EPIC MLB Storytelling?

Coinciding with Opening Day, MLB launched a new marketing campaign Thursday titled "MLB Always Epic." The heavily Web-based and unconventional campaign, created by MLB's new marketing and agency of record Hill Holliday, will showcase the compelling personalities of MLB's cast of star players, as well as other "epic" characteristics of the game.

This marks a significant departure from previous MLB advertising, which has traditionally been footage-based with a more linear storytelling approach.

"Our strategic and creative approach for 'MLB Always Epic' is to highlight the truly epic nature of MLB -- its story lines, plot twists and the sprawling cast of star players," said Tim Brosnan, MLB executive vice president, business. "Using every media channel and asset available, we will create a steady stream of sharable content based on new and existing assets that we believe will ultimately inspire more fan participation that ever before."

The creative content will be geared for consumption online, with some spots taken to television. The digital features will be housed on MLBAlwaysEpic.com and related microsites and will be distributed and shared through social media. All of the sites are powered by MLB.com.


(taken from 'MLB Always Epic' marketing campaign unveiled)

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia Storytelling - "a technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats of media and preferably, although it doesn't always happen, with a degree of audience participation, interaction or collaboration."
(I'd add - to improve your Marketing message)

Why Tell Stories?

We tell stories to entertain, to persuade and to explain.

Our minds do not like random facts and so they create their own stories to make sense of otherwise discrete, isolated events and items. We naturally and subconsciously connect the dots. And dots connected in a stimulating way we call great stories.

Great Stories Win Hearts and Minds

We're surrounded by an unprecedented ocean of content, products and leisure opportunities. The people to whom we wish to tell our stories have the technology to navigate the ocean and can choose to sail on by or stop and listen.

Telling stories across multiple media - transmedia storytelling - allows content that's right-sized, right-timed and right-placed to form a larger, more profitable, collaborative and rewarding experience.

For more on Transmedia Storytelling, and to sign up for their Newsletter, check out
The Transmedia Blog

Sharing Knowledge Through Storytelling

"Knowledge is a bird in a forest: no one on his or her own can ever catch it." ~African Proverb

Storytelling: What is it?

Storytelling is an ancient and traditional way of passing on complex, multi-dimensional information and ideas through narrative. Of course, stories have many purposes and styles; of particular interest here are ‘knowledge-sharing stories’. Knowledge sharing stories convey in a holistic form, all the essential details of a critical or exemplary situation both information and emotion, both the explicit and the tacit, both the core and the peripheral context. Well-designed, well-told stories can help others learn from past situations to respond more effectively in future
situations. Such stories come in different forms and with a variety of labels e.g. cases, anecdotes, examples, histories or simply ‘experiences’.

Using stories effectively

Sharing knowledge effectively through stories requires attention to the
design of the story (story-crafting), the delivery of the story (story-telling),
and the response of the audience (story-listening).

Story-crafting
Effective knowledge-sharing stories are intentionally crafted for the
prospective audience. A good knowledge sharing story should be both
simple and accessible, offering a “streamlined, surrogate experience.”
Like fables and anecdotes, the story is stripped of excessive detail and
designed to make specific points. Rudy Ruggles of Cap Gemini E&Y
describes knowledge-sharing stories as “idea-wrapping”; the story should
‘wrap’ key ideas selected from an individual’s total experience.
The intended audience should determine the appropriate level of detail and
technicality. Simplicity makes a story easy to remember and easy to
introduce in different circumstances. For the best impact, the story
situation also should be accessible and relevant, addressing an issue close
to the listener’s own reality. It should be possible, even probable, that the
listener could experience a similar situation.
Good knowledge sharing stories are also open-ended rather than closed.
Closed stories signal the finality of the knowledge or insight. Open stories
signal “you could look at it this way” but don’t exclude alternative
interpretations. Sometimes this is accomplished by incorporating multiple
“voices” or perspectives in the story. Open-endedness encourages listeners
to reflect on and apply the lessons or insights of the story in their own
context.

Story-telling

The impact of a story will depend on its telling – who tells the story and
whether it is shared in an oral or written form. But storytelling also must
account for the size and heterogeneity of the potential audience.
First person stories often are experienced by audiences as more
passionate and more authentic. However, made-up stories are easily
recognized as inauthentic. Rather than claim a false experience, tell the
story in second person but focus it on a single clear protagonist.
Stories that are written down can reach a larger audience but they suffer
problems in their disconnection from the teller, linearity of the telling, and
their petrification in time. Written stories should be regularly revisited and
updated or rephrased to reconnect them with the language and issues of
the present.
The use of more than one medium can be valuable in helping a story to
stay vivid and reach a larger audience. The incorporation of video clips of
stories being told can capture many unspoken nuances, making the
speakers’ knowledge more real to the listeners.

Story-listening

It is critical for storytellers to monitor the reception of their stories. The
audience is engaged in creating knowledge while listening, so storytellers
and leaders should gauge how this knowledge is being constructed.
However, Rudy Ruggles warns against believing we can ‘manage’ stories
in organizations, especially if they are sufficiently open-ended for people
to learn from them. He points to urban legends, such as the Nieman
Marcus cookie recipe story, showing how stories get adapted through their
telling. But by tracking how a story is passed on person-to-person in the
organization, one can back up positive responses and respond to
unforeseen negative ones. Responses to stories can also reveal clues about
the audience’s capacity to learn from the story. Such insight should inform
the design and content of future stories.

When to use stories?

The value of stories for conveying knowledge rests in their flexibility,
handiness and portability. However, their use must suit the knowledge
sharing context. Situations where stories can be particularly effective
include those involving building trust, socializing new members, and
conveying simple but potent ideas to many people.
Alternative knowledge sharing techniques—e.g. mentoring, simulation,
modeling behavior, or reference to codified resources—can be more
effective than storytelling in some other knowledge-sharing situations. For
example, reference to codified resources is appropriate when rule-based
knowledge needs to be clearly communicated to bound behavior (e.g.
sexual harassment laws, tax codes, etc.), or when participants must
coordinate their actions in a crisis or urgent situation (e.g. cockpit team
trying to emergency land, an emergency room medical team.) Modeling
behavior and the use of symbolic objects (e.g. logos, signs) can be more
useful knowledge sharing modes for sustaining an idea, an attitude or
reminding people about a particular desired behavior already established
in an organization.

From a Learning Innovations Laboratory Article by: Deborah Sole

Telling Stories Through Pictures

Photo essays rely on a simple truth: Telling stories with pictures can be more evocative and moving than using words.

A photo essay engages the viewer at a very personal level. While people can respond to written stories intellectually, photography essays often create an instant emotion within the viewer.

(from Photography.com)

Can you imagine taking this picture?

I CAN!!

Storytelling on Radio (Radio??)

MUMBAI: Every night in 35 cities across India, listeners as young as 13 and as old as 55 and above are gravitating to a storytelling show on 92.7 BIG FM. Then, listeners from across 19 countries ‘tune in’ and hear the gripping stories -- on Facebook.

92.7 BIG FM’s new show Yaadon ka Idiot Box hosted by author, scriptwriter and musician Neelesh Misra, who scripts and presents it in a unique nostalgia-laced-storytelling-with-songs format, is taking listeners from 13 to 55-plus across 35 BIG FM HSM stations down memory lane.

Show host Neelesh -- an award-winning former journalist and lyric writer of several Bollywood hits who has written four books and is also a scriptwriter -- has built an imaginary world which communicates. A company release claims Neelesh’s style of storytelling is eliciting a mindboggling response – in a short span of 3 weeks, it has crossed a record breaking 1 million-page views on Facebook, with more than 1000 people joining the Facebook page every week.

The name Yaadon Ka Idiot Box comes from the song of the same name from the upcoming album Rewind in Band Called Nine -- the band Neelesh heads.

Neelesh Misra: “This is my first radio experience and I am amazed and humbled to see the mindboggling response from people cutting across ages and demographies. In a country of great oral traditions, this is my humble effort to bring back oral storytelling in the creative space – I am glad that it connected with listeners from Day One.”

A sampling of the diverse kinds of stories Mishra has told so far on the show gives a feel of its personality. Here are some: One story is about a successful executive who might not be able to make it home on Diwali night; another is about a man writing a suicide note; a third is about a childless couple who have wanted a daughter for years and how they finally get one; another is about a college romance; there is one about a student who becomes the principal of his own school and traces an old, forgotten teacher; yet another is the love story of a 42-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, while another concerns the dilemma of an NRI man considering returning to India.

The stories seem to have connected with listeners on an intimate, personal level – these stories seem to them like their own stories, of people from their own lives from their own nostalgia. Young men and women say they cry when the hear the show; parents are sitting with their daughters who give up primetime TV shows to hear the story; in campuses, young friends are finding it a new way of bonding…

The unique style of story delivery, packaged with the seamless music fit, has fans from across age groups getting drawn to the show and coming back each evening for their daily dose of nostalgia.

(full article found @ RadioAndMusic.com)

Storytelling is the New Marketing

"Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories that you tell."
~Seth Godin

The last two decades haven't been called the Information Age for nothing: With the Internet, almost every question we could need an answer to has already been answered, and those answers are at our fingertips. But consumers are also informed in myriad other ways-newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, and direct mail are only the tip of the iceberg. In a world so full of information, storytelling is standing out as one of the most effective techniques to differentiate your business to consumers.

What makes storytelling so different from traditional marketing? It adds immediate dimension to the products and services you bring to the table. For example, imagine articulating to your audience:

• Why you do what you do
• What fuels the engine of your business to go out and drive change on a daily basis
• How your work is impacting lives and communities

These are the things customers really wonder about your business and try to determine in a matter of seconds when they visit your website or open a brochure. It gets at the heart of why testimonials have always been such a powerful marketing tool: People want to see how your business has helped improved the way others live, work, and play. Without unique, individual stories standing behind them, two businesses providing similar products or services are virtually indistinguishable.

Story is an incredibly powerful tool.

(article by Erin@roundtablecompanies.com)