StoryCapgemini RDV training

Thecla Schreuders

Today

• Why story

• What is story

• Brain and story

• Classic stories

• Character

• Action

• Brands and story

• Making story

Why do we talk about story?

We are social animals

Practice interaction, learn codes & customs, how to be human

As children we play at story by instinct

How we extract meaning from experience

We tell stories to ‘continue’ ourselves

It’s what we do already, all the time

Why do we talk about story?

During our lifetimes we spend more time in stories than anywhere else

• 65% of speaking time is on social topics

• 46% of our waking hours spent daydreaming*

• We dream in stories every night

Why do we talk about story?

Story as distillation

Story helps us understand

• Our client

• Our client’s business

• Our client’s problem

• Our client’s clients

• Our project objectives

• Ourselves …

Three parts and the whole

Story =

Audience

Content

Structure

= Experience

Ernest Hemingway once said his best work was a story he wrote in just six words:

For sale:baby shoes, never worn.

What is ‘story’?

What is ‘story’

More than a list of facts

Causally linked events which unfold over time

Interaction of ‘intentional agents’ with minds and motivations

Engage audience through recognisable emotions & believable interactions

Elements of story?

Elements of story

Character

Objective or desire

Obstacles to achieving it

Action & behaviour

Beginning – middle – end

Who What Where When Why How

End = satisfying resolution to problem

“What happened?”

“What happens next?”

Story =

1 + 1 = 3

Story = interactive

Relies on audience’s cognitive & emotional responses to make connections

Story makes you part of it as you anticipate actions, feelings, outcome

Every experience of story is unique, relies on the audience’s own prior experience, associations & character

Story is manipulation

Wired for story

Memory

Procedural

Episodic

Semantic

Thinking

Thinking, fast and slow

System 1 = fast, unconscious, intuitive, automatic

Relies on emotion, accumulated experience

System 2 = slow, conscious, logical, effortful

Relies on attention, choice, willed action

Thinking, fast and slow

Thinking, fast and slow

17 x 24 =

Mirror neurons

Stories are universal

Classic story modes

• Romantic – the trials of love

• Heroic – quest for precious outcome or power struggles

• Sacrificial – from bad comes good

Hero’s journey

• Ordinary world

• Call to adventure

• Refusal of call, hesitation, doubt

• Mentor

• Allies, tests, enemies

• Ordeal, transformation

• Use new knowledge to defeat enemies

• Return with holy grail

Gladiator

• The title character just wants to go home.

• What happens to him instead turns into the longest, bloodiest commute imaginable

So?

Story =

Rational & emotional

Logical & magical

‘Right brain’ & ‘left brain’

Conscious & unconscious

Man at work

Ask questions, such as …

who is this man?

what is he doing and why?

what is he thinking, feeling; his hopes, fears, plans?

what’s the context, and the mood of the moment?

what happens next?

Story

“Let’s talk about me …”

My story

What’s happening inside?

• I define

• You infer

• Assumptions & prior knowledge

• Fill in, flesh out, fine tune

• Confirm

Your story

‘Who are you?’

• Define

• Infer

• Cohere

More story elements

• ‘Character is conflict’

• Premise: a proposition leading to a conclusion

• Set up = expectation

• Payoff = result

• Anticipation = forward drive

Character // Audience …

Stories are about and for people, all overcoming obstacles in pursuit of a goal

Every story needs an audience

Business needs customers

Site needs users

Motivation & action

I think therefore I am

I WANT therefore I DO

Goldhawk Rd pub

Goldhawk Rd pub

• What do you do?

• Why?

• What do your actions say about you?

Brands use story

• Business or brand idea

• Customer value proposition

–Customer needs, product benefits, competitive difference

• Brand tagline

• Advertising and campaigns

• Tone of voice

The client’s story

• Creation myths

• Heroism

• Purpose

• Brand story

• Unique benefits and solutions

Life. Then Strategy http://www.markpollard.net/

Brand, strategy and story

• Find the real problem and state it interestingly

• Find a deep human insight – hit a nerve• Find what’s truly unique and motivating about the brand/product/problem/ opportunity

• Link the insight and b/p/p/o ‘truth’ to a simple strategy statement

• Flip the perspective on b/p/p/o to find core strategic idea

• Get others to contribute

A reminder …

Storytelling = audience, content and structure, to produce experience

Audience = who, first principles

Content = what, gives focus

Structure = how, provides framework

Experience = attainment of goals

Users’ worlds

Social world

Outer worldInner world

Persuasion

Pathos / logos / ethos

Desires / benefits / reputation

Finding things out

• Formal interviews, direct questions but also conversation

• Observe using ‘soft eyes’: put assumptions aside

• Framing: not ‘what is it?’ but ‘what do you like most about it, and why?’

A conversation with yourself

• Ask: ‘what single detail would make me care more about this situation / person?

• Ask: ‘what single factor would provide a compelling circumstance?’

• Ask: if I were in their shoes, what would I think / feel / want?’

‘I am not other people’

Making story

Finding Nemo: an inspiration ….

Making story

Making story is messy

Research is crucial

Believability: actual vs. symbolic truth

Big picture AND drama in the detail: about solving problems

Even though you THINK you know where a story is going, you don’t until you’re in it

Stories have an internal logic. Won’t always get it right first time so be open to the process

A web epic

• Ordinary world

• ‘I need …’

• What? Where? How?

• User journey of discovery

• Apply information, tool, options

• Fulfil goals

• Change, satisfaction, return