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Storytelling and Marketing: The Perfect Pairing? Sharing your ‘brand selfie’
on social media

Article · May 2014

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 IN PERSPECTIVE
Storytelling and
Marketing: The
Perfect Pairing?
Sharing your ‘brand selfie’ on social media
JOAN MANCUSO & KAREN STUTH
 jmancuso@5squareresearch.com
 kstuth@5squareresearch.com
I
s there anybody out there who
doesn’t enjoy a great story? What
if that great story is your story?
The art of storytelling is as old as
Earth, representing perhaps one of
the most ancient forms of human
communication: conveying messages
and sharing accumulated knowledge
and wisdom to help navigate and
explain the world around us. That
explains the benefit to survival, but
what makes storytelling so fun and
so compelling?
Think about the extreme popularity
of “selfies,” those cell phone photos
people take of themselves. Now, they’re
so popular that a selfie taken by Ellen
DeGeneres during the recent Academy
Awards broadcast “broke” Twitter as
users logged on to share the photo
across social media, perhaps to feel
just a bit closer to the event and her
celebrity entourage. Let’s face it: Selfies
are cool, and they are all about telling
your own story.
In an article on FastCompany.com
entitled “What Sex, Food And Selfies
Have To Do With Effective Social
Marketing,” the author cites a 2010
18 MARKETING INSIGHTS
MAY/JUNE 2014
TH E SEL FI E ERA
study that found 80% of social media
posts were related to a consumer’s
immediate experiences. According to
the article, two Harvard researchers
found out that sharing our thoughts
and experiences “activates the rewards
system of the brain, providing that
same shot of dopamine we get from
sex, food and exercise.” This certainly
explains the huge proliferation of
Facebook status updates and the use
of “second-screen technology,” where
television viewers can interact with the
programs they are viewing via Twitter
and other proprietary applications.
From social feeds about American
Idol, Dancing With the Stars, The
Voice and so many others, has social
commentary become our new, favorite
source of dopamine?
Beyond the selfie, video takes us a
step further, allowing us to tell that
much more about ourselves: more
narrative, more stories. Activity and
motion fires up the neurons more
than do static images. And at the
end of the day, that is the true driver
of social media: its ability to grab
our attention, fire up our imagination
and share our own story out to the
larger world around us.
When we use or add video to our
story—with its moving images, voices,
sometimes even musical editing—we’re
captivated by the story from the first
few frames. When the video tells a
memorable, compelling story, we are
instantly engaged once again in the
oldest form of social communication.
Take, for example, the two-minute
television commercial run by lawyer
Jamie Casino in his local market during
this year’s Super Bowl. Though clearly
an ad, the commercial tells Casino’s
own story and that of his brother, rather
than simply conveying bland marketing
messages and a call to action. The
imagery of fire, sledgehammers, graves,
roses and a rock-and-roll sound track
tell a personal story that will be hard to
forget, whether or not you like the ad.
As a result, the commercial received
more than 5 million views on YouTube
and wide press coverage on the ad itself.
Why did it capture our imagination?
Because it told us a story.
According to a Nielsen article
entitled “The TV Twitter Ratings
Revealed,” “[the] Twitter TV audience
for an episode is, on average, 50
times larger than the authors who
are generating tweets. For example,
if 2,000 people are tweeting about a
program, 100,000 people are seeing
those tweets.” Nielsen also noted a
38% increase in tweets about TV from
2012 to 2013, and it now encompasses
about 283 million people. Similarly, the
same study reported a 24% increase
in authors of TV tweets, which is
approximately 19 million people.
Those tweeters are simply out there,
sharing their experiences with the
show and being funny, cute, insightful
or whatever. They’re interacting
online with the video format they’re
producing, consuming and enjoying
the resulting dopamine rush—an
absolutely ultimate trifecta of the
storytelling experience.
Video in social media can be fun,
entertaining, visually interesting
and very personal—after all, now
millions of people know something
of the personal history of Casino, and
anyone who ever felt the underdog
will relate to the commercial on some
level. Storytelling through video is
something anyone with a smartphone
can create. It’s now a mainstream
technique. So why do we bring it up?
Because it informs marketers about
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how to use video in social media to
help their brand feel relevant and
personal—perhaps by inviting the
public to make and share their own
videos, ideally where they personally
engage with the brand.
What is the lesson for marketers?
Invite your target audience to tell their
story, their spin and their interpretation.
Let them enhance their self-concept
by posting or making videos that allow
them to talk about your product or
brand and to interweave it with a story
of their own. This will build trust and
loyalty between your target audience
and your product or brand, allow those
who participate to enjoy the benefits and
pleasures of the storytelling experience,
and create a long-term impression of
your brand as a listener by allowing
the public to make your brand a part
of their own story.
Now that’s a true brand selfie,
for sure! MI
✒ JOAN MANCUSO and KAREN STUTH are
both founding partners of 5 Square Research.
Mancuso has more than 25 years of research expe-
rience with a background in sociology, psychology,
econometrics and clinical research. Stuth has more
than 25 years of experience in marketing, business
development and marketing research management.
MARKETING INSIGHTS
MAY/JUNE 2014 19