True Story

CHAPTER 3

The Participants

Audience is a word you still hear a lot in marketing, but it’s an outdated term because the people experiencing a modern metastory are not passive observers. Your customers are emotional, and in many cases, physical participants in your metastory (figure 3-1).

But there are participants beyond your customers to consider as well. Your employees are important participants in your story. And many businesses have complex relationships with external partners who should also be considered participants: real estate, insurance, and financial services are businesses where external agents play a key role. Certainly, they should be considered participants as well. An imperative today is creating a story with which they all actually ...