Every decision we make- from the brands we aspire for, to the companies we want to work for, from the the partners we chose to the causes we support is a function of the story/narrative we have bought into.
A slice of tomato on your pizza is only a vegetable. That tomato can by grown by a disenfranchised farmer who had to sell his land or that tomato can be a limited edition import from the vineyards of sicily in italy. Your audience is not buying the tomato as much as the 'story' of the tomato to feel what they want to or need to feel.
The Jimmy Choo story. The Heaven and Hell story. The Infosys story. The cold pressed juice story. The yoga story. The vitamin d3 story. If you don't have a story, what you have is a commodity.
Spiel:
Stories, when told well, make us think and feel at the same time. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that numbers and text on a slide with a bar graph don’t.
An enduring paradox today in business is reducing attention spans of the customer on the one hand and an assault on the senses by an ever increasing amount of information on the other.
For our communication to be sticky and viral, human and humane, credible and relatable, all at once, storytelling is a skill that every business — and individual — will need to master.