Connecting through chaos
The power of storytelling women to adapt brands to a changing media landscape.
Tales are old as time. From cave art and hero epics chanted over the campfire, to the songs and poems of the wandering minstrels … followed by ink and lignin pages fanning their sweet woody aromas and ideas over captivated readers. The art of storytelling has been evolving for millennia – and changing humanity along with it.
Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan recognized how evolving mediums of information rewired humanity. The isolation required for reading transitioned from an era of independent thought to new eras of togetherness. The dulcet tones of radio dramas crackled gripping plotlines over families around sitting rooms. The migration to television introduced the “global village.”
But on-demand entertainment, like streaming services, re-introduced an era of individuality, turbo-charged by machine-learning algorithms. Now marketers race to keep pace with a new era of micro-targeting audiences, “niche-casting” narratives to those they hope to influence.
Though McLuhan predated these latest shifts, his categorization of mass communication eras was prescient and instructive. From the oral era, to written, to electric, each era of communication dramatically changed our culture and our biology, including how we receive and retain information.
Microblogs blast bullets of news and gossip in rapid fire succession, rewiring brains to quickly consume smaller units of information. Brand and business storytellers adapt by making messages more visual. Infographics, and animations reveal deposits of info-gems in internet streams. Flashes from ads and “Reels” momentarily dazzle the eye in a blur of endless scrolling and dopamine chasing.
Standing out is hard in this strange new world.
But expert brand storytellers know beneath the changing skins of this ancient art, the meat of storytelling is the same. And the heart of the story remains – connection.
Cave hieroglyphics, bathroom stall graffiti and GIFS are all memes. Units of connection. Memes are small packages of culture easily shared. Picture the meaning of a wave from a friend verses a finger in traffic. They’re micro-stories. All of them affect and shape our biology, our culture and our lives.
This is where women come in.
Knowing the heartbeat of the human story – connection – is an often untapped superpower of women in business.
Our ability comes down to cognitive empathy. One recent study out of University of Cambridge showed women are more wired to empathize with others, regardless of any familial or cultural influences.
Cognitive empathy is our ability to identify, understand and predict other peoples' emotions and thoughts.
Predicting how a person will behave in response to information (in response to your brand story!) is part of cognitive empathy. And, in a rapidly changing world, the desire for empathy and connection is stronger than ever.
Connection is deeply linked to narrative. Individual realities are understood through worldviews – our beliefs about our personal and collective experiences. And we all crave having our personal narratives reflected within the story arc of culture and community.
It’s no wonder social media was an instant hit. In 2006, as YouTube rose to fame, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was …. drum roll…. “You!” (the everyday civilian). Social platforms gave relief to an aching desire for anyone to participate in shaping the public story.
But this new, global cast of disparate voices introduced new challenges. The decentralization of information and entertainment fuels cultural confusion, information overload and an age of distraction. Mal-information, like misinformation and disinformation run rampant. Although we are more in touch than ever before, we are increasingly atomized.
Finding the human in the machine
With cognitive empathy as our strength, women are uniquely wired to link connections. We are neurologically positioned to recognize where our customers unite with our brand story – and where our own brand story links into the broader human picture.
It could be that our opposition to the culture is what defines our brand. The culture around us may reveal what we are not, and that’s also a story we can link people into.
Admittedly, skilled storytellers of today have been doing as much to fragment culture as to unite it. And marketers haven’t done themselves any favours by complicating the storytelling landscape. Sales algorithms have fractured us into an infinite number of narratives informing people’s contexts, further destabilizing society. And by dismantling underlying narratives that once bound our culture together, storytellers have created a freer but more chaotic world.
During times of social change, empathy becomes a life raft.
As the world grows more chaotic, we’re motivated towards overlap.
Our hearts haven’t changed since the cave days. The longing for belonging hasn’t diminished. And the human adventure hasn’t changed. We’re all seeking or moving towards our purpose.
The North star of your Mission and Vision
In journalism they say a good story starts with the question “Why?”
But business storytelling - in the age of hyper-individualism - begins with “Who?”
Who do you want to reach? Where are they and how will you reach them?
Your target audience is the human side of your business goals. Who can impact success? What do you want them to think, feel and do in response to your story and information? How will impacted people move your mission forward? How can your storytelling facilitate your audience’s journey from knowledge (beliefs) to feeling (motivation) to action?
Women have an advantage when examining these questions. These questions should lead you to examine what stories matter to your audiences and what communication channels will best draw them into relationship with your brand. Blogs, websites, events, speeches, carrier pigeon, or today’s cave wall, the bulletin board.
It’s never just one channel. A small constellation of communication channels will guide wandering travelers to the campfire where your story is being told. The question is, when they arrive, will your story resonate with them? Will they see themselves in it? Is your story their story too?
We all want to see our goals interlocking with what others need or can offer. Where your business goals, your story and the stories of your village overlap – that’s the sweet spot. That’s the unity of community campfire.
That’s the importance of giving voice to the storyteller inside you.
AUTHOR | Laurie Griffin
Laurie Griffin is a communications consultant and professional storyteller. Capturing the drama, dreams, and essence of brands from clients across diverse industries, Laurie has been ghost-writing books and developing feature articles, websites, media stories and strategic plans for two decades. Parents of three kids (ages 4, 8 and 10), Laurie and her husband Pete (also a communication strategist) recently relocated from Calgary to Creston to live a more intentional life closer to nature. They continue to serve clients across Alberta and BC while trying their hand at new adventures, like starting a gourmet mushroom farm.
Visit www.griffincomms.ca.
