Storytelling

Challenge & Selection

Storytelling is a great tool that I use all the time. It helps explain the interconnections  among people in situations and settings, teaching broad lessons that engage real human beings.  I  am a founder of a production house and I have different clients, restaurant, corporate  company, NGO.......etc. Every project has its own story, which always inspires us.  And guide us to solve complexities of the social orders and life, touch us emotionally,  enrich empathy, generate curiosity, nurture who we are, and amend our behaviour.

I had a client Jenny, who was a new launch pet grooming shop owner. According to her high-end  standard service & prices, and the market not yet recognized her brand. She failed to attract  customer experience their service at the beginning. Jenny requests me to make a promotion video  for her shop, and show me a lot of service packages, and excellent certified stylists provide full  services pet bath with haircut. However, my experience told me, that cannot solve her problems.

Application

I show her a story from my friend, who is a chef, always love to enhance his dishes  and develop a new dish. One day he invited me to try out his new dish, that he  considers being his signature dish. And asked for any advices on how to promote it. I  listened to the whole story about how did he develop the dish and the challenges  during the creation. He spent a lot of time to fine-tune his dish, tried out different  ingredients combination, slice them in different sizes and ways,  compared the texture  and taste by different cooking time. And Finally, how did he pick a name for the dish  from about a hundred ideas. I rejected to promote his signature dish. But proposed  him to promote himself to the public. Since the most charming part of the story, not  the signature dish itself, but the crazy chef's passion and determination on food.

Jenny totally got the point at that moment. Understand should not focus on promoting  the service package or products, but how they care about the pets from their heart.  Since many people treated their pet as a kid. They all considering how you treated  their sweetheart like them.  Finally, we focus the promotion on the happy moment of  their staff interaction with different pets, made it fun with joyful music. It got great  success, she got more and more customers became their members.

Insight & Approach

What I have learned from storytelling to my clients is everyone may have their  fantastic story, but not everyone know how to perform it well. Sometimes we may  forget the sight of the audiences. In fact telling a story, equivalent to communicate a  message to your audience. And the best practice is always to know your audience,  figure out how to deliver the message is more effective. Journey mapping is another great  tool, which helps us study our audiences and identifying needs that customers are often unable to  articulate.

