Many people who work with us at Agent Wildfire understand my love of our local bakery-restaurant Artisano's, it is the ultimate boutique bakery-meets-cafe of West Toronto.
Don't get me rolling on my love for this establishment. You can just tell the people running the business have a passion for it. You can breathe it. You can smell it. You can taste it. I have had the benefit of talking to one of the owners, and you can tell she lives for this business and the customer experience.
I spotted this sign above their fireplace musing over my morning coffee the other day and I had to take a pic. You can not just make up these words or blindly put them up without meaning them. These people love the art of making bread and servicing their customers. It got me to thinking about stories and brands.
Unfortunately, stories are mainly dead in marketing. On one side, you have the sell more, sell more camp, too eager to get to the punch line to romance us along the way. On the other side, you have the social media gang, too emphatic about being transparent and glaringly obvious and open to add some mystique, enchantment maybe a tad of stretch along the way that lift our aspirations, real or imagined.
In a world of "paint by numbers" advertising and digital media, where are the storytellers? Have we lost it as an ability, have we tested it away or do we just not believe in them?
That's why I love Nike so much. That's why I think this TV ad might be the best ever created, at least the most enagaging.
That's why I still love the print magazine and hope its never goes away, the ads as much as content make us dream, escape, explore (at least in the good magazines - thank you Men's Journal). Still love VW's original ads and the interplay between visual and story. It's also likely why I love this so much too.
When it turns digital, that's also why I love the Common Craft and cobrandit. They get it. The essential truth distilled --- most of what we buy, experience and talk about that rises above our sub-conscious state, is emotional, and when done well, it stirs our insides and makes us feel something. It provides meaning vs. just telling us something.
When I consider the few storytellers we do have, they have a number of traits in common:
- they exude passion - you can see it every word, they intuit what makes them great
- they are human - many likely have nver been professionally trained in copywriting or marketing and they are better for it
- they have a belief system - there is a "them" and "us" and they fervently want to be a "them"
- they reach beyond a brand - they encase themselves in a philosophy, a cause d'etre, a perhaps unachievable goal
- they don't hold up a mirror to their customer, they hold a prism - they don't just preach from the brand temple, nor do they just reflect back what their customers are saying, they provide a kaleidoscope what together you can be ...with them as a core part of it not as an after thought
- they leave room for building - they create the conversation and allow others to contribute and fill in the blanks
Most brands can not be described as such. Very few would dream to do a modern version of the British Airways ads or Coke's I'd like to teach the world to sing. Were copywriters, and by extension, their sponsoring brands, less jaded back then? Did that take more risks? Were they simply better at their craft? Did we all become mercenaries and stop believing that a business or organization could stand for something that was different or noble?
I love John Steinbeck's quote on this topic, probably no more relevant than today:
"We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say-and to feel- ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought."
That's exactly how I feel, John. Now somebody tell me a story...
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