Storytelling and Market Research

A Practical User Guide

C. Frederic John

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000473421
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing Research
• Index: Business

Showing how market researchers can get a seat at the decision-making table, this book is the essential guide to mastering storytelling techniques that can dramatically enhance the impact of research reports and presentations, commanding full audience engagement and buy-in.

While demand for storytelling in marketing research reports and presentations has mushroomed in recent years, there can be confusion about what decision-makers mean by "stories." Leading market research expert C. Frederic John eliminates this confusion by defining four specific types of story in the business arena, and providing a series of "how-to" guides for generating effective solutions when communicating learning and other information. This book is the first to emphasize the needs of the report reader or presentation audience.

Drawing on examples from ancient and modern literature, drama, opera, and other arts, this book will help today's (and tomorrow's) market research professionals to thrive in a world demanding insights, real-world recommendations, and more relevant deliverables.

Chapter 1

The Fundamental Power of Story

DOI: 10.4324/9781003202516-2

In order to harness the power of storytelling in your own work, you need to fully understand the unique nature of this form of human expression and what gives it such force in our lives. This chapter provides this background and should prepare you to take full advantage of the more practical guidance found in later chapters. Specifically, it addresses four critical aspects of story:

1. Its pervasiveness in our lives and in all forms of art
2. The transformative properties that give stories such power
3. The special roles and responsibilities of the storyteller
4. How these roles and responsibilities apply to the market researcher

The Ubiquity of Story

Stories surround us, from cradle to grave. We embody stories—our own, our experiences, our memories, all the stories we’ve heard throughout our lives, all the stories we’ve ever told, all the stories we want to tell but haven’t yet been able to share.

Story is a quintessential, and probably unique, characteristic of humanity that defines us as a species. And ironically, while stories almost always emerge within a given society, they also form one of the few links that bind all of humanity together.

Story, in fact, is one of the most powerful forms of human communication. At its most basic level, it entertains, often by evoking various emotions—amusement, surprise, sorrow, anger, indignation, piety, etc. It also serves as an essential teaching tool, guiding students by seemingly “real-life” examples.

Story certainly serves as a means of informing—the fundamental task of the journalist and the historian. And story plays a vital role in persuasion—again, often citing “real-life” (or modified or totally invented) incidents to convince an audience.

The Compulsion to Explain

Many stories emerged as attempts to “explain.” Most basically, creation myths arose as humans struggled to understand how the world came into being. Attempts to explain natural forces, the sources of the human condition, why things happen or don’t happen, and what powers really control the world and our destiny produced other myths.

Stories also provided behavioral guidance—with tales of deities and their interactions with mankind providing direction as to what was expected of us, as well as fables contrived to teach us the proper way to behave.

Stories Everywhere

The range of narratives that fall under the story rubric is huge, from simple children’s books and fairy tales to folk tales, short stories, novels, and sagas, as well as diaries, news and magazine articles, and histories. We tend to divide narratives between two distinct groups:

• Those that accurately relate events that really happened, such as history, biography, and journalism, that we call non-fiction.
• Those that make no such claim, what we call fiction.

But there are numerous gray areas in between, such as historical fiction, that blend real events with those that are purely the invention of the author. And many other depictions of real events often need to “flesh out” the historical record with dialogue, possible encounters between characters, and frequently the imagined thoughts of historical figures.

Fables and the like provide another type of hybrid form that combines clearly fictional elements but are intended to communicate an underlying truth. Aesop’s fables conjure up talking animals, but the moral at the end is intended to teach something truthful about morality, human nature, or life in general.

The parables of Jesus serve the same purpose. Did the prodigal son really exist? It hardly matters; the story is simply a means to reveal a moral principle.

Even communications that are not strictly narratives, such as textbooks or volumes devoted to the sciences, often weave in stories to get a point across. For example, a brief history of how a certain principle was discovered (such as Newton and the apple) may be cited in the context of presenting the principle of gravity.¹

In addition, case studies are standard fare in law, business, economics, and the sciences. And exercises and problems, even in the pure realm of mathematics, often take the form of stories:

• “Betty has seven eggs, and she plans to sell them for 12 cents apiece…”
• “Two trains 100 miles apart start heading toward each other on parallel tracks. One is going 40 miles per hour, the second 60 miles per hour…”

This same approach applies to many other forms of communication, including sermons and political speeches aimed at influencing opinion and shaping behavior. The late George P. Schultz, a former U.S. Secretary of State, recently wrote that President Reagan advised him that when writing a speech, adding a relevant story allows you to appeal to the audience’s emotions as well as their minds. “Telling a story, he made me understand, helps make your case in a way that no abstraction can: A story builds an emotional bond, and emotional bonds build trust.”²

Story = Sharing

At its foundation, story is a form of sharing, of one person or a group imparting information, ideas, experiences, values, or real or imaginary happenings to an audience. By its very nature, story is a bonding experience that can transcend not only cultures but also centuries because they touch the primal nature of our humanity.

It is often said that a story can “transport” us to a distant time and place, and enable us to respond emotionally:

• We can still respond in horror at the deceit of Agamemnon tricking his wife into sending their daughter to her death.³
• We can laugh at the foibles portrayed in Roman comedies, and in Shakespeare’s, as much as in Neil Simon’s.
• We are entertained as we move through the Arabian nights, and share the joys and agonies that fill novels from Cervantes to the present day…
• … Even though the societies shaping the stories, such as Edith Wharton’s New York, and even the situations themselves, no longer exist.

Many Arts Tell Stories

Stories Set in Music

Stories are not just told or written down to be read—they can be communicated through many other art forms as well. Musical stories can be found in many vocal genres, from folk and art songs to oratorios and opera.

• Even purely instrumental music can suggest a story in the form of program music, such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, and Smetana’s Moldeau.
• In these orchestral works, the composer provides a rough outline of a sequence of events and leaves the listener to imagine the scenes the music evokes.

Paintings: Stories Frozen in Time

Paintings often portray a moment in what is meant to be an ongoing story. Even the earliest cave paintings appear to suggest dramatic scenes that are not intended to be static images, but depict galloping herds or hunts where humans and animals interact.

• Many later paintings can be experienced as frozen images of a moment in time for which there is clearly a before and an after.
• Much the same can be said of many sculptures.

Even fairly static images, such as portraits, still lifes, or outdoor scenes, can evoke a sense that there is a story lurking behind or beyond the canvas. A Renaissance portrait might lead you to ask:

• This self-possessed young man, what is he really like? How does he live and act? What does his expression, his clothes, and his few possessions shown tell us?
• Our minds are tempted to imagine the answers and fill in the unstated gaps.
• (If you don’t have a traditional portrait in mind or on hand, you might check this one out: Circle of Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) (1483–1520), Portrait of a Young Man in Red, c 1505.) Here is the link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circle_of_Raphael_(Raffaello_Sanzio)_-_Portrait_of_a_Young_Man_in_Red_-_78.PB.364_-_J._Paul_Getty_Museum.jpg

Similarly, consider a traditional eighteenth- or nineteenth-century pastoral scene:

• That beautiful landscape—perhaps we can see ourselves walking across the fields, or it reminds us of past experiences when we basked in the bright sunshine in just such a meadow.
• (Again, if you need inspiration, here’s one that might work for you: John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 1816.) You can view it here: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/wivenhoe-park-ssex/vAG0ovJU1U65Rw?hl=en

Other Art Forms

Much of what applies to painting can be applied to photography as well, which historically was a medium for capturing real people, either in formal postures or in their daily lives, as well as the inherent beauty of natural phenomena.

Stories can also be shared through dance performances, sometimes explicitly, such as in a formal ballet like Swan Lake, or in the motions of various popular dances. Many of these present stylized situations whose explanation requires no spoken narrative, such as those in which a couple acts out a flirtation.

Drama brings story to life, as real people pretend to be characters in a story. Film, of course, can be seen as the ultimate medium for storytelling. From its inception, it was able to provide the “before” and “after” to the photographic scene, at the same time enabling drama to be captured and shared around the world.

Your Turn

Take a few moments to consider your own immersion in stories. In many cases, these may be so imbedded in your experience that you are hardly conscious of them. Here are a few ways you can become more aware of how stories have impacted your life:

1. Try to remember some of the earliest stories that were read or told to you as a child.
   • What aspects can you still recall?
   • What about these particular tales give them their “sticking” power so many years later?
   • Can you remember anything about what you felt as you heard these stories?
2. Remember explaining something to someone, and using an example to get a point across; for example, how a process works, what a law means, or a scientific principle.
   • Why do you think you went from the general (what you were explaining) to the specific (an example)?
   • How did you come up with the example you used?
   • Did citing an example make it easier for the person to understand what you were explaining?

The Transformative Properties of Story

The ubiquity of story in our lives, in our arts, and in all kinds of communications, raises the questions, “Why is narrative so powerful? Why do we find it so engaging? And what is it in the essence of story that enables us to transcend the normal boundaries of time and culture?”

We can find answers in the nature of “engagement.” Story embodies three transformative properties that enable—encourage—our engagement: one allows us to temporarily disassociate ourselves from the real wor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Fundamental Power of Story
• 2 The Immediate and the Essential
• 3 Tales Clients Tell
• 4 The Written Report as Narrative
• 5 A Radically New Approach to the Presentation
• 6 Humanizing the Presentation
• 7 Recasting the Narrative as an Imaginary Tale
• 8 The Story of a Company or Brand
• 9 Continuous Learning
• Appendix: “Landscape and Narrative”
• Index