Stop Selling, Start Storytelling
The Power of Storytelling in Creative Effectiveness
Stop Selling, Start Storytelling
The Power of Storytelling in Creative Effectiveness
Storytelling sells more than when you just try to sell
To tell a story is to be human. Stories are fundamental to how we make sense of the world, communicate and are consistently shown to be an effective way to change our behaviour and how we live our lives. Joan Didion said it best, that “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”.
Yet despite the evidence supporting the behaviour changing power of storytelling, only half of advertising even attempts to tell a story. This means that one in two ads we come across focus mainly on selling product features, rather than using a story to deliver their audience a good quality experience that showcases their products.
This publication puts forward another vision for how we can creatively get to more effective work. Drawing on creative effectiveness evidence from 15 thousand video ads and the responses of two million people, we observe advertising that puts stories at the heart of the experience is significantly more likely to increase sales than those that only attempt to sell. Using Generative AI, we also classified around 100 story types to identify which are most effective in impacting sales.
With this evidence, our Creative Excellence team at Ipsos make the case for the effectiveness power of stories that place trust in our audience to join the experience, rather than treating them as passive recipients of facts and product features. Let’s be clear here, by storytelling we don’t mean just safe, predictable story arcs. This is about storytelling through the Misfits Mindset. The gloriously weird, the beautifully illogical, the narratives that don't make sense. These are the stories that are nearly three times more effective.
Drawing on creative effectiveness evidence from 15 thousand video ads and the responses of 3 million people, we observe advertising that puts stories at the heart of the experience is significantly more likely to increase sales than those that only attempt to sell
Key Takeaways
1.
Humour that encourages audience participation increases memorability and is most effective when it places trust in the audience to be part of the experience, by using playfulness, irony, exaggeration or wordplay.
2.
Humour framed in the illogical and unexpected is x2.7 more effective in driving memorability. Ads that subvert expectations and show a clash of reality and fantasy provide escapism for audiences, opening the memory gateways to be retained in the mind.
3.
Ads with stories are x2 more effective in changing behaviour than those that only focus on showing brand features. By using a sequence of events the audience can connect with, and positive character outcomes related to the brand, stories act as a vehicle for effectiveness.
4.
This effectiveness gain from stories has been evident in advertising over decades. When we use AI models to predict human responses to the most enjoyed ads from the 1950s-2000s, we see they are highly effective and most deliver one or more of narrative, humour and the illogical. This should reassure marketers of the enduring power of storytelling and provide inspiration to use it as an effectiveness vehicle for their advertising.
5.
Stories can be told across different media experiences and are not limited to long form video. Creator led ads in short form video are the latest evolution of storytelling and support high levels of memorability. This should give marketers confidence to tell stories across media channels, while creatively respecting the need to adapt the experience to each media context.
