I love reading the blog of @speechwriterguy. I like his humor. I like his stories. They are entertaining, and never boring.
Mister speechwriterguy is a reformed journalist and he is – like he says on his site: “scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Writer of a thriller that was a finalist for some award.”
Nice elevator pitch.
My pitch? I have tried this before:
- Storythinker and Storyteller
- Author of “No Story, No Fans”
- Wannabe famous deejay
- Passionate about Connecting the Dots
- I always bark. I only bite on demand.
Let me get to my point here. Well actually these elevator pitch things are somehow good examples of the point I am trying to make later in this blog: it’s all about putting vivid images in your audience’s head. These pitches kinda picturize the men who we are trying to describe. That is what stories do. They suck you right into the action. And… here it comes: they let you feel something.
Absolutely agree.
Pixar isn’t like other movie studios, which are busy throwing $200 million a piece on remakes of ’80s TV shows, board games and movies based on cartoons meant to sell toys. No. Pixar is better than that. They know story, and embrace the whole “storytelling is far, far more important than fancy CGI” idea.
So I love them.
Yes. I do too. For the same reason as you.
And mister speechwriterguy continues his blog with a simple story comparison of WALL-E and BRAVE. His conclusion?
WALL-E wins in a storytelling knock-out. It’s not even close.
I personally have not seen BRAVE yet so I cannot say I agree or not (I have seen WALL-E and thought it was one of the greatest stories I have ever seen).
Now pay attention. Here is the moment where I want to make my point. I actually want to make three if you don’t mind:
1. Stop reading this silly blog and go see WALL-E (shame on you if you haven’t seen the movie yet – it should have been part of your master degree in whatever-super-trooper-business-degree-you-obtained).
2. Stop reading this blog, even if you have seen the movie, and immediately click HERE (to start reading the original blog of mister speechwriterguy)
3. (Thank you for still being here.) Every brand, organization or leader should take the WALL-E test.
The test in short:
- Look at how much your communication is about informing with facts, figures, and data.
- Find out if you could implement a plot or story that would inspire the hell out of your audience
- And most importantly; does your message today makes your audience feel anything?
And that’s my acid test, especially for a cartoon: If you turn the sound off, does it (a) make sense and (b) make you feel anything?
For a cartoon? Yes of course. For a brand, organisation or any kind of leader? Most definitely.
The test in depth:
Let me call it the story-marketing-WALL-E-test. That is, setting brands within the context of uplifting stories that inspire customers to adventure, higher values, and citizenship, instead of shrinking consumers into passive consumption. And all of this without using too much words. If any.
Your brand story should appeal to our most basic human sensitivities.
So here I am calling on all brands to return to this kind of story strategy and story creation. Start infusing all your marketing stuff (or whatever stuff you need to inspire whoever you want to engage) with this powerful story lesson from mister speechwriterguy:
WALL-E sticks with you, and you’re better for having seen it. That’s rare. I’ve seen this sucker a dozen times and wouldn’t hesitate to fire it up again, which is even MORE rare.But that’s the power of great storytelling, which gives the audience more than the biggest of Michael Bay explosions ever could.
Now, can you image your audience becoming a better person after having heard your brand story? Think about it. Well?
Or better, stop thinking right now and try to feel the essence of my point here. If you don’t feel your brand and if your brand has no real bigger story to tell I am not very optimistic you will pass the WALL-E story test. If you do feel something (or if you did at the end of the WALL-E movie) you just took your first big step in plotting your brand story. Good luck.