Most commercials are just that, commercials. They have no ripple effect – they go nowhere and they clutter up so much of our personal space both online and off that I find myself tuning most of them out. My life is busy – I don’t know about you but I don’t have a lot of time to spend reading ads.
But I am always interested in good content. And what caught and held my attention about this commercial for recycling was that it shared its content in the form of a story – a story posed from a perspective that I had not considered and found both entertaining and thoughtful.
Seeing the creative possibilities inherent in a single plastic bottle, got me thinking about the “Bigger Picture” of recycling beyond the usual mantra of trying to do the right thing. What else could my recycling efforts help create? How would those efforts impact not just my life but my neighborhood and beyond?
And that reaction is what makes great storytelling…great! It gives your customers the ability to see beyond the immediacy of your product or service. They experience the bigger picture of it in relation to their lives while retaining the memory of your story and your business. It’s the ripple effect. And when it works it’s pretty wonderful.
Plastic bottle + recycling bin = useful park bench. And that park bench will hold countless humans who tell their stories to countless other humans over the years.
Who knew that human creativity could tell us a story about connection through a battered plastic bottle and get the message across in a way that let’s us see beyond the commercial?
The story got my attention. And because it got my attention, it also got me thinking about the product, the service and how all of it impacted my life. As a consumer my response was entirely positive. I wasn’t being hit over the head with a sales ad and I wasn’t being told that I was lacking anything – like skinny jeans, better hair or probiotics. Rather, I was being allowed to see the bigger picture of this company’s message from my perspective – not just theirs.
Great storytelling allows your customers room to breathe.
Take a look at your business. Imagine the story you can create. Imagine the ripple effect.
Imagine the bigger picture.
