what IS story-telling anyway?

And why does it matter?

Giving your brand a story really matters. But what IS a story?

"[Stories] are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcendence… a way of being fully human.” 

- Susan Sontag

I went to LeBook's Connections event in New York City last week and there was an interesting panel on story-telling and advertising - or brand story-telling - which is all the buzz these days and so many people say that they are brand story-tellers or experts in story-telling.

What was interesting is that each person on the panel talked about story-telling in a different way and used it to mean something else. When I first came to advertising, almost no one (except for one really genius creative director I worked with) talked about story. It was funny because I came from the world of journalism, poetry and fiction-writing - fresh from not-quite-finishing an M.F.A. in creative writing, publishing a novel and Robert McKee's famous story structure class. All I really knew was the story. I was drawn to Olivier because instead of asking me to come up with concepts, he used to say, "Write me some stories." And instead of coming up with concepts, I came up with word pictures that evoked both emotion and familiarity as well as surprise and sensuality leaving you with a sense that there was more to come.

These "stories" - actually, tiny snapshots from a story because you had to fill in the beginning from your own memory and fill in the end from your imagination - became fragrances, jeans, drinks, fashion and beauty campaigns, some of which are still icons today.

But the real question is - how do stories work?

At the time, I was asked to make a document which listed the most crucial points for a fragrance or fashion campaign. So what I wrote (because story-telling was not a thing then) was this list.

Emotional:

Here's what I mean: A great ad communication - any lasting piece of art work - makes you FEEL something. If it can tap into a universal emotion - love, loss, pain, jealousy, abandonment, security, serenity, euphoria - it will last long beyond its life as a brand messaging. Think about the famous Coca-cola advertising - I'd like to build the world a home - or the Benetton AIDS campaigns. They can still give you goosebumps or bring you to tears. In fact, to do that, the image or communication doesn't even need to be beautiful. It needs to work harder than just giving you something nice to look at. Eye-candy is delicious, but like all candies, you forget it as soon as you're finished with it. Have too much and it makes you feel sick. The image in itself isn't as important as the story that the brand lets you tell yourself. But then, even if you can evoke an emotion - how do you make it last?

Iconic:

All great stories - from the first stories ever told - begin with archetypes: the mother, the sister, the friend, the father figure, the brother, the lover. It sounds intellectual but what it means is the familiar. A great piece of communication leverages something you already know. As McKee's story structure explains, you open with something ordinary, you set up an every day logic that everyone can relate to. The alarm clock (the voice of authority - or your mother), the kitchen or sofa (the sense of home), the piece of music that opens with something that sounds vaguely like something else. When you use an icon or an archetype, you save time because your audience fills in the details. They add their own emotion and story to yours - that means that they invest something of themselves in it - so the story becomes theirs, too. When you invest in something - take part ownership of it - you like it even more. That's a song that keeps playing over and over in your head.

Resonant:

Because a beautiful - composition-wise - image is not enough without resonance. That's where story comes in. When I worked on ad-cepts - "pretend" ads that one makes for a client using existing images for inspiration, I used to like to use "swipe" (the images) that came from movie stills. I liked them better than simple fashion editorial because there was a sense of story inherent in each image. You looked at them and you had a sense that there was something that came before and something that came after. Maybe you'd even already seen the movie so the image had even more to it. It's what makes Cindy Sherman's images so compelling. Because you recognize a story - there is something familiar, there is something archetypal, there is something before and after that you can fill in, and there is something surprising that makes you want to look at it again.

The other thing about resonance is that there is something in the image that connects with some part of you. You recognize something of yourself in it - that's how you know the brand is talking to you.  Or your tribe. If the story doesn't resonate with you - I'm not a corporate businesswoman, for instance - I know that the brand isn't speaking to me. But, when I have to go to job interview, I know the brand to go to for my outfit or make-up or bag. That's why resonance is important - you don't need to be all things to all people. Your story needs to be clear about ONE thing - so that it creates lasting resonance.

Coherent:

Which bring us to coherence. If your story is about business, you need a really good reason to switch to a story about swimming, let's say, or amusement parks. Your story has to ring true. When you write a novel or a play, you know your characters inside and out. Even when you start with a character who is 25, you know what her childhood was like and what kind of student she was in preschool. You also know what she would never do. And if you make her do it anyway, she'd better have a really good reason and you will have to slowly lead your audience there, or you will lose everyone. So your brand or your product needs a really good reason to switch tracks.

Surprising:

This is really the thing that makes the song keep playing in your head. This is what story structure says carries the story forwards. It's all that stuff that feels familiar, that path or people you know intuitively, you understand innately and that - we as story-tellers - take somewhere else. That surprise makes you want to explore the end of the story. You want it to keep going. You keep playing it again and again in your mind. That's why little kids watch movies again and again. On the other hand, it's not a huge crazy ridiculous surprise - for instance, imagine a folk song that morphs into heavy metal - (look at coherence) but it's still unexpected.

Often - especially in fashion or beauty, which is image-driven advertising - a visual idea on its own is not enough to give it resonance and emotion, it needs the right words. The words add a layer of complexity which make the story deeper and more resonant.

But back to the first question - everyone is telling you about being a story-teller (and honestly, lots of them have no idea what they are talking about) - why does it matter?

A story connects with the viewers as humans. A real story elevates and values our experiences, helps us see them differently. 

A story gives your brand or product a narrative context to exist in.

A brand or a product with no story, no history to ignite, leaves a consumer confused. Or worse, uninterested. And that is a bad place for them to be. It's almost as if your product exists in limbo.

Today, we are so inundated with advertising and communication that without a good story - one that really connects with us but also feels new as well as familiar, believable as well as surprising, compelling as well as intriguing - a brand will not be able to hold your interest longer than it takes you to turn a page, swipe left, or click onwards.

That's where story comes in. Because with a sense of story or history - one that connects with you in some way, the communication is not just a picture or words, it is something that becomes a part of you.

Want to help build connection with your audience? Make sure that you tell stories. Really tell stories.

What I'm Selling Now

For almost 20 years, I've sold products (mostly) to women: make-up, pencil skirts, hosiery, mattresses, online beauty services, insurance, face creams, fragrances, bed sheets and duvets.*

As a conceptor and copywriter, whenever I had the chance to impose my own value system on the messaging, I’d weave in something important.  I’d send my audience secret gifts  – embedded in the copy – ideas that led to a bigger truth. Something that said great hair, magical fragrances and less wrinkles are wonderful but... there is so much more.

I recently read about the advertising for Kotex. It makes fun of all those cliches about feminine hygiene.  There’s the cute new European campaign for Dove which is about subverting ads that play on our beauty fears.  Love the direction - slightly post-modern, irreverant, positive - but as a war-weary veteran of the fields, I’m disappointed. 

A mission to make all women feel sufficiently beautiful is a great start. Telling women they don’t have to hug kittens and wear white and bounce through fields of daisies on their period is funny.**

There’s something so much deeper, something we haven’t reached yet.

Changing the conversation about beauty and vanity and women’s troubles, means we're still talking about beauty. And beauty – at least the version we use to sell and buy things – is a hierarchy.  Using the commodified version of beauty (which is NOT, as we all know, the thing that turns heads or even attracts the opposite sex), no matter how good I feel about myself, how much hair dye, mascara, botox or liposuction I buy, or even all the confidence and self-esteem in the world, I will never ever be confused for Claudia Schiffer. She and Kate Moss and Christy Turlington, especially their retouched avatars, are at the top of the food chain in magazine beauty.

In my IRL  (in real life) experience, beauty is two things. The first and most obvious: the win in the genetic lottery, some perfect combination of features and height and metabolism one is born with. This is the beauty that is not only used to sell stuff to men and women – and, given our addled little brains – what we consumers demand to see, as I have seen tested and proven in so many focus groups, in order to believe it’s a superior product. What's depressing is how many really smart people fall for it IRL.

The second kind of beauty is more interesting. In the second case, beauty is not a goal but a side effect. It's the beauty we get later, as we grow and love and learn and experience the world. This kind of beauty, an irresistible you-can't-look-away kind of radiance that is not dependent on age or genetics usually comes from people who haven't been chasing it.

To really change the conversation, we need to stop making the wrong kind of beauty important. 

Let me put it this way. It’s not that we stop telling our girlfriends and daughters they are beautiful or that shirt looks so great or that mascara really makes your eyes look huge – but that we change the emphasis. 

We tell them FIRST they are so smart, talented, great at math, capable and wow - you get SO MUCH done in a day – and by the way, that’s a cute skirt. I'm not suggesting everyone stop wearing lipstick or buying fragrance (because then I would starve) but that we remember that they are purely accessories.

So here's what I am selling to women now.  And what's funny about this is – these are all the things I used to use to sell gunk, clothes and scented rubbing alcohol before.

Your Intuition

You have it. It's not that airy-fairy Bewitched magic. It's the way you actually do know stuff. It's solid and practical (like Samantha was with her witchery). It’s about stopping and listening to yourself. It's the way you know the relationship with that guy is doomed. You knew it wouldn't work from the first meeting, but you were attracted to him. So you swept away the fact that he spent the entire lunch talking about himself and didn't ask you a single question about you. Somewhere, deep down inside, maybe even after you get engaged, you really know it was never meant to be. All intuition stories aren't that long and complex, but you understand what I mean. 

Believe in your ability to perceive the correct path for you. Believe in your sense of self. That means knowing your worth, standing up for yourself when you’ve been treated unfairly.  And standing down when you know you’re one in the wrong – that’s a point of strength, too.

Your Body

Loving it. Living in it. Really living in it. Because when you exercise all parts of it (including your brain) and feed it well, you live in it to full capacity. Your body is your interface with the world. For women, I feel like our bodies tend to reflect our sense of worth and to manifest what we are doing to the planet. The idea is not to smack it into submission. Because when you look after your body properly, it looks gorgeous. Not like a model. Like a luscious, touchable, breathing human. It begins to glow with the radiance that makes other people want to be close to it. It’s not about a hierarchy here. No one’s body is better than your own when you love it.  When you eat well, eat organic, breathe, exercise, get enough sleep, sit out in the sun sometimes.  
When you are living well in your body, you can’t stop respecting and loving it for all the places it takes you.

Your Sexuality

This is both a part of your body and your soul, but it also has a life of its own., doesn’t it? Like a wild and love-crazed Tasmanian devil unleashed on one extreme and a seething volcano in the basement on the other. How do you tame it? How do you enjoy it, harness it, ride it to all four corners of the earth without wearing it out? If not loved and respected, I worry that our Divine Feminine (excuse the New Age-yness) is turning into breast, uterine and ovarian cancers. I feel like we have not yet learned how not to chop off our body parts, how not to internalize the ways we don’t feel like women. I feel like we need to have fun with our power – how cool is it that we can create an entire human life inside of our bodies? How cool is it that we don’t have to? We are connected to the planets and the universe in ways we are just beginning to appreciate. We need to remember that it is a strength. Our sexuality is an asset not a liability.

Stop Getting Old

First, before you get all excited - I have no magic fountain of youth. I’ve tried almost every natural method – that doesn’t include injections or surgery – resveratrol, Chinese mushrooms, different kinds of exercise, acupuncture.  But what I mean is the figurative sense of the word. How to stop being passee or irrelevant. How to stop being tired. 

I do have a couple of tricks up my sleeve.  But you know tricks aren’t what you need. Good mascara and highlighter can brighten up your eyes but what it’s really about is changing how you see. That changes how you see yourself and how you live in the world. It’s about staying vibrant and dynamic. It’s about being filled with awe and laughter at the way the world surprises us. I know an almost 70 year-old woman who breezes into a room with the lightness of a teenager. She doesn’t wear make-up and has never had any plastic surgery.  Even if you don’t know her, you get the sense of a breath of fresh air. She rarely stops smiling or laughing, but she never laughs at anyone. As for me, I’m in my mid-forties and my business partner just said to me, “Ameena, the thing I love about you is that you still think you are 25!” 

I’ve sold (and bought) so many incredible, incomprehensible skin products that plump and brighten and renew and lots of them actually work – but if you are not open and young in your soul – they won’t make you younger.  Sorry.

Stop Being Judgemental

Ha! (Cough) Even as I write this, I have to laugh because I haven’t mastered it yet. But every time I manage to overcome a moment of irritation and frustration, I feel a surge of energy that is inexplicable. It is hardest to do with the people closest to you. The people whose behavior you subconsciously feel is a reflection of you. Those people you feel have wounded you or taken advantage of you. Or made you look stupid. Try and think about where they are coming from. Strangely, smaller slights sometimes sting more than bigger ones. If you really can’t get past something, pray. Pray for yourself, pray for the person or group of people you are mad at, pray for greater understanding amongst all human beings. It doesn’t matter what or who you call God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, Brahma, the Universe, just pray because we are all connected.


If you do something hurtful or unkind, even unknowingly, apologize, but then, move on. Don't beat yourself up. If the other person is still angry, there's nothing you can do. The only person who has to forgive you is yourself. Regret and sorrow, self-punishment, take a big toll on you and your body. Learn from it, but don't take it with you. 


Every time you let something go, every time you are just open to other people being on their own journeys, every time you laugh and have faith in Universal Intelligence or God or the Divine, you get a moment of flow.  This is so unbelievable that I have to tumble on to the New Age wagon.  I swear this one thing will make you prettier, younger, happier and more popular. Isn't that what luxury is really meant to do?

Much much more effective than any expensive clothes or make-up or plastic surgery. 

Back when I was really an embedded reporter in the beauty and fashion wars, I used to ask my clients to sell me their products first. I needed to believe in something before I sold it. I couldn’t be excited and enthusiastic about a product that no one needed or that wasn’t lifechanging in some way. I refused to work on advertising that was full of false claims.

This is what I am selling now. Only because I believe in it. It won’t make me (or any big corporation) massive profits.

Are you buying?

Let me know. ***

*One of my lowest moments was an ad that conflated filling your home with plastic with protecting your baby. Sadly, or maybe necessarily, almost all baby stuff - car seats, toilet locks, outlet covers, baths, stroller seats - is made out of plastic.  With our new awareness of B.P.A., fluorocarbons and endocrine interrupters, I don't know how to think about that.


**We need to address the reason we ad people put in all those stupid cliches to begin with. Wearing white and doing gymnastics or diving into a pool proves that the product is leak-proof and comfortable. Hugging kittens speaks to our desire to be comforted and treated gently when our emotional pitch is high.  And the flowers imply innocence and cleanliness, a concern from back in the day when “women troubles” were dark and dirty. People make fun of the cliches but they forget that almost all advertising includes an iconography that is demanded by the consumers because it communicates quickly. What's frustrating is that, when I've run more realistic images through focus groups, the women get irritated. They WANT the cliches, the retouching, the unbelievable bodies, the poreless, wrinkleless skin, the make-up. We can't just change the advertising - because, of course, we need to sell stuff. We need to change our minds.

***Please comment! It is so strange to get 500 to 1500 views of a post and no idea (apart from facebook) of what people really think. 

how to be a leader without really trying...

[the context: i've written this to read to college students attending project nur's leadership conference this weekend from their website: project nur is a distinct and alternative Muslim voice: a civic identity grounded in pluralism and moderate thinking and action. it emphasizes civic action with the goal of forging a cohesive and mutually respectful multicultural community of university students committed to the advancement of human rights, civil rights, social justice, tolerance, understanding, and co-existence.]

i prefaced this talk with a quote from zarina, my middle daughter. when she was 10 or so, we were on our way to school where i was going to talk to her class about ramadan. she asked me, "so when do we find out that we're right?"

i said, "what do you mean?"

she said, "when do we find out that muslims are right and everyone else - like christians and jews and hindus - are wrong? do we find out when we die?"

and i said, "well, everyone is right. it's all the same thing. it's like a language, you can call god, allah, jesus, buddha, krishna and they are all just names for the same thing. all religions are trying to get us to the same place."

so here i am speaking in a muslim context, but i am really speaking to everyone. because we are all in this together.

here goes:


everywhere you look now, business culture is telling you how to be leader. there are books, seminars, cds and dvds all telling you to take charge.

saturday night, my daughter and i walked past a pop-up shop on 23rd st (in new york city) and there were mobiles and signs with affirmations and personal cheers like this:

be an individual
stand up for yourself
go your own way

you know the stuff. you see it all over the place. on posters, printed at the bottom of textbooks.

it occurred to me that the best leaders are the people who become leaders without really trying.

which doesn't mean it's easy. actually, it's really really hard. it's harder than doing every single leadership course and reading every book on it. that's like putting a lot of time into learning how to drive a car without ever knowing what you will drive or where you want to go.

from my experience on the planet, the best leaders are not the ones you imagine. they're not the ones who run the mean girls groups or the bullies in high school. they're not the ones who seem to have tons of friends around them all the time. they're not the ones trying to control anyone at all. a born leader isn't always - in fact, isn't often - a good leader.

real leaders, from my experience, are the people who are dedicated to a cause. who really believe in an idea. who are passionate and committed. so much so that they sometimes seem almost crazy.

in the harvard business school's "primal leadership" handbook, the initial premise - the culmination of their studies, articles and research - is that the "fundamental task of leaders... is to prime good feelings in those they lead. That occurs when a leader creates resonance - reservoir of positivity that frees the best in people."

this is interesting both from a prosaic perspective as well as from a spiritual one. for the purpose of this post, a great leader is someone who - by the example of their integrity and dedication - inspires others to something greater, bigger, more important.

for example, if you are obsessed with knitting and you go out of your way to find and create exceptional wool, and in the process, improve the lives of sheep and the people who raise them; you could find yourself an environmental leader.

from a spiritual perspective, if as a muslim, you take the life of the prophet muhammed (p.b.u.h.) - not necessarily the historical life, but the life and stories that we use as an example and a tool to help us negotiate the world - you find a man who is so devoted to the idea of the oneness of God and teaching compassion, honesty and tolerance that others eventually followed him.

it should be obvious here that a leader isn't in it for the money.

not that there's anything wrong with making money - but the power comes from the dedication to something bigger than personal profit - that's what draws people to you.

in my personal experience, i found i've become a leader when i've clearly stated what i believe in and how it makes me feel. people are drawn to that, they respond to it. not because i am trying to stand out, but because we are all humans and we recognize the universal emotions amongst us. when one expresses those feelings honestly and clearly, even to the point of vulnerability, people feel moved.

the most important lesson i learned from advertising came from a neurologist called donald calne. he said, “the essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.” (his book is called, “within reason: rationality and human behavior”)

the next step, once you are a leader, or perhaps when it's thrust upon you - as i found, when i suddenly became executive creative director of a large team at mccann-erickson - is what you do with it.

it seems that the biggest stumbling block for leaders is assertiveness. clearly and simply telling people what to do - whether they support you or sneer at you. most leaders, or people placed in positions of power, have trouble negotiating between over-assertiveness or under-assertiveness. under-assertive people become bullied by the people who they are meant to lead. they try too hard to be liked - they end by lacking direction.

in my case, i went out and bought a book called, "the girl's guide to being the boss (without being a bitch.)" or the chick in charge... i was trying to get a group of hostile people to work together, somewhat unsuccessfully.

and we all know the problem with over-assertive people - you've been avoiding those kids on the playground since you were four or five.

in forbes online recently, there was an interview with a neurobiologist about the brain chemistry of leaders. the interesting find was that as leaders become more successful, their testosterone levels rose, activating their dopamine systems. this means they become less empathetic to others and more likely to have a sense of infallibility.

the challenge for leaders, as they become successful, is arrogance.

we don't need brain scientists to tell us that, just history. or just the newspapers.

again, there's a spiritual side to this. just read lao tzu's "the art of war" - "a leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." as muslims, we can take our example from the prophet as well, a great leader is selfless. it's not personal glory, it's the greater good.

bizarrely, as someone who works in advertising, i've always felt that selflessness has to be the starting point in every conversation.

i still try and sell stuff and often stuff of questionable tangible value. but i always try and find the larger story in every product. i try and find how it is part of the greater good. i might be working on a fragrance for calvin klein, skincare for avon or clothing for jennifer lopez, but i always try and approach it by thinking about the message it creates for society. sometimes, it's as simple as feeling better about yourself - and thus being kinder and more peaceful - in a crazy world. other times, it's about social or environmental responsibility.

i started my own advertising agency with the idea that it is possible to use the forces of capitalism for good. that it wasn't always about getting the consumer to love your brand, it was about loving your consumer. so if you were selling a lipstick, you were thinking about women and girls' self-esteem and confidence. if you were selling a pair of jeans to an african-american guy, you were thinking about his role in society and helping him get educated and stay empowered. i got involved with park51 - the lower manhattan muslim community center project - because i felt it was crucial to have an interfaith, non-sectarian space with a muslim starting point.

of course, i wanted it - and we needed it - in my neighborhood.

all that said, in my mind, there's a pitfall to all the conversation about leadership today. especially in the workplace. it's flipside to the '50s and early '60s where people did what they were told and often didn't question it. they worked, got married, had babies, watched them grow up, retired and died. they tended not to switch careers or get divorced or go back to college to re-think. they tended to lack perspective and larger goals.

but today, it's the opposite. it's all opposition. with all the go-your-own-way and take-a-stand theories, it's hard to get the boat moving at all. too many people are overwhelmed with the do-your-own-thing mentality and it takes years for them to figure out what that thing is. they flip-flop. they don't know how to fit into an organization and they don't know how to follow. my mother quoted a native american phrase, "there are too many chiefs and not enough indians."

too many people are trying to be leaders - and for the wrong reasons, more out of a desire for personal glory than a desire to change things for the better for everyone. too many people are leaping up and taking over because they want control, or they think they do, but they're not sure where they're going.

most people would be better leaders if they learned how to be better followers. how to listen more closely to what leaders were saying and choose smarter ones to follow. how to impact leaders - because as a follower, you give the leader his/her power - to stand up for the greater good. if you don't like the message, let the leader know, especially if it's a message that pretends to speak for you. don't let your leaders talk about violence or intolerance.

as a follower, if you believe in your leader, stand up for him or her. blog, twitter, facebook - the internet is a free and fast way to connect to a wide range of people. it's a communication platform. but what's even more useful - show up - attend events. create critical mass. be a body. not just a wired "slack activist."

in the days before the internet, people used to say, "you vote with your feet." or "your wallet." in today's world, that's even more powerful. go there. don't just join the facebook group, boycott (or buy) the brand. march. sit-in. talk to people.

malcolm gladwell wrote in the new yorker about why social media wouldn't have - couldn't have - created the civil rights movement in the u.s. because social media can often win minds, but it can't always win hearts. it can't often drag us away from our laptops and inspire us to take risks in the real world. "social media alone doesn't inspire the kind of high-risk behaviour required for social activism." we need to be more than "slack activists" and make things happen.

what was frustrating for me, as a muslim, was that after sept 11 - and even today - people going on about how muslims don't speak out about the violence and intolerance. i started a not-for-profit, 100 percent human and muslims for peace, especially to create that unified public voice. i don't want to argue - muslims DO speak out - but we need to do it more. and we need to speak out even more about the people who represent us. yes, on blogs and twitters and articles, but also in real life.

so in a sense, yes, every single one of us has a responsibility to be a leader - a thought leader - to talk to everyone we know about what we believe, at home, at work, in social settings. we all have a responsibility to do something that will make the world a better, kinder place because that's why we're here in the first place.

(oh, and i just answered the question - "why are we here?" - as well)

so - back to the beginning - the best leaders are the ones who aren't really trying. they're just trying to be better people.