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    Digital influx - Swiss Marketing Day at its best

    Ever since the 60’s when Bill Bernbach revolutionized the advertising world by telling stories to sell products, the term storytelling took on a very different shape and meaning and it’s more prevailing than ever before. The major difference now being the attention span of the potential client is even shorter as the mass of digital influx trafficking our limbic part of the brain has to digest up to 10’000 ad messages per day, according to social media entrepreneur Aldo Gnocchi and Sarah Stiefel, head of digital media at the Swiss National Railway (SBB).”

    The true marketing and branding people have long understood that people don’t buy products, instead they buy emotions and those emotions can only be transported with a great story. The legendary Keith Reinhard (DDB emeritus chairman) illustrated an experiment where cheap gadgets such as a $3 dollar rabbit sculpture were put on eBay, underlined with a fantastic storyline, the rabbit sold for 100 bucks in the end! Reinhard stresses the point that the emotional message is far more important over the rational. He goes even a step further and says that you got to «make me care – a product without a meaning is merely a commodity, but a product with meaning is a brand.» (Also, google the „Pixar rules of storytelling“).

    Now we have learned that you got to tell your story in order to sell your product or service, but are there differences in how brands tell their stories?

     

    Yes there are as Ty Montague of co:collective points out. On one side we have the classical companies that pay lots of money to produce stories and then place them via preferred media channels and then we have the brands that practice «Storydoing» — a term that has been trademarked by Montague’s co:collective brand consultancy firm. In its essence Storydoing brands use their core principles in all of their endeavors such as recruitment, partnerships and communication. One such example is Red Bull that barely does any conventional advertising; instead they have created their own world of extreme sports and built an incredible following via authenticity and originality. Of course, we all know about this already from the late Steve Jobs who didn’t leave any of the marketing decisions up to a marketing department by chance and that’s mainly because he was on a quest:

    A) beyond a general commercial success and

    B) he invited his clients to come on the journey and become fans of the brand

     

    What was Jobs then is Elon Musk today, we’d like to argue that he is probably one of the forerunners of storydoers in the 21 first century with Tesla and Space X. Tesla’s quest is not that of an ordinary car manufacturer, Tesla is about to change behavior and attitudes of an entire generation to come.

     

    When it comes down to our decision making process, it is proven that 70% is decided subconsciously. “Emotions are much more than feelings, emotions are what drives us – sort of an emotional operating system, as Dr. Hans-Georg Häusel, one of the worlds top leading experts in neuro-marketing, explains. He adds: “There are always two elements to a good story: One is accountable for reward such as happiness and lust and the other is punishment such as fear or pain. Häusel has written numerous top selling books about consumer behavior and is an expert in storytelling himself, as the crowd continuously cheers up in frenetical laughter when he makes his points.

     

    Last night at the Getty Center – at the opening of its ambitious exhibition devoted to Los Angeles modern and contemporary architecture – the first thing that greeted visitors was a monumental painting by Peter Alexander showing LA at night, from the air, exactly the way the city greeted me upon my arrival many years ago.

     

    Summing this day up, Mr. Uwe Tännler the acting president of „Swiss Marketing“ hand picked some of the most intriguing and knowledgeable key note personalities you can possibly consume in one day, but what really peaked it was Susanne Wille, a journalist and TV personality who drilled each key note after the presentation, which added some extra spice. Plus, the storytelling personality Reeto von Gunten, who intertwined in between each keynote and summed up the essence of storytelling as follows:

     

    First, there is a beginning or in other words the idea. There has got to be a surprise in the first sentence, the reader strives to understand the unknown. Second, there is the main part. This is about a conflict, the turning point or the experience of the protagonist. Third and last: the finding, which is the meaning or the essence of the story. However, as Reeto von Gunten points out: “It’s not really the end of the story, because good stories continue in the observer’s mind — good stories never end“.

    To learn more about the keynote speakers and the winners of the marketing Trophy, visit below links.

    VISIT Schweizerischer Marketing-Tag

    VISIT Ty Montague // True Story

    VISIT Hans-Georg Häusel // Brain View

    VISIT Atelieer // Reeto von Gunten