When it comes to the content we consume, it’s fairly obvious that we turn to nonfiction for the information from which we want to learn and fiction to escape from life’s realities.
Obvious, perhaps, but untrue.
It turns out that fiction is more adept at changing our thoughts and attitudes than is nonfiction. Why? For the simple reason that fiction is more likely to grab hold of our imaginations and run with them. Conversely, the mind approaches nonfiction with a kind of feral wariness, a green colt suspiciously eyeballing the cowboy hellbent on saddling us with new ways of thinking.
Perhaps just as interesting, psychologists have discovered that those of us fully immersed in fiction are less likely to spot inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and outright falsehoods in those stories. Mind you, I didn’t say we are less likely to disagree with them. We don’t see them at all. Which maybe explain why great masses of humans for so long have been swept up in the most ridiculous tales of great – albeit loathsome – storytellers (think Jim Jones, for example).
I am convinced that the recent brand of wildly successful ‘historical novels’ is proof positive of our love affair with fiction. Adults who approached History 101 classroom lectures with the foot-dragging reluctance of root canal patients eagerly gobble down the likes of Ken Follet and his mammoth “Century” trilogy. The bottom line is we can’t get enough of good stories, yet show signs of allergic reaction to fact-filled lectures and powerpoint presentations.
So what’s this got to do with marketing? Well, by definition marketing is a nonfiction/truthful promotion of a product, service or brand. Meaning that, at a minimum, the customer subjected to your marketing enters that relationship less than eager to believe. Meaning, you’ve got your work cut out for you. As if you needed me to remind you of that, right?
The good news, of course, is that a ripping good yarn can convince folks of just about anything. So am I recommending you lie in your marketing? Am I suggesting that marketers who stretch the truth (yes, there are a *few* of them out there) are more likely to succeed than their truth-telling counterparts?
No and no.
What I am suggesting, however, is for organizations to work mightily to make their marketing more engaging. Pull in the reader, viewer or listener. Use conversational language that is easy – even, dare I say it, enjoyable – to consume. For goodness sake, dump the insider jargon, the overwrought hyperbole, the self-serving ‘me’ promotions. Find the common ground with your customers and talk to them in a way that says, “We understand the world you inhabit, it’s kind of a goofy and unpredictable world, it also can be a place of great substance and beauty, let’s agree not to take it too seriously, and oh by the way this thing that we do is pretty darned cool and has improved the lives of quite a few of our friends who use it.”
Or take the leap and leave out that last part. If your story is really good the consumer of that story will want to know more about who created it. Like a good white paper, the company authoring it doesn’t brag about itself – the value of the content speaks for itself and by extension elevates its producer in the eyes of those who read it.
In his terrific book, “Tell It To Win,” billionaire businessman and storytelling advocate Peter Gruber uses the Trojan Horse metaphor to explain how a good story can insinuate itself into customers’ brains without them even knowing it. Unable to break through the walls of Troy, the Greeks leave behind a massive wooden horse as a ‘gift’ to the Greeks. After dragging the thing inside the city and returning to their beds, the Greek soldiers inside pour out into the streets, open the gates and allow in the invading army. Troy is sacked. Story, as Gruber points out, works pretty much the same way in burrowing into our imaginations and changing the way we see the world.
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Want more doug food? Doug Rekenthaler Jr.
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