In my strategic public relations class this week we discussed the power of stories in communication. Storytelling has been one of the most widely used and understood forms of communication since the beginning of time. Anyone can tell a story and that allows for easy retelling and the ability for information to be passed effectively from person to person.
For public relations and advertising professionals, it is important to utilize the power of stories to communicate ideas and polish images. Your audience will remember information presented to them through a story more than they will by simply being told it. Our brains respond to visuals and by creating a visual in a persons mind that idea will stick with them.
In the novel “Made to Stick” the Heath brothers discuss the power of storytelling and how to accurately utilize that power. They explain that: “Stories illustrate casual relationships that people hadn’t recognized before and highlight unexpected, resourceful ways in which people have solved problems” (Heath, 206). Stories bring ideas together in a creative manner and force the audience to visualize and connect the dots to the meaning. Later in the chapter, the Heath brothers explain that the right kind of stories stimulate the brain. By mentally stimulating someone you are essentially causing them to experience your idea in the next closest way to physically experiencing it.
Chipotle has a commercial called “Back to the Start” that encompasses the qualities of a good story and gets their point across without saying anything. The commercial is a series of Claymation scenes involving a farmer and his family. You watch as the farm becomes industrialized and the process of the farmer getting fed up and changing his farm back to the natural way it used to be. At the end of the commercial it says, “Cultivate a Better World,” and under that says chipotle.com.
This gets the point across that Chipotle is taking a stand against industrialized and commercial ways of processing and obtaining their food. They are telling you that their food is all natural and farm fresh without every stating that. The use of the story allows the audience to mentally connect the dots of what is happening and what the purpose is. It is unclear what the commercial is for until the very end, giving the audience even more of an opportunity to draw their own conclusions.
Chipotle’s commercial is a success because it forms a story that involves the audience and mentally stimulates them. The use of simple graphics allows for the story to stick and be easily memorable. Now whenever a customer walks into Chipotle they will remember the commercial about the family on the farm and remember that their food is safe and farm grown.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-yu/go-beyond-advertising-and_b_4683818.html
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