Storyscaping: Stop Creating Ads, Start Creating Worlds

CHAPTER 02

YOUR FIRST KISS

Harnessing the Power of Experience

Every brand needs a story. If the role of story is the most powerful tool for connecting brands to consumers, is it possible to evolve that connection into a relationship? Yes! Meet the power of experience; it catapults the effects of storytelling. It is the element within the definition of storytelling that we believe is the most powerful, yet in most stories, remains sorely underleveraged: Storytelling: Sharing of events with words, images, sounds and/or experiences, sometimes with improvisation or embellishment. Experiences are more powerful than pictures and words alone. The best stories are ones that also create shared experiences. People don’t just want to be told a story; they want to be part of the story. In the past, the way we had become accustomed to marketing our businesses was more about the telling, primarily using words and images. And that worked pretty darn well for about 100 years. We still use those elements, and now with the onslaught of technology advances, we can evolve telling into shared experiences between the consumer and the brand. What is so important about this thing we keep calling experience? It has to do with creating deeper connections, increasing retention, and extending loyalty.

Power of Experience. We remember and retain stories about ourselves much more vividly than we remember stories ...