As I type these words into my computer, I am also exploring a mountain trail, following a winding creek and gazing at tall firs. How is this possible? I am working in "scent-surround," thanks to the people at Procter & Gamble, who sent me the new Febreze Scentstories. Plugged into the wall beside my desk, the CD-like device isn't just wafting aggressive synthetic "outdoor" perfumes, it is playing me a scent "story." If every picture tells a story, now every pair of jeans, condo development and air freshener wants to tell one too. Intent on affecting us in ever deeper and more meaningful ways, brand strategists and marketers have discovered the power of storytelling as a means of connecting with each and every one of us -- changing the notion of "corporate culture" along the way. In a recent interview, venerable American playwright Arthur Miller (yes, he is still alive) mourned the passing of the era when artistic expressions such as plays were a vital part of the popular conversation. In his view, media and advertising have taken their place as "the new art form." Lest you think the old goat is overstating it, consider this: At the World of Coca-Cola Las Vegas, there is a storytelling theatre that shows true stories about Coca-Cola from customers around the world, as well as a recording studio where visitors can add their own stories to the Coca-Cola legend. At Restoration Hardware, founder and chairman Stephen Gordon personally pens a little yarn about every product on the shop floor. At Nike's Toronto flagship, the personal struggles of great athletes (meant to inspire, at the very least, the purchase of a pair of $200 sneakers) are told on poster-sized blowups of their training journals. Now, every fashion collection has a back story to explain why the model on the runway is wearing oven mitts and underpants. And every night, on what is supposedly reality television, we tune in for the latest plot twist. Last week, a PR package for a Vancouver condo development arrived wrapped around a copy of the classic James Hilton novel Lost Horizon (the project is called "Living Shangri-la"). This Christmas at Indigo, customers looking for holiday gifts will be encouraged to not only purchase a story in a book, but purchase items around a theme, so the recipient can "design their own story." And then there are the Levi's ads. The current campaign, which is tagged "A Style for Every Story," features real people in their favourite Levi's with their own "artistic bum print." What, never heard of a "bum print?" Like a thumbprint, it's all about the individual. Gucci Westman, a makeup artist, applied blush to her other cheeks in classic relaxed boot-cut 550s, and sat down on a white mat. Kellan Lutz, pool player, took chalk to his 529 low-rise straights, and surfer Toby Lehman waxed up the butt of his 569 loose-cuts. Shot by the late Richard Avedon, who made a life's work of glamorizing the realness of real people, the campaign aims to tell compelling, individual stories. "There is a very real and unique relationship felt between the Levi's consumer and his or her favourite pair of jeans," creative director Thomas Hayo says in a press release. "You don't just wear Levi's, you experience them, and this campaign is meant to evoke and market that very real experience." The days of appealing to our heads alone with the benefits of a product are long gone. All the big global brands understand that the only way to break through all the hype out there is to tell us a story and get to our hearts. Screenwriting guru Robert McKee, famously portrayed in the 2002 film Adaptation, told the Harvard Business Review that good storytelling is an essential tool for business because "stories fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living . . . within a very personal and emotional experience." What storytelling brings to the table is a power that is ancient, primal and wickedly potent. Perhaps the ultimate human expression, stories are highly effective learning tools because, as art forms, they unite ideas with feelings. "As soon as you are telling a story, you are activating the listener's imagination and engaging their emotions," says Jim Wortley, a Toronto-based advertising and marketing creative director. "It's like music -- it goes in somewhere deeper and very personal." The tall tale is that what these global brands want from us is to be our special friend. In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell wrote, "When you lose rituals, you lose a sense of civilization." Now that storytelling has moved away from the campfire and into the shopping mall, our civilization has taken ritual outside its common purpose to one that is purely manipulative. A cultural shift, I would suggest, that makes it easier to comprehend why people haven't balked at the kind of tall-tale-telling that keeps George W. Bush ahead in the polls in the U.S. presidential election campaign. Quips Wortley: "You can't help but think that if you were sitting next to both of them at a dinner party, [John] Kerry wouldn't be the better storyteller." |