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It's The Story That Keeps Your Audience's Attention

Many begin their careers in media thinking that it is the technology and special effects that make a web site, CD ROM, video, film, or other media product effective. These are indeed important design elements. But it is the telling of a good story that attracts and holds an audience. It is a story that contributes to making your commercial, web site or any other media effort a success.

You might not realize that you are involved in telling stories because your clients are business, service, or education oriented. But every agency has a story to tell and in the telling you attract an audience to the services and products your client hopes to market.

People have used story telling for centuries for the transmission of ideas and the conveying of values. From the visual cave paintings of Lascaux to the earliest forms of print and now digital media, humans have used the tools of the day to communicate.

What is a story? People probably can't agree on a definitive answer that covers all possibilities of storytelling. But cognitive research suggests that the brain functions best when it recognizes familiar patterns and relationships. Stories provide such stimulation.

We often recall a story much better than specific facts and figures. Actually, stories can often be used to facilitate remembering more complex data.

Advertisers have become the storytellers of our time. The family oriented image of McDonalds is carefully crafted using a story about a dad who brings the kids to enjoy family fun together at McDonalds. Or Nike tells stories about athletic endeavors facilitated by their shoes, apparel, or equipment. Some stories are traditionally linear. Others may take different forms.

The journalist's traditional question of who, what, where, when, and why provide based components for some familiar story lines. Elaboration on these basic elements embellish a story and facilitate remembering a particular client's services or products. Lets look at a McDonalds commercial as an example.

Who – a family
What – goes out to eat
When – for lunch
Where – at Mc Donalds
Why – because Mc Donalds offers quick affordable meals; because dad can't cook; or its a special birthday - you pick the reason.

The designer now uses the craft of storytelling of set-up, conflict, and resolution through media to add the dramatic, visual, and audio elements that will facilitate an emotional connection between the viewer and the product.

Although we have focused above on the micro-story most often told through TV commercials we can also think about a web site as a place where a different type of story might be told through words, images, and sound. For example, The Roxanne hotel (fictional) was built in the 1930's but recently updated with a retro theme that should appeal to those looking for something different.

The web designer is challenged to market a hotel that may have met its fate with the wreaking ball if it investors hadn't found and turned it into a classic place to stay.

The hotel has many stories to tell from it's 70-years of serving patrons. Perhaps it is the story of Mouser, the elderly cat that sleeps in the hotel lobby giving the place the warmth of animal companionship, that becomes the focus for marketing. Telling how Mouser appeared one rainy night and was taken in from the storm by Red, the midnight Bell Captain, creates a sense of place and time. Because the cat has remained a fixture for so long some have come to assume he's been there since the hotel's beginning. The story of Mouser becomes the theme used throughout the web pages. Perhaps he is used as an iconic reminder that this hotel is not a branch of some mega hotel chain, but a small boutique venue that provides warmth and comfort in a home-like setting.

Stories serve the purpose of drawing people to your client's product for many different reasons. Stories,well told, are why people remain at the site and when they leave they remember an affective experience. Chances are they will recall later the product or service you were marketing. It isn't the "flash animation" that makes the sale it is the presentation of the content. The story and how it is told facilitates the transmission, delivery, reception, and recall of the message you've masterfully crafted.