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storycodeX

~ The art of story in life, business and business life.

storycodeX

Tag Archives: Aristotle

Three Arrows. Three Words. One STORYCODEX.

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by herr dennehy in Ideas, Storytrain, What is STORY?

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, change, digital storytelling, expectation, Robert McKee, storycodex, surprise

People often ask me: What is a story? And what isn’t?

Where to begin? Where to end? How to convey the essence of this ancient concept in a so-called elevator pitch – which is even much shorter than the infamous management summary?

Epic’s have been written, filmed, recorded about this topic. From Aristotle to McKee. All very well, all very correct. But also: all very long.

This is my elevator-pitch attempt at less-than-twitter brevity, a visualisation of story motion. Three arrows. Three words. My storycodeX in a nutshell:

herr dennehy's storycodeX

You can always apply more detail. More academia. And I’m sure I will, bit by bit.

But for me: This is it.

Agree?

Disagree?

Why?

Let me know!

cheers
herr dennehy

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This is NOT a story #1: The Dylan Chrysler Experience

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by herr dennehy in This is NOT a story

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aristotle, Bob Dylan, brand journalism, brand storytelling, business storytelling, change, Chrysler, Clint Eastwood, conversations, corporate storytelling, David Bowie, digital storytelling, Dirty Harry, drama, expectation, hero, Louis Vuitton, plot, surprise. suspense, tension, true story, video storytelling

Sometimes, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And sometimes, the world actually takes notice. Sometimes even a little too much. As in the case of Mister Robert Zimmermanns’ latest coup in a lifetime effort to alienate his lovers, re-assure his haters, and simply do everything possible to not fit into one of those boxes that our world so loves to create to get a grasp at the ungraspable: Life.

I’m talking about the new piece of advertising Dylan has allowed US car manufacturer Chrysler to produce using him as a mighty testimonial:

…

I’m neither going to chime into the (ridiculous and so 1965-Newport-Folk-Festival-like) fundamentalist fan mob’s “OMG! He’s selling out to commerce” outcries, nor will I (at least not yet, that is…) offer any half-baked analysis of why Bob is such a genius, why he’s never there, always the passenger of a slow train coming with no direction home, always already part of a new morning, heading for modern times, leaving blood on the tracks while his worshippers are still marching on desolation row towards the Gates of Folk Eden. No, others have done that before, probably better than I ever could.

Which is why it does indeed surprise me that he still actually manages to surprise, at least some, with his ambiguous “it ain’t me, babe” smile on his face. If it were up to me, he could advertise Pepsi refreshments or Victoria’s Secret ladies garments, I’d still not stop to admire the Zimmermann Phantom and his many ways of deliberate and couldn’t-care-less fanielation. Oh, he already did??? Ahh, whatever. 😉 Those two were at least entertaining, somewhat intelligently composed, and equipped with some more Dylan-esque “in-between-the-line-ness”.

No, what this here is about is my bewilderment by the fact that the Chrysler spot simply is a poor piece of pathetic advertising – and story-wise plainly sucks, because it isn’t a story, but pretends to be. And that a man, who has created himself a well-earned reputation as a musical storytellers of and about his time, agreed to be its centerpiece (I won’t call him hero in this respect, as it’s neither heroic what he’s doing or saying, nor in any way dramatic in the Aristotelian sense to make him deserve this title).

Why Chrysler is doing this, and exactly in this fashion, is clear: It’s an American company, more up-to-date American never than here, appearing desperate and back-to-the-wall-ish, seeing hopes dashing in many an economic sector; automotive, for example. They draw the marketing card of desperation (by the way: already Act II of the company’s Drame du Deséspoir after Act I where they threw Dirty Harry into the ring two years ago): Take a well-known, respected, but still a little controversial celebrity (you know they’ll love or hate him for this!), use clichemotional imagery of what makes America’s nerves shake (no way to err with cheerleaders and cowboys on horses in slow-mo, a little stars and stripes and historical analogies, babies and hard-working factory laborers!), polarize and tease your rivals a little (not too much, just a little to add spice to the saltless soup and give the regulars’ table something to talk about), and end with the all-too-expected “Wir sind wieder wer!” message stolen from se Germans in 1954. Oh, and not to forget: Pay millions to place this ad in front of the world’s eyes at the Super Bowl finale – where reach really still means conversion and conversation. About what, that’s another question.

Why Bob Dylan is doing this, Alias knows. Maybe to escape from the burden of being witty, erudite, convoluted, and the role model of more than one generation all the time, into the shallowness and immediacy of corporate advertising every now and again? Maybe just for the fun of acting while actually being an actor and not a singer-songwriter? Maybe for the dosh? Maybe, maybe, maybe … who cares? I don’t.

But what I do care about being insulted by bad ads and videos and films that pretend to be stories. Why do I think this one is so bad, may have become obvious above, below and in between these lines so far, but a friend of mine recommended I add a kind of management summary at the end of my posts to avoid the feeling of “Wow, that was interesting, but, err, what was it about again?”. So here it is, my dear Performance Passionist: 😉

  1. Nothing’s happening. Nothing’s changing. It’s simply boring. I wouldn’t want to watch it to the end without all the media fuzz about and Bob Dylan in it. I would leave the latest after 30 seconds.
  2. No surprise. No one manages to surprise me here, and seems like no one even wants to. The surprise of seeing Bob Dylan make-up-ed and hair-dyed after 18 seconds is the only surprise you get – and I’m left with the fear that the analogy of Dylan not holing any ball at the end might have a deeper meaning. A message triangle gone video.
  3. No hero, no plot. There is no hero, only a narrator narrating through a non-existent plot. But actually narrator Dylan ain’t telling, he’s just talking, saying things that only scratch the surface of America’s story and the story of every American shown in these two minutes. Shallow and predictable. And don’t mistake the narrator for the hero, neither the story-immanent one nor the one you think you’re seeing. It’s only Bob (whoever that is) playing someone else.
  4. No expectation. Neither within nor without this advertisement am I expecting anything, let alone more – and arousing no expectation is the worst mistake being made here. The fact that nothing is happening could, however, be countered by the tension and expectation of what might happen AFTER the short scene just shown. As it was actually quite successfully attempted in Dylan’s Victoria’s Secret spot in 2009, or in last year’s Louis Vuitton spot with David Bowie. Both not stories per se, but the beginning act of a potential plot continuation, a story teaser, making me expect more to come, wanting to know, if and how this scene continues. Not so with The Chrysler Boredom.

The only chance this spot has for a longer-term success and more sustainable, content-based conversations (beyond the “Have you seen the latest Super Bowl ad with Dylan?” reflex) about the big theme the ad is suggesting (“The people of America and their love to manufacture something with their own hands that provides a living for their families and a sense of pride to be giving the world something it wants, needs, and maybe even copies”), is a prolongation of this mere advertising pretension into the digital space.

A prolongation that includes every little story of every single potential hero in this two-minute film. The young lady wrapped in the Stars and Stripes at second 0:08. The grateful-looking old man at second 0:14. The waitress serving him. The mother with her(?) child at second 0:54. The factory worker at minute 1:04. Or any of the men standing behind the pool table like tin soldiers at the end. These stories, if indeed they exist, would prove that the above big-story suggestion is not just advertising bullshit, that the company able to pay so much money for production and airing of this ad actually is capable of lighting the spark of pride in these peoples’ hearts. That it maybe even manages to help improve their lives. Most importantly, this would prove that they’re not all just casted models for a seemingly authentic TV spot.

… And then there would be the story of this old man with the dyed hair who wants us to believe that he is who he seems to be, that he is actually someone we know, someone like you and me, and not just some Alias playing a role in innocent Billy the Kid’s endless fight against the unjust hands of some imported Pat Garret imitation …

That would be a story. A completely different one. One that many have tried to tell, but no one really knows.

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“What IS story? And what ISN’T?” … Part 3: The Truth Aspect

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by herr dennehy in Ideas

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aristotle, Authenticity, boardwalk empire, brand storytelling, business storytelling, corporate storytelling, documentary, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, Martin Scorsese, social media, Steve Buscemi, story structure, storyteller, true story, Truth

“Never let truth get in the way of a good story.”
Nucky Thompson

Now that’s a sledge hammer statement, I’d say.

More truth behind it, however, than you find in most of the business “stories” out there, that’s a fact. A truth that’s just as old as story itself. Especially in the context that Steve Buscemi’s character utters it in Episode 1 of Terence Winter’s and Martin Scorsese’s no less fascinating mob series “Boardwalk Empire” – which is politics.

Unfortunately, this has no less been true for the sphere of economics and business ever since we started to trade mammals for firewood way back in the days – or bonds and shares for lies on Wall Street just recently. And as we all know, business is nothing but politics, so in a way you could say that corporate messaging is suffering the same slow death as capitalism is, or at least the locust version that brought down the Lehman Bros: People don’t buy it anymore! They want (cognitive or emotional) proof, either from
– own experience
– a friend’s recommendation (or disapproval), or
– a gut feeling that a corporation is telling a true story.

And the latter gut feeling can, today, always be unmasked as false by a friend’s or so-called “user’s” – what an irrespective word for a person getting in touch with your corporate content, I’ve always hated it … just a gut feeling … 🙂 – disapproval, or also own experience. Recapitulating: Social Media = Storytelling and Social Media unmasks every corporate lie aka bad messaging story attempt, sooner or later!

OK, but: truth is not always the same in good and true storytelling. The way I see it, there are two dimensions of truth in story:

Authentic / documentary / historic / objective / non-fictional truth
This is the kind of obvious truth we all know: What is told in a story (film, book, theater play, you name it) is indeed authentic, i.e. it REALLY TOOK PLACE. The protagonist is A REAL PERSON whom we are either witnessing during a positive or negative, but in any case dramatic (in the literary sense) part of his life that is at that moment REALLY TAKING PLACE – or who is acting as a witness of this drama that REALLY HAS TAKEN PLACE sometime in the past. The classical documentary. There is a truth behind every documentary that we can investigate (if we find time and pleasure to do so), that we can prove or refute. Any well-told and well-researched history book or TV program falls into this category as much as any animal documentary or social reportage.

Inner-fictional logic and subjective truth
If objective truth was the only dimension of truth that made a good story a true story, then all Hollywood films, all great novels of literary history, every poem, every comic, etc. would be “un-true”. Which they are not. They all have an inner logic, an inner truth which they follow to the most meticulous extent – if they are well-built and well-told. Everything COULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE the way it is described, the protagonist COULD HAVE existed and experienced the described drama, even though in another or maybe even a fictional world.

Take Garcia Marquez’ “Love in the Time of Cholera” – one of the greatest love stories of the 20th century – as an example: Young Florentino Ariza and lovely Fermina Daza COULD HAVE really fallen in love with each other, secretly living this forbidden love through an orgasm of passionate love letters despite the forced separation by Fermina’s father. Florentino’s love COULD HAVE kept growing ever fonder and deeper and undying despite Fermina’s marrying handsome Dr. Juvenal Urbino, at first under arranged circumstances, then with real affection and love, which led her to exclude her former lover Florentino from her life. And after almost a century of undying, in fact evermore flourishing love to this evermore unreachable lover, Florentino COULD HAVE waited all those years for his true love, and the two of them COULD HAVE met decades later after Urbino’s tragic death to renew their old love just before the end of their lives, on an old Mississippi steamboat …

51e2eOuVQBL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

Gee, I’m getting carried away … you SHOULD read this book, true recommendation! Simply reliving the memory of reading this novel gives me goose pimples, although the plot is of course fiction, it did NOT really take place, but it is so well told that I am convinced it COULD HAVE – and maybe has?

What I mean by all of this and what Florentino’s ordeal d’amour has to do with business story: In general, a real and good story can have either an objective, provable plot, or a truth made true by the inner logic of a fictional narrative. Both need not only the classical elements of story structure (a future post on this blog will elaborate a little more on this aspect, rest assured!), but also a capable narrator.

OK, and this is where most business stories fail, miserably:
– First of all: They have no story structure
– Then: They very seldom make use of capable and experienced narrators and storytellers; they rather use brain-washed, submissive agencies or brain-washed, inexperienced employees
– They – what is worst in the context of truth – mix truth (real people like employees or customers and real products) with fiction (corporate messaging bullet point as pre-scripted storyline and treatment structure elements that claim to be authentic) without transparently distinguishing the blurring barriers for the viewer or (abused) user.

So, to come to an end here:

If you’re a business storyteller, stick to the truth and nothing but the authentic, documentary, objective and provable truth.

If you’re a screenwriter or novelist or poet or painter or whatever artistic inventor of truths, make sure you adhere to the inner-logic of this fictional truth. But you can also – and that’s kind of unfair – not only invent truths, but also combine invented truths with real, authentic, objective and historically provable truths and still tell a great and credible story. Grrr, damn these artists!

But then again: Life ain’t fair, so get over it, oh Business Storyteller!

And if you DO mix objective truth with fictional elements, you better be as intelligent, bold and open about is a the desirable brand Jaguar in their recent advertising feature film for its new F-type model called “Desire” – a “story worth watching” I actually wanted to write about today, but to tell you the truth: I got carried away with writing about truth. 😉

Very well then, I’ll do that next time, because:

The story goes on … here … soon.

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Social Media = Storytelling

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by herr dennehy in Ideas

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, brand journalism, brand storytelling, Business, business storytelling, change, conversation, corporate storytelling, digital storytelling, drama, expectation, hero, Marketing and Advertising, social media, story in social media, Storytelling, surprise, video storytelling

Recently at a conference, someone asked me why the hell everyone in business is talking about the need for this new thing called storytelling in communications and marketing. First of all, I told him, I’m happy that they are finally getting it. Or are they? If they call storytelling ‘new’, they surely aren’t…

Thing is: People, and I specifically mean business people, think that a little bit of emotional music, a couple of real humans and a raw look and feel makes a piece of communication authentic, relevant and, yes, a story. Ever heard a colleague come up with a “great story” he wants to write about, or show you a video that portraits “our unique story”? And once you take a closer listen or look, you hear or see nothing but a paraphrased or moving-image message triangle, patronizing the recipient in 20th-century advertising manner, telling him what to think or feel or, in the end, do. No hero, no drama, no expectation, no surprise, no identification.

The great thing about today: In the digitally connected world, people are getting back to the roots of human conversation, gagging for true, real and surprising story, something outstanding, something new to enjoy and share. Ergo: This whole social media thing is nothing but an extended remix version of an old, very successful song.

Why’s that?

Well, sharing aka telling stories has been man’s unique selling point and leisure pleasure ever since he (or she) could communicate (non-verbally or verbally) – around campfires in the Neanderthal or at medieval markets, at children’s bedsides or you name it. In other words: being social, embarking into (however purposeful) conversations with other people. Sender tells, recipient receives, recipient becomes sender, becomes recipient, becomes sender and so on. Being social is having conversations, and conversations are never one way. In the vernacular we call this: Dialogue. Thereby follows Equation #1:

Social = Conversation

And if this is so, that being social and having conversations is the most ancient human trait we can think of, what makes social media or the so-called web 2.0 so special, so revolutionary? Again, easy: Technology. Whenever mankind creates something big, it’s either mimicry or an enhancement of what nature already has in store. As in the case of the Internet and its second-generation 2.0 version, technology has enabled us to bring human conversations from a personal to a global (and sometimes hence impersonal, but that’s a different topic) level. Leading me to Equation #2:

Social Media = Global Conversation

After all this, the end (or beginning?) of this story (or message?) is no rocket or internet science, it’s mere logic: If we only embark in conversation with people that have something interesting to tell, something we can relate to, something that touches either our hearts or our minds or both, the power is not in great rhetoric or bullet points of a fact sheet. It’s the stories we hear about real people with real challenges, real successes, real failures, yes: real lives. Why should this be different in social media’s global conversations? So in the end comes Equation #3:

Social Media = (Global Conversation =) Storytelling

If this is so – and I get a strange feeling I’m not completely wrong here –, then this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to successful communication and marketing in the 21st century, be it for a company or your own personal brand. Like: What is and what is not a story? Where the roots are and what can we learn from them? What do Aristotle and the Cluetrain Manifesto have in common?

The story goes on … here … soon.

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