative as we should be were almost being robotic and i think that's a really sad state of marketing is that we try to quantify everything to justify how we're doing our jobs.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I would say, again, to just get specific language around it, it's explicitly manipulative. And so when we are going out to manipulate our customers, sure, sometimes it works if we're trying to build our funnel or our engine or whatever it is. But the feeling of it is manipulative. And so we need to find a way to both systematize stuff, because that's what business does, and that's what makes us effective. But we also have to find ways to balance the systemization with the humanization.
00:17:14
Speaker
And the humanized side of it is that we hate being manipulated as human beings. So how can we bring more authenticity, more improvisation, more creativity, more of what you're calling the soft stuff, into counterbalance the need to structure everything and systematize it and control it? Because in a certain sense, it's that desire to control that creates a huge revulsion on the side of our customers. I hate feeling controlled.
00:17:42
Speaker
And so when I get that systematized email, it's like, screw off, I unsubscribe right away. Well, I think of marketing as a pendulum. We've gone from the days of the 1960s with Mad Men and the awesome creative and the ingenuity and the marketing geniuses like Dave Ogilvy. And we've gone to the other end of the spectrum where it's all about data and it's all about metrics and KPIs and benchmarks and all the data stuff, all the data geeks love that stuff.
00:18:04
Speaker
I feel like the pendulum is starting to swing back. I feel like consumers are balking at being tracked of receiving this, this flurry of automated messages that are hide themselves behind this whole idea of personalization simply because they put your first name in an email.
00:18:20
Speaker
people are starting to see through that robotic automation machine and starting to realize that I want marketing to be about me. I want it to be authentic. I want it to recognize my aspirations, my dreams, and the experiences that I want. And that's as big a change in marketing as I think we're going to see in a while. And it's much needed to be in my opinion. I think you're completely right. And I would say if you're a marketer who's listening to this right now,
00:18:45
Speaker
The real marketing you need to do is internal marketing to sell this idea across the organization and say to folks like, hey, this is the reality not just of the future, but also where we're at today. And that fundamental change seems to shift not just in our external messaging, but in the way that we all work together. Like that's the, that's the threshold that we actually passed when COVID started. So we're already in this world.
00:19:11
Speaker
But I don't think inside organizations folks have their ears to the ground enough to notice that that's
Storytelling Goals: Disneyland's Magic Castle Metaphor
00:19:17
Speaker
happening. So there's a real need for people who are talking to customers to reflect that idea back in the organization so that the organization can start to shift.
00:19:25
Speaker
One final question, I think this is a difficult question to answer, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. How can you tell if your storytelling efforts are working? Now, we've talked a little bit about data and quantify and everything, but when it comes to being able to assess the success of brand storytelling and creating narratives that engage, educate, encourage, and motivate, what are the metrics for success? How do you say, yes, our storytelling efforts are working and they are successful?
00:19:52
Speaker
I'll answer that question, but just let me take a little bit of a detour, a slight one. And let me talk about Disneyland. Like, if you've ever been to Disneyland before, you know what's right in the middle of Disneyland is the Magic Castle. And the Magic Castle is a focal point. No matter where you are, you always see it, and it's something that draws you forward. It draws you as a customer forward, but it also is centering for everybody who works there.
00:20:16
Speaker
And so I think the same thing when it comes to storytelling. It's really important that the story is taking you and your customer somewhere. Are you just trying to like use that terrible word better, better, faster, quicker, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Like that's that doesn't actually help your customer get somewhere meaningful. So the question is, number one, have you constructed a clear castle that you're moving towards? And do you and everybody inside your organization know what that is?
00:20:43
Speaker
And secondly, do your customers know what that castle is? And to give you an example, like we talked about Airbnb before, the castle is belonging and equity. That's what that business is designed towards. With a business like Tesla, the castle is beating climate change and getting everyone in the world driving an electric car. And so as long as everyone sees the castle and can reflect the castle back inside and outside, that's effective brand storytelling. If you can't name the castle,
00:21:11
Speaker
then whatever you're doing is just churn. It's distracting and it doesn't have the level of focus that you need to move people in that direction.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:21:19
Speaker
That is one of the best analogies about storytelling and marketing that I've heard in a long time. I just want to thank you for this conversation. I mean, I've done the podcast for about three or four months. All of the interviews have been great. People offer great insight, but for some reason, this, this conversation really resonated with me because I think it's, it not only talks about brand storytelling, but it really talks about the intellectual side of marketing, getting inside the heads of consumers and not treating them like entities that are data driven and we can control and automate all our marketing. And I think,
00:21:48
Speaker
And I appreciate your insight. I think it's a really different perspective on the world and much needed in my opinion. Thanks, Mark. And I would say to people, if you haven't seen the movie already, there's a great movie called The Social Dilemma, which is all about what it feels like for us as the world to be analyzed all the time. And out there in the world, this is the biggest challenge that we're all dealing with as human beings is like, how do we map what we experience online with what we're experiencing in real life?
00:22:12
Speaker
And it's gonna continue to be an enduring challenge that we as marketers are gonna have to adapt to as we speak to people who are really upset about what's happening on Facebook and Twitter and all these other things. It's the major narrative of our time.
00:22:24
Speaker
So Jordan, if people are interested in you and your services, where do they find you? Where's your blog? Where's your website? You recently launched a new training course, so maybe you can plug that as well. Sure. So I'm Jordan Bauer, J-O-R-D-A-N-B-O-W-E-R. You can find me online. I don't have any social media. I just have LinkedIn. What I do is I work specifically with folks, both individuals and organizations, to help them find compelling and emotional ways to tell their story. So by all means, find me there and reach out and I'd love to have a chat.
00:22:54
Speaker
If you enjoyed this conversation, leave a review and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you heard, please rate it. For show notes about today's conversation and information about Jordan, visit marketingspark.co. If you have questions, feedback, would like to suggest a guest or want to learn more about how I help B2B companies as a fractional CMO, consultant and advisor, send an email to marketingspark.co. I'll talk to you next time.