About storytelling straight from Hollywood

Simply put, storytelling is telling a story. In the context of marketing, it’s telling a story about a brand. So much for the definition. It’s best to present storytelling in practice. Read on.

Storytelling in marketing – table of contents:

Storytelling in marketing in Volkswagen

A child dressed as Darth Vader enters the living room. He tries to use his “force” to move a stationary bike, impress a motionless dog, and pull sandwiches to himself. Unfortunately, his powers are insufficient… but just at that moment. When his father pulls into the driveway after work in his new Volkswagen Passat, the kid tries again – this time to start the engine. Well, he succeeds.

In this creative way, the brand unveiled a new series of vehicles, equipped with the remote engine start option. At the same time, they did it in just one minute, entertaining, referring to pop culture, and just passing information about themselves without speaking a word. This is how good storytelling is done.

Watch Super Bowl XLV – Darth Vader in Volkswagen TV Spot. You can find more similar examples by simply typing “Super Bowl Commercials” into your browser. That’s a real treasure trove of information. Take a look and get inspired!

Common elements of storytelling

What can we learn about storytelling by analyzing the above example? We’ve noticed five elements.

A hero with a goal – the child wants to fulfill the dream of having “powers.” The objective helps the viewer to identify with the protagonist – to step into his shoes and to feel what he feels.
Obstacles – there are obstacles on the way. Without obstacles, the heroes’ actions would be dull. Imagine Harry Potter without Voldemort or Luke Skywalker without Vader. Boring. Enemies and obstacles push the hero forward.
Emotions – the kid dressed as Darth Vader makes us melt. It’s good to choose a specific emotion you want to evoke in your story. That’s what movie and literary genres are for. Comedies entertain, horror films scare, etc.
The element of surprise – in the case of Volkswagen, this element is at the end of the spot.
Product placement – it may seem that since we use storytelling in marketing, the hero of the story should be the brand or its product. This is not true. This is rarely the case. In this example, the brand is merely an element of the story world or a means to an end.

Three elements of a good story

Stories are made up of many elements. But these three must be present in every one of them, or there would be no story to tell.

Hero

The hero is a central figure of a story. This is the character the reader, viewer, or listener focuses on. Their main task is to act and achieve their goals. If they just sat idle, there would be nothing to watch. It would simply be boring. And boredom is a killer for a story. It is through the actions of the hero that the viewer learns about the world of the story and, most importantly, identifies with the hero. And here is the first great challenge for storytellers. How to make the viewer, reader, or listener identify with the hero? There are several ways. We will mention two.

Set a big goal for the hero. Everyone has some needs – to feel safe, to be loved, to self-actualize, etc. Goals, on the other hand, are emanations of these needs. For example, Harry Potter’s goal was to kill Lord Voldemort. If he had not done so, he would have died himself and allowed the world of magic to be ruled by a wizard. In the story, the hero and his friends are constantly in mortal danger. So there is no way to feel safe. Harry must reach for safety.
Make the hero unfairly treated. Remember how three boys on bicycles oppressed little Forrest Gump by throwing rocks at him? And remember that Forrest couldn’t run because he had leg braces? He was bullied. He was fighting a losing battle. And then you started cheering for him and repeated after little Jenny “Run Forrest, run away”. It’s normal to keep our fingers crossed for the weak – for Forrest, for Rocky, for Neo, etc.

Enemy

The hero must be as interesting as the problem they have to face. And for the problem to be interesting, the hero needs an enemy-someone strong, powerful, and better than the hero themselves. In fact, the enemy must be strong enough to make the story’s audience doubt the hero’s success. This makes us curious.

Anyway, let’s look at popular examples. Lord Voldemort was the most powerful wizard ever. Darth Vader was the one who was supposed to restore balance to the galaxy but went to the dark side. And Ivan Drago was a Russian killing machine far more powerful than Rocky Balboa.

Conflict

When a hero wants something and an enemy stands in their way, we have a conflict. It doesn’t always have to be a fight to the death. In any case, the conflict has to be interesting and believable. And what does that mean?

In our opinion, no one has explained it better than Corey Mandell, an American screenwriter who has worked with stars, such as John Travolta and Ridley Scott. In one of his interviews, he recounted such a story.

“In the middle of a class with students, a teacher gets a call that his brother has had an accident and if the teacher doesn’t come to the hospital in 20 minutes to donate blood, the brother will die. Of course, the teacher drops everything and heads for the exit.”

Is there anything that can stop him? Let’s consider three options.

Option 1: The chair. Is this a problem? No problem at all. He’ll go around it and just walk away.
Option 2: The student. “Don’t leave! Stay and finish the lecture, I want to listen.” Is this a problem? Again, no. His brother’s life is more important than the lesson.
Option 3: Guns. A student at the back of the room pulls out a gun and points it at the teacher. “Come any closer to the door and I’ll shoot you. Let your brother die. I hate him.” What will the teacher do? Nobody knows. And that’s interesting.

This is a believable conflict. Watch free story structure training by Corey Mandell.

How to do storytelling? Tips from Hollywood

In our opinion, the best storytellers are in Hollywood and write scripts for movies and TV series. And if you want to learn storytelling, learn from the best. That’s why we’ve put together a set of useful tips below. Let’s take a look at them.

Tip 1. Start with Glenn Gers’ 6 essential questions

Before you write a story, you have to make it up. And to invent a story, you need ideas. But where do you get good ideas? It is not a question of where, but how. How do you get them? There is no better way than through a process of asking yourself questions. At least, that’s the opinion of Glenn Gers, who wrote the screenplay for “Fracture”, starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling.

That’s why when he gets down to writing, he always starts by asking himself these six questions. Finding the answers to them allows him to sketch out the whole story, to get a rough idea of how it will go. And that is a good start. The questions are:

Who is it about?
What do they want?
Why can’t they get it?
What do they do about that?
Why doesn’t that work?
How does it end?

Here is a video where Glenn Gers discusses the above questions: Storytelling: 6 essential questions

Tip 2. Structure your story

Once you have an initial outline of the story you want to tell, sooner or later you will need a structure that will make the story interesting to the viewer. And by structure, we mean the way the story is told and the order in which events are presented. Here again, it will be useful for you to know the so-called monomyth, that is, the stages that mythical heroes went through in their stories.

Books have been written on this subject. Two of them are worth reading – “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell and “The Writer’s Journey”. Mythic Structures for Writers” by Christopher Vogler. The latter is more up-to-date, so we will quote the story structure presented in it. By the way, Star Wars is largely told through the prism of this structure:

Ordinary world – the hero begins his journey in his ordinary world. “Ordinary” means something different to everyone, for example, to a soldier, it is the trenches, to a homeless man it is the dirty streets of New York.
The call to adventure – at some point, something interrupts the hero’s normal life and they receive an “invitation” to join the expedition. For example, Harry Potter literally received an invitation – a letter from Hogwarts.
Refusal of the call to adventure – At first, the hero is not ready to move into the unknown, so they resist. They would rather stay at home.
Meeting the mentor – but they meet a mentor who tells them to leave the cave and start their journey. They also provide him with resources – Luke Skywalker received his father’s lightsaber from Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Crossing the threshold – the hero embarks on a journey, crossing the boundary between the known and the unknown world. In movies, this is usually where the main action begins – “something happens”.
Tests, allies, and enemies – when entering a new world, the hero learns about it, makes friends, and encounters their first enemies, and we learn what rules apply there.
The approach – here the tension rises. The hero realizes that they are in danger. They are about to meet the enemy.
The ordeal – the hero faces difficulties that seem impossible to overcome. Fortunately, they have gained knowledge from their mentor beforehand, so they overcome them.
The reward – the hero experiences a symbolic death, but defeats their enemies.
The road back – the hero begins to return to their ordinary world. This is a time to reflect and summarize the wisdom they gained.
The resurrection – a new consciousness awakens in the hero. What they have experienced so far has changed them greatly.
Return with the elixir – the hero has returned to his ordinary life. Although the environment hasn’t changed, they are already different.

Tip 3. Use Pixar’s experience

If you’ve watched Toy Story, you probably know that one of the world’s top film studios – Pixar – is behind its production. And among its ranks is Emma Coats, who once shared on Twitter “22 rules of storytelling from Pixar”. We’ve listed those rules below.

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
You have to keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
Trying for a theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about until you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
The story spine: Once upon a time there was __. Every day, __. One day __. Because of that, __. Because of that, __. Until finally __.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the opposite at them. Challenge them. Make them respond.
Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
Finish your story, even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on and do better next time.
When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you. You’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, just an idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
Discount the first thing that comes to mind. And the second, third, fourth… get the obvious ones out of the way. Then surprise yourself.
Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable as you write, but it’s poison to an audience.
Why must you tell this story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honestly lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
What are the stakes? Give us a reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against them.
No work is wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on — it’ll come back around to be useful later.
You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best and fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How do you rearrange them into what you do like?
You gotta identify with your situation and characters. You can’t just write ‘cool.’ What would make you act that way?
What’s the essence of your story? The most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

One (obvious) rule

In the end, one thing is worth realizing. In the world of storytelling, anything is allowed – except boredom. When boredom creeps in, the TVs go off, and with them, the hopes of brands that their stories will be heard.

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Author: Adam Sawicki
Owner and Editor-in-Chief of Rebiznes.pl, a website with news, interviews, and guides for solo entrepreneurs and online creators. In media since 2014.
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