23 July 2024
Storytelling is a word heard more often than not in marketing industry conversations. And rightly so, seeing as storytelling is the foundation of solid content, presentations, advertising, and strategies. But what is storytelling, exactly, and what purpose does it serve? In this article, we’ll explore this buzzword and go over the different components you can leverage to maximize its impact.
Selling with storytelling
The recipe for every great story contains a few crucial ingredients: compelling and relatable characters, a hook that draws you in, emotional depth, and a sequence of surprising events that keep us on the edge of our seats until the very end. Unsurprisingly, storytelling in a marketing context is fairly similar. Each of these parts is essential in creating content or delivering a presentation that leaves a lasting impression on your audience.
Capturing your audience’s storytelling
What’s the point in telling a story if nobody’s listening? That’s why a hook is essential—it’s the element that grabs your audience’s interest right from the start. Without a compelling hook, you risk losing your audience’s attention almost immediately. Before you know it, they’ll be scrolling away or focusing their attention on something else. Whether you’re talking about an anecdote kicking off a presentation, a memorable phrase starting off a speech, or a striking image front and centre of a vertical video, the hook is essential for keeping audiences engaged and entertained.
Food content creator Laurent Dagenais has mastered the hook. He starts every video by sharing the name of the recipe, followed by his signature twirl.
Persuading through emotion
Claire Bouchard, Brand Content Director at La Presse, offers a powerful analogy: “It's no coincidence that Martin Luther King, Jr. began his speech with 'I have a dream,' instead of 'I have a plan.'” Storytelling is about more than just listing facts—it's the art of connecting with your audience on a deeper, more emotional level. In order to be persuasive, you need to speak directly to your viewers/readers. This means striking a chord that resonates with their unique experiences, desires, and perspectives. You can achieve this by portraying relatable situations or desires, or by showing people that behave similarly to them.
This is what makes influencers such effective storytellers. Many influencers are open books and invite their community to follow their daily journeys. The content is mostly relatable and unfiltered (see Meggan Renaud, for example).
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Setting the scene with characters
All great stories are character-driven. They’re the ones who steer the story forward. Their personalities and ambitions influence the events that unfold. While we often associate content with social media vertical videos, reality TV is another area in which character selection is a carefully planned and mapped-out strategy. Valérie Dalpé, content producer (Survivor, Occupation Double, etc.), David Gauthier, content producer and director (Big Brother, Les Chefs!, etc.), and Jill Niquet Joyal (Occupation Double, Star Académie, Les Chefs!, etc.) all agree: Having a diverse cast of characters is essential in capturing audience’s attention.
In fact, casting is fundamental to a TV show’s success. Viewers identify with the characters that are most relatable to them, and stand by them with each passing episode. Reality shows thrive on predefined archetypes—villains, underdogs, leaders, the elder, the calculating strategists—each playing a role in creating a micro-society that reflects reality. This ensures that every audience member finds a character they can relate to.
This concept extends to all types of content: audiences are always more receptive to messages delivered by relatable and likeable figures.
“For example, when we encounter a story that we can relate to, our brains pay attention. We subconsciously grasp onto, and gravitate to the familiar. That's not enough to sustain our attention, though, so a good story hooks us with the familiar, and then uses novelty as a mechanism to keep us going.” — Shane Snow (Forbes), 2023
Embrace creativity
Only the most compelling stories can stand out and thrive in a world oversaturated by content. In 2024, thousands of brands are competing for their audience’s attention. As a result, they’re facing an intense effort to create the freshest, most innovative content that goes beyond what we’re used to seeing.
Chloe Sondervorst, a producer at Radio-Canada, calls AI a “new Pandora's box of creativity”. That’s because AI opens up possibilities for creating never-before-seen images, sounds, or stories. Technology puts a fresh perspective on artistic expression, envisioning worlds where anything is possible. It allows us to see artistic expression from a whole new angle, one where anything is possible. Tools like Sora for generating video from text, LALAL.AI for imitating a celebrity’s voice, or AI-generated influencers like @lilmiquela... demonstrate that the future of content creation is limitless.
When you see the opportunities already offered by the tools available on the market, it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the imagination of the creatives who work at our agencies. Some creators, like Marianne Plaisance for example, are already using AI to create branded content, and are pushing the boundaries of creativity with their outside-the-box concepts and execution.
Storytelling for leadership
Marketers are the architects of a brand’s narrative. They understand the goals, the product, the customer, and the audience—all the essential ingredients of the story, in other words.
They hold the key to the “why”, the core principle Simon Sinek discussed in his iconic Ted Talk presentation. Crafting a story around the “why” is essential when it comes to encouraging audiences to take action, whether that’s inciting them to purchase a product, refer a service, or support a cause.
The difference between a good story and a mediocre one lies in its delivery. Rather than just logic, a story told with passion and heart can inspire and motivate. To have a profound impact, marketers must weave a narrative that reflects the brand's beliefs, vision, and mission. This heartfelt storytelling is what truly engages and resonates with the audience, driving them to act.
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” - Simon Sinek
CONCLUSION
At its core, storytelling is the art of creating a narrative. While that seems simple enough, creating a story that influences and inspires is more complex than meets the eye.
The essential elements of a great story require a compelling hook, strong emotions, relatable characters, a sequence of extraordinary events, and a skilled, passionate storyteller. Once you have these ingredients, you’re well on your way to crafting a successful piece of content.
Storytelling is the art, and marketers are the artists bringing it to life.
*This article was inspired by the lectures given at the Content Creation Summit on May 15, 2024.
