Review of Storynomics: Story Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World
It is 2017 and I am sitting in a sleek, glass-paneled boardroom with four other candidates- our resumes, our lives are in the hands of the executives across from us. Introductions are made and I become self-conscious as the realization that I am the only humanities major dawns on me. The internship is for a sales/marketing position with a digital marketing agency. We each answer the questions, one by one, nervous and eager to showcase our skills. I take a deep breath, it is the last question: “What specific skills do you bring to the table, what do you offer to the team?” Fast forward, I was given the internship- the only English major. And my answer, my unique value to this seemingly disconnected career? “I know how to tell stories.”
Stories have always been a part of human nature, giving shape and meaning to life’s disarray, and they continue to serve as humanity’s connective tissue. As proposed in Walter Fisher’s “Narrative paradigm,” all human communication is shaped by stories, and their effectiveness is based on coherence and fidelity (Fisher). The idea that anyone and everyone has the innate ability to tell stories is at the crux of Robert McKee and Thomas Gerace’s Storynomics: Story Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World, published March 20th, 2018. Fisher’s theory on how stories shape communication has been adopted by the digital marketing world in an attempt to bridge the gap between brands and consumers. The present types of advertising, from TV commercials to interrupt advertising on the internet, are no longer impacting the markets. Storynomics offers storytelling as the solution: a meaningful way to reconnect with the consumer through a screen barrier. However, at the urgency and speed that “stories” are being thrown into the shark-infested waters of a declining economy, one may question whether “story” is enough to save them.
Storynomics begins with the physiological evolution of “story” and how it has translated into our modern lives. Since our brains are wired to create and receive stories, they are a communicative device that naturally appeals to people’s desires and emotions. This is not new information, yet in the realm of business, it is a revolutionary way of targeting consumers and overturning the classical marketing theory that suggests humans make decisions based on rationality (21). The main premise of the authors’ argument depends on the fact that people are storytelling beings, submissive to their emotions, which ultimately influences decisions. Therefore, storytelling is crucial to any campaign, now more than ever. The book gives a short introduction into the history of advertising, “A Story of Addiction”, that asserts that traditional, commercial, and “interrupt advertising” are no longer effective (5). In fact, a 2015 study by Adobe claims that “marketing has changed more in the last two years than it has in all the decades since the birth of television” (xvi). This radical shift can be attributed to both the ad-less streaming services like Netflix and the millennial generation’s decreasing tolerance of ads (19; 133). People are becoming blind to ads and blocking them all together, forcing advertisers to innovate new ways to reach people again.
As the adoption of “story” as a marketing technique has emerged in the past couple years, Storynomics teaches its audience to leverage a well-constructed story to influence consumers not only to buy, but become loyal followers of a brand. The book presents storytelling as a new strategy to reach people: instead of viewing marketing as deception, stories target the emotional side of the consumer, provoking empathy which is “absolute” (97). The authors outline the components of a successful story and the 8 powers that propel a story: self-awareness, other-awareness, memory, intelligence, imagination, insight, correlation, and self-expression and the 8 stages of story design (40; 91). While it may be helpful to analyze the pieces of a story, their “story” examples fail to reach beyond the conventional logic and ideals endorsed in mass culture. The primary example the book gives to dissect the components of a story is the 2011 film “Moneyball” in which Brad Pitt’s character revolutionizes managing the game of baseball. While this example serves the book’s purpose in a scientific evaluation of all the working parts of a good story (core value, protagonist, inciting incident), the authors’ choice in leaning on one pop-culture reference, nevertheless a male-centric sports film, excludes an array of perspectives that would have been constructive to consider in telling a story (225). One of the main principles in utilizing a story, the authors argue, is knowing the audience and targeting their values. Therefore, Storynomics could benefit from a more diverse bank of examples to model story-structures.
Most of the key components Storynomics outlines, such as character development, plot, and context, are all basic elements mastered in a humanities degree, yet the authors skim the edges of this idea without giving credit where it is due. In fact, there is little to no mention of literature or the arts and humanities throughout the book. The greater discussion surrounding this new era of marketing is the intersection of two worlds: the humanities and business. While their title combining “story” and “economics” hints at leveraging stories to make money, it also represents the conversion of two fields. Furthermore, the authors negate the role of the humanities by labeling skills that “expand worldviews and deepen emotional intelligence” as “casual logic” (129). When, in fact, this “casual logic” is opening up a flood of creative talent positions in the digital marketing space looking for these specific skills. For example, the authors reference Apple to point out the importance of creative thought in shaping meaningful brands that are “genuine, authentic, trustworthy” (146). Between the lines of strategy-based content is the unspoken reality that the business industry is finally buying what the humanities have been selling for years.
The importance of shifting from ad-centric to story-centric marketing is clearly defined throughout the book: it is about the connection (128). They lay out “the marketing continuum” which labels the different levels of story-centric marketing. The advice is structured through images, diagrams, and graphs that aid the reader through the journey to understanding and creating a meaningful, memorable story. .
The authors emphasize targeting the consumer's desire, which will help give the story shape and meaning (199). While the advice is not particularly original, the organization and deconstruction of a story make it a powerful tool for any business trying to re-brand and gain a loyal following.
In addition to IBM, Colgate, and Coca-Cola leveraging quality content, one of the most influential story-based approaches the books gives as an example is the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign. Women all over the world identified with the values and insecurities drawn to life in these ads, which evoked empathy and understanding (78).
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Like Dove’s campaign, the purpose-told story is more effective than the fiction-told story because it drives people to action (86). While understanding the dynamics of a fiction story can benefit the construction of a purpose-told story, this distinction is helpful to an audience building a brand that’s primary goal is to sell. The significance of incorporating stories into marketing is summed up in an email from Jeff Bezos to his employees, insisting they have a deeper level of critical thinking and evolve to create meaningful narratives (180). Jeff Bezos testifies to these humanities skills, but Storynomics chooses to focus on an analytic approach to storytelling, proposing a quick fix to the market failure. While people should study the art of storytelling to enhance their brands, proposing that stories are an innate human trick that can be mastered in 50 pages of technical instruction can be discrediting to the work of storytellers.
Although “story” is acting as a meaningful solution to the disconnect between brand and consumer, one must be guarded against the paradoxical loss of meaning: a word that has been shucked of its essence by repetitive usage. In other words, advertisers might be wondering, how long will the “story” trend last before it is exhausted in company statements and LinkedIn profiles? Storynomics provides valuable technical instruction to put the idea of storytelling, which has been invading the digital space, into practice. The authors tackle questions about the future in the last chapter, “Tomorrow”, by suggesting that story-centric marketing is here to stay. Additionally, the innovation of new media, such as augmented reality and virtual reality will also rely on storytelling, giving “marketers unimagined opportunities” (221). Yet, more importantly, the authors suggest that ethics and marketing do not have to be mutually exclusive, in fact, the role of storytelling in advertising can have a “double-edged propose: brand appreciation and social change” (224). By calling for a more meaningful way to market, the authors defy typical capitalist notions of blind consumerism, allowing stories to become the lifeboats that rescue entrepreneurship from a declining market.
In the rapidly changing landscape, McKee and Gerace propose storytelling as the remedy to the advertising problem by dissecting story structure and examples of brands who deploy the techniques to solidify their position. Businessmen and women in the marketing field can benefit from the analytic approach to crafting a story: the step-by-step instructions for utilizing a story to reach consumers can ultimately sell. Yet, the overarching story that the book fails to address is the junction between humanities and business. Without writers, authors, directors, actors, the creative talent that create and bring stories to life, marketing through storytelling would not be possible. We are in a new era, where boundaries between industries are blurred, skills are running across the borders of a confined field, where businessmen and women are trying to learn storytelling and storytellers are trying to learn marketing. And while it is important to exercise and incorporate different skills into new fields, it is also worthwhile to acknowledge and utilize experts in their own field. By leaning on stories, on the humanities, brands will find a new connection that has roots in the economy and in consumers’ hearts. In 2003, Steve Jobs said “...Technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing,” which encapsulates the subtext coursing through Storynomics.
Works Cited
Lehrer, Jonah. “Steve Jobs: Technology Alone is Not Enough.” The New Yorker. October 7th, 2011. Web. September 4, 2018.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/steve-jobs-technology-alone-is-not-enough
McKee, Robert, and Thomas Gerace. Storynomics Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World. Twelve, 2018.
Fisher, Walter R. In Psychology, Behavioral and Social Science. “The Narrative Paradigm.” Communication Theory, Web. September 4, 2018.