STORYTELLING
The Story Behind The Brand-Building Power Of Storytelling
By Kate Njoroge
My 9-year-old nephew Njoro is a force of nature . At least , that is what it feels like when he visits , with his boundless energy and uncontained zeal for adventure . He runs over every inch of the house and jumps over every piece of furniture several times a day , playing with anything he can touch , pull or push . This goes on the whole day until he falls asleep .
Late last year , on a random night just before Christmas , he was full of energy and struggling to fall asleep .
“ Tell me a story , Auntie Kate ,” he begged .
I told him a story that my grandmother narrated to me when I was a similar age to him . It ’ s the story of a young boy ( or girl , depending on your audience ) dispatched to deliver food to his father who was working a good distance way . The journey was complicated by man-eating ogres with a taste for little children , so to succeed in his journey , the boy would have to run fast to evade the beasts . His mother gave him a basket of magical gourds with the instruction to throw the gourds behind him , one at a time , whenever he felt the ogre was getting too close . Drama !
So , the boy started his journey and as expected , the man-eating ogres were fast on his tracks ! Each gourd he unleashed created an obstacle - a mountain , a forest , a valley or a sandstorm - which slowed down the ogre , giving the boy time to get away and eventually reach his destination .
When I finished the story , Njoro was even more animated than when I had begun . He had enjoyed the story very much and wanted another . My storytelling had made him even more awake and excited rather than putting him to sleep as envisioned .
I am telling you this story to underline the most important point of this article : we are all like Njoro - we love stories . They have tremendous power over us , which is why we sit on the edge of our seats with sweaty palms during dramatic scenes in movie theaters . Stories engage our senses and emotions , they transport us to new worlds - they connect us , enthrall us and teach us with a
“ Stories have tremendous power over us , which is why we sit on the edge of our seats with sweaty palms during dramatic scenes in movie theaters . They engage our senses and emotions , they transport us to new worlds - they connect us , enthrall us and teach us with a completeness that is unmatched .”
completeness that is unmatched . ( This is also why I remember a story from my childhood decades ago but struggle to remember what was taught in my CIM class last year .)
And there is a reason for it : scientific research shows that the human brain is wired to receive stories . The suspense in a story releases dopamine , the pleasure / reward hormone ; and when the story emotionally connects with us , our brains release oxytocin , the hormone responsible for empathy .
The human race has been telling stories from the beginning of time . Whether it is by the fireside , or through the Twitter-limit of 140 characters , narrative is a part of us .
Naturally , this makes storytelling supremely important for brands . To examine the impact of storytelling in advertising , and the differences between story and non-story ads , Kantar ran a project with 60,000 participants and tested almost 400 ads .
The results , in summary , showed that while stories make great and effective ads , many brands struggle to use storytelling effectively in their advertising .
Ad expressiveness leads to emotional response
The research showed that ads featuring stories were more likely to elicit an emotional response from the audience . In particular , story ads were more likely to generate smiles - at almost double the frequency of non-story ads . Facial coding revealed that respondents are more likely to respond with expressions to story ads , which are also more likely to be rated as involving or engaging than non-story ads .
Connecting emotionally through advertising is vital for two reasons : firstly , we found that expressiveness relates to sales . According to the Kantar Awareness Index , ads with high expressiveness ( story ads ) tend to have stronger cut-through and are more memorable , which is backed by sales data .
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