I admit it. I want to be one Tough Mudder because it represents grit, tenacity, and the best about competing in a hardcore athletic event: finding your capacity for being better. Create a Customer Movement Tough Mudder is a great example of marketing because the focus is not [...]
That's right. Intuit's latest ad for TurboTax - that unsexy, boring accounting software - broke the mold. Finally. It's a great piece of storytelling. Here's why. It's never about your products and services. It's always about people and what your products and services allow people to do better. [...]
As a storyteller and marketer, I’m constantly talking about the power of sharing your story. I meet lots of entrepreneurs who are changing the world with their vision – sometimes in a disruptive way with technology, and sometimes in more subtle ways with a human touch. As with [...]
On September 30th, I had the pleasure of talking to one of fellow SNCR Fellows, John Cass, about storytelling and the customer experience. How Storytelling Improves the Customer Experience from Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) Here are some of the takeaways: 1. Content strategy can't exist on [...]
Many companies focus on ‘thought leadership’ content that makes the company look great. That’s about you. Here’s a better way to actually get your audience to participate and share content: make your customer the hero. Your products and services aren’t the hero – they are the weapon – [...]
My Feature, "Once Upon a Time," was published online and in print by Pragmatic Marketing Magazine. Read Once Upon a Time...
Business Storytelling vs. Storydoing In his recent HBR article, Ty Montague calls great companies 'storydoing' organizations. The premise: great companies are story doers, not just storytellers. Specifically, this means they take action on stories, and run efficiently and more profitably as a result. Montague has also written a [...]
I am a marketer and improviser and that makes me a storyteller. And “digital storytelling” is critical today. Few things stretch your comfort zone (read: scare the pants off you!) like improvisation (Think: Whose Line is it Anyway?). Improvisation is a storyteller’s weight training. There is no safety [...]
I gave a workshop recently about humanizing products and marketing, and we talked about why narrative and great stories matter during design and in our customer communications. Stories of empathy and customer needs inform the design process, and, when we know what challenge we’re addressing with our products, [...]
On Saturday, May 18, I gave a workshop to the SVPMA - the Silicon Valley Product Management Association - on how to use customers' human needs to design better products and craft marketing stories. That's how you humanize and align product with marketing! Stories don't just happen after [...]
