Why we use products, but buy stories

Warwick Cairns, tutor of the IPA Advanced Effective Storytelling Course explains why the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.

Here’s a question for you. How much, if anything, would you, personally, be prepared to pay for a folding plastic comb?

I should give some more specifics, to help you make up your mind. The comb in question is second-hand. It was a free giveaway at a makeup counter, so it didn’t cost its original owner anything. You’ll notice I’m using US currency here, for reasons that will become apparent. But anyway, this comb. It hasn’t been washed so it’s a little greasy. It still has some strands of the owner’s grey hair on it. Before you ask, the owner isn’t anyone famous, or special, or anyone known to you personally.

You probably have enough to go on now. I’ll offer you three options. The first is a ‘no’ from you: you’ll pass on the comb. The second is $1.04, the US eBay price for a new version. And the third is $60 - enough to buy a whole box of brand-new eBay combs.

Take your time deciding.

In the meantime, we should talk about the power of storytelling.

There’s a story about Apple founder Steve Jobs in the time of his exile after he’d been forcibly ejected from Apple and was running his new company NeXT. Or rather the second incarnation of his new company: the first version of NeXT, a computer hardware manufacturer, had just failed with losses of $12 million. He was now having another go, this time as a software developer.

One day in the Summer of 1994, some members of his team were in the canteen eating their lunch when Jobs suddenly strode over. He was brandishing a bagel.

Apropos of nothing, he said, “Who is the most powerful person in the world?”

Various employees came up with their suggestions. Nelson Mandela was a popular one. But that wasn’t the answer Jobs wanted to hear.

 “NO!” he said, “You’re all wrong…the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.”

He waved his bagel for emphasis.

“The storyteller,” he said, “Sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation to come and Disney has a monopoly on the storyteller business right now. You know what? I am tired of that bullshit, I’m going to be the next storyteller”  

And with that he walked out, still holding his bagel.

Over the decades that were to follow he came to build a brand that made a lot of stuff that other people were already making – computers, MP3 players, smartphones, tablets. The difference was, Jobs’ products were packaged up in Jonathan Ive’s award-winning design and, in a world where computing was for nerds, they told a story of creativity and cool.

The financial value that Jobs’ brand story has added to Apple’s share value has been astonishing, even in the years after his death. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion. 1 In August of 2020, the company broke records again by becoming the first U.S. company to reach a $2 trillion market cap.

At this point you may be saying, really?

You may be saying, it’s all about the products and nothing to do with any brand story.

So let’s give another example that sheds light on the relationship between products and stories.

Two soft drink manufacturers. One, Brand A, has a (slightly) superior product, according to research. In blind taste tests, consumers prefer their drink, albeit by a slim margin. The other, Brand B, has a long history of powerful corporate storytelling and has produced some of the most iconic ads of all time. The difference between them? According to Fortune, the ‘better-tasting’ brand, Pepsi, is worth some $15 billion less than the ‘better story brand, Coke.

Stories create value.

Which brings us back to our plastic comb.

In 2012, an American filmmaker by the name of Miranda July explored the relationship between storytelling and commercial value in The Auction, a 90-minute event she put on at UCLA. As part of the show, she got members of the audience to come up on stage to talk about their lives and their relationship with an object they happened to have on them. A woman talked about her foldable plastic comb – something she got for free with a purchase of Clinique. A man talked about his creased and dog-eared Subway loyalty card. Another woman talked about her drug-store lip balm. At the end of the show, the items were auctioned. None was ‘worth’ more than a dollar or two at most. But the stories had done something to their perceived value. The subway card went for $70. The lip balm fetched $58. And the comb sold for $60.

We use products, but we buy stories. Stories give context, meaning and value to the things we do, the things we think and feel, and the things we buy.

Without a story, a Patek Philippe is just an outdated mechanical timepiece, outperformed for accuracy by the cheapest corner-shop plastic digital watch. And all it does is tell the time. Big deal. Today, that ain’t worth shit, as they say.

But with a story, that’s a whole different thing we’re talking about here.

Stories are all around us. It is no exaggeration to say we live our lives through them and experience the world through them.

So it makes sense for anyone who wants to succeed in life to master the art of storytelling. And that is what we aim to do with the forthcoming IPA storytelling session.

The in-person Advanced Effective Storytelling Course on 2 October is for anyone who wants to write persuasive content for clients, pitches and new business prospects.  We’ll explain a range of professional writing techniques developed by screenwriters, novelists and behavioural scientists, showing you how to use them to make audiences sit up and take note.

Warwick Cairns is Strategy Partner of The Effectiveness Partnership

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.