This article originally appears on Medium

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…it’s Actually a Trash Panda

Storytelling’s Vital Role in PR and Marketing

By Chris Ward, Senior Copywriter, Weber Shandwick St. Louis

In 2006 – when I was fresh-faced and 30 pounds lighter – veteran comic book writer Keith Giffen took me under his wing near the beginning of my writing career.  Why?

Who can say… he has an overactive imagination and was probably bored.

 

If you don’t know Keith, that’s ok. I’m not hyperlinking him for a reason. That’ll ruin the surprise.

For now, I’ll just say that you, along with most of the world, have probably paid to see his creations on the big screen multiple times. But we’ll get to that, along with what all this comic book business has to do with the world of PR and marketing.

Back then, Giffen and I jammed on a series of odd comic book writing assignments featuring pirates, ninjas and repurposed public domain books.

This was my first break in the not-entirely-lucrative field of freelance writing, but I jumped at the chance to work alongside one of my storytelling heroes.

Which brings us back to why you’ve actually heard of Keith Giffen.

Back in 1976, Giffen’s very first published work was co-creating an unpopular character you’ve probably heard of: Rocket Raccoon.

This was not supposed to be a popular character in any universe.

And then, years later, Giffen would make people take notice of another largely ignored D-Lister withering on the branch of the Marvel rosters …a walking tree named Groot.

In terms of known pop culture properties, they were benchwarmers. Expendable. Unmarketable. In a way, the creative teams, and the books, were set up to fail.

For decades, those characters sat on a shelf until someone decided “Hey, we can do something with this. There’s a story here.”

There was always a story there.

Giffen and company took these so-called “throwaway brands” and accepted the challenge, spinning incredible stories with heart, humor, pathos and clever dialogue, and fleshed out unknown characters into real, funny and relatable heroes. Now, the not-ready-for-prime-time team of a Trash Panda with a Machine Gun and an Oak Tree (who speaks exactly one phrase of dialogue) is one of the most celebrated in pop culture.

Because Giffen took these properties seriously, audiences followed suit – his irreverent approach to Rocket Raccoon and Groot would eventually make Marvel millions with the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

This only succeeded because Keith always looked for storytelling opportunities that considered character first, and trusted everything else would come second.

Against the odds, Giffen proved everyone wrong. And he did it by taking so-called “B-List Brands” seriously, and finding the heart of the story at its most human core.

Who doesn’t like a good underdog saga?

As marketers working with a giant portfolio of clients across all fields of industry, we can learn a lot from Giffen’s approach. Our job is often to make so-called outcasts like Rocket Raccoon bigger brands than established icons like Superman.

We are at our best when we to do that in our own industry – advocating for powerful storytelling at every opportunity.

Furthermore, Weber Shandwick Executive Vice President David Krejci offers additional tips and practices to help hone in on story elements. A great story must be:

·         UNIQUE – Sure, there’s almost nothing truly new under the sun. For example, Star Wars is a variation on a 1958 movie called The Hidden Fortress. Don’t be afraid to put a crazy twist on a familiar theme. At the heart of Star Wars, or a story about four mutant ninja turtles, or even a school of gifted mutants, is a story about family. And that’s what connects. Don’t be afraid to be unusual.

·         HUMAN – Put a human face on your story. People are more likely to respond to humanity, not brands. “Humans simply aren’t moved to action by ‘data dumps,’ dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures,” says author Jonathan Gottschall for Fast Company. “People are moved by emotion…in fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence…When we are absorbed in a story we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this seems to leave us defenseless.” Additionally, Krejci adds that “stories have always required a human core to hold readers, but it’s truer than ever now that social networking has put our communicative instincts into overdrive.”

·         CONFLICT/RESOLUTION – Where is the conflict in your story? The suspense?

“The old storytelling foundation still holds its place at center stage for our attention,” Krejci says. “Shakespeare knew it. So do authors of religious texts, political manifestos and soap operas. A story without a conflict/resolution dynamic is a wickless candle.”

I would add that “keeping it simple” is important. In our business, it feels like the simplest stories often resonate the loudest. When Always simply asked “what does it mean to ‘throw like a girl,’ anyway?”, they were able to tell a powerful story with one simple question...one that incorporated elements of every aspect listed here.

There is story in everything, no matter how innocuous or crazy it sounds at first.

Story is why Rocket Raccoon and Groot are resonating with audiences (according to Rotten Tomatoes) more than Superman: a 79-year-old bulletproof and bankable brand whose big-screen appearances have proven rocky with audiences as of late.

No one can afford to coast on iconography for long. The storytelling competition around us is too damn compelling. There’s a Rocket Raccoon out there waiting to bite your brand’s ankles.

Great storytelling starts with what Toy Story/Wall-E writer Andrew Stanton bluntly commands fellow writers in his TED talk – “MAKE ME CARE.”

We’ve all stared at a creative brief in cold despair wondering how to do just that, our brains a blinking cursor on a white screen of thought. But to get to Stanton’s “make me care” solution, you first have to address the most cynical of questions: “WHO CARES?”

From there, we begin the work of answering that question “What would make me, a pessimistic writer care, and why?” Eventually, an idea is born that you personally (and eventually your target audience) might give a lick about.

The best marketers work hard to avoid subconsciously giving short shrift to the “unmarketable” work right in front of them and instead focus on thinking big and seeing limitless potential.

Just tell us a story, and make it a good one. It’s the heart of all we do and care about.

As times change, the storytelling platforms will keep changing and evolving – Virtual reality, augmented reality, and even interactive text-message novels are here – but the fundamentals of storytelling have not (and likely will not) change.

And that’s very good news for everyone.

To me, the great thing about storytelling is not just what it can be, but what it doesn’t require.

Limitations – whether they’re mandatories from a client, restrictions, budget concerns, or any number of firewalls – give creatives and storytellers something to push against. “Artists long for limitations; excessive freedom casts us into a vacuum,” writer Jaron Lanier wrote for Wired.

He’s right, as anyone who has experienced the Paradox of Choice can attest. John Lennon said “I’m an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I'll bring you something out of it.”

These boundaries lead to greater creativity, because tough decisions must be made.

To that end, we know a great story does not require many words. Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word novel proved as much: “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”

A great story does not require ANY words. It doesn’t even require visuals. It doesn’t require audio.

And, most importantly for shrinking attention spans, a great story doesn’t take long (see the masterful work of YouTube’s “Five Second Films”).

 

And, importantly for our business, it doesn’t require a budget – just look at the early shorts of The Simpsons.

 

So, absorb storytelling media. Immerse yourself in every great story you can. The more you know about what’s cliché, what’s been done, what works, what doesn’t (and even what stories aren’t your brand’s to tell), the better prepared you’ll be to tell a story worth hearing in the noise.

And the more likely you are to treat every so-called Rocket Raccoon brand in your portfolio with A-List Potential.

Because, honestly, if a gun-toting, one-liner quipping raccoon can become the backbone of a million-dollar franchise based on story appeal alone, your creative brief demanding a captivating story about an otherwise generic product might seem a little less daunting.

And that’s all from me. In the comments, I’d love to hear more examples of marketing creativity that either blew your mind or missed the mark, or what you’ve learned over the years as well tackling creative briefs and other challenges.