• by Mike Bloxham , Op-Ed Contributor, May 8, 2012

There’s nothing new about storytelling.  It was probably the first form of social media --and, of course, word of mouth.  Even the cave paintings that early man left us represent a form of storytelling (and they’re an eloquent foreshadowing of the Facebook Wall that was to follow millennia later -- maybe).

Whether gathering around the fire pit or the pulpit, going to the movies or the theater, we’ve always loved a great story.  Anything with a good cast of characters, with pace and drama, heroes and villains will draw the rapt attention of an audience if delivered well.

Some of the most technically accomplished and creative stories of our time have arguably been ads, crafted in the cause of brand marketing to convey a message and elicit a response from the audience.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I wouldn’t begin to claim for one moment that a 30- or 60-second spot for an insurance company or a print ad for an airline compares to the sweeping and inventive narrative of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” “Harry Potter,” or Catcher in the Rye.” But such comparisons would be invalid anyway, like comparing a great burger to an evening dining at New York’s finest restaurant.  Both are wonderful in their own different ways, but each made distinctly different by the context of consumption and what they are designed to achieve.

Before the days of social media and Twitter, the 30-second spot was the business equivalent of the tweet.  Instead of grappling with the constraints of 140 characters, it was the merciless passage of a mere half minute that set the boundaries within which the narrative could unfold, engage and inform.

Today the 30-second ad is now the novella compared to, well, Twitter’s tweet.

Now, in the age of always-on, interactive, all-you-can-eat media, the notion of carefully crafted brand stories of any length or dimension is not quite as simple.  Like it or not, marketers no longer control as much of the brand-consumer dialogue as they once did.

As the brand story has become increasingly dis-aggregated by the changing media and tech ecosystem, it’s the consumer story that has come to the fore and scaled what might be called the hierarchy of narratives.

Now is the time for marketers to pay much greater heed to the consumer story in order to understand what there is and could be in that story.  We all lead our lives in a series of cycles -- daily (or even less), weekly, monthly, seasonal, yearly generational and longer.  There are a wide variety of factors that influence our stories as we progress through those cycles – some benign, some otherwise.  And there are many different characters -- both real and figurative – who influence events by playing more or less central roles.

All roles in the consumer story are important -- even the occasional cameo that makes an infrequent but timely appearance to add some kind of value and inform the next part of the story.

The question for marketers lies in the definition of their role in their consumers’ stories.   A brand will never be the protagonist in anything but its own story, and any attempt to behave as if it holds this role in the consumer story is doomed to failure.  So what role does it have?  Is a brand legitimately ever-present? Or is it an occasionally welcomed character  -- the trusted acquaintance?

It’s only when in possession of a real and robust understanding of how people actually lead their lives and how different contextual factors inter-relate that a brand can answer these questions and thrive as a part of the consumer narrative.

After all, brand or individual, we’re all stories in the end.