Justathought

Once upon a time...

......There lived a princess... or a prince... And they lived happily ever after. Sigh! Don’t we all just love this ending? I often keep imagining how different my life would’ve been if I was living in a ‘story’. Relax, I am not talking from my fictional world (yes, I do have one just to escape the routine mundane life) but just think that your life is one big story someone is narrating!!! Creepy? Shocking? Or simply amazing?!!?? What do you think?

I’ve literally grown up listening to stories all my life. A great mix of traditional and modern to say. As a child, I would look forward to power cuts because that’s when granny and mom would entertain us from their vast storehouse of... well, stories! My love for them just grew from thereon. Yes, I might’ve moved on to more curious topics but a story is a story nevertheless, enrapturing me in its beautiful depths and layers of intricacies!

I often wonder what is the fascination of the human mind with stories – is it the element of surprise/suspense, or is it the way the characters are portrayed, or is it the plot or is it the way the scenes/landscapes/designs are described or is it the magic of transporting one to a different realm altogether? Well, I think it’s all of this put together! And precisely that is why you are reading this ‘story’ as well – your minds innate connection to anything that’s telling a story, it latches on to read/listen more. (otherwise you think you have the time to read a glimpse of my biography? No way!) Which brings me to talk about the importance of story-telling in today’s world, especially that of selling.

Just look around you – you will see that everyone/everything are trying to sell... err, I mean tell you something. Even in your business, interweaving stories to market products is no novel line of thought but, how you tell the tale is what is important and that’s what is unique to you, your business and your product.

I will give you two modern examples of brilliant story-telling while pushing products to the fore. Take Tanishq for Diwali – it speaks of traditions, love and family values (a story we all need to be told again and again) and expertly converts it into an ad of jewelry. Or take the very modern and bold (must say) ad for double mint chewing gum. A romantic tale of ups and downs ending in a proposal all under 2 mins! Well it certainly shows that marketers are seriously thinking of the influence of stories on their product and their customers.

Well, you might say it’s easy to tell stories on a medium like TV but ask how would you encash this wonderful tool into the day-to-day marketing business. Let us say and believe that every medium can tell a tale, to perfection and to capture your customers’ attention! All you need is a good translator – to bring to life your story – via visuals (talk about pictures and posters), content writing (all that you want to lovingly say to the world put down in beautiful words – like how I am doing right now!:)), print ads, logos, your website… see? So many avenues to reach out and narrate your story - in parts or whole.

Why you may ask is story-telling the next big thing in marketing? Or is already! Simple - Connection! We all know how we connect to the characters of a good story – the same principle applies here too. A good connection is a sure shot way of winning a customer! Power-point presentations, short status updates, SMS lingo… all have made us forget the art of story-telling. Now, your story needn’t be 100 pages long, but what is required is the right bang points to kick in that connect. Strong, bold, quaint, subtle – you can choose your style, as long as you tell people your ‘story’ and make them believe in your ‘reality’.

This is why I love this job here at JAT - you get to tell people the right things, guide them to do things better and get a little clearer conscience by helping society at large (Angel!) all through my favorite way of telling or putting them in a story format. Don’t believe me? Just go through my previous blogs – do they sound like a person speaking to you or a machine jotting down technical information? You have the answer!

Listen, each of you have a different story to tell (yeah about your product is what I’m talking, but you’ll soon find the connection), don’t hesitate to tell it to the world – if you think you cannot translate, let someone (like JAT- we have and will always believe that stories are way better than to-the-point fact information!) do the story-telling. See your own story through new eyes and bask in the limelight you will receive.

And yes, since I love listening to stories and growing my own encyclopedia of stories (in my mind of course!), please do drop in a line to share your story.