Product storytelling, Jurassic Park style.
128 minutes of non-stop, engrossing action.
Once you’ve seen it, you never forget it. Jurassic Park stays with you. It’s a movie that you watch, on the edge of your seat, although you know the plot and the ending: island paradise, stranded humans, cunning dinosaurs running amok, dinosaurs hunting humans, humans escaping narrowly, humans bonding under stressful circumstances, humans escaping again, hungry dinosaurs left behind.
Jurassic Park's takeaways can influence your product storytelling.
Promise dinosaurs in the title.
What lures you into Jurassic Park? Dinosaurs. The movie title screams dinosaurs. The movie title combines two words whose juxtaposition is startling, because they don’t have much to do with each other and you’ve never heard these words uttered together—the word “Jurassic” next to the innocuous word, “Park.” The title is short, direct, and memorable. The title stirs your imagination as it evokes dinosaurs roaming inside a park, perhaps alongside humans. You haven’t seen this park yet, but you’re here for the ride.
Takeaways for your product storytelling:
Build up the suspense.
Jurassic Park opens with humans who are paleontologists. Minutes into the movie, these paleontologists are confessing their personal stories, dropping casual scientific facts about dinosaurs into their breakfast-table chatter. You're yet to see a single dinosaur, but you feel they are coming. You see iconic images that are burned into your brain, such as the gates of Jurassic Park lit up by flickering torches, the massive wooden doors swinging open to reveal a road that seems endless. You’re impatient and eager to see the dinosaurs, but you’re reveling in the build-up, drinking in new facts and learning more. The fact that you don’t see the dinosaurs (that you came for) several minutes into the movie, builds suspense. When the dinosaurs do show up, it’s a glorious, dramatic, a-ha moment with the right music and impactful scenery. The audience’s glimpse of that first dinosaur, a brachiosaurus, is a big deal in the movie. It’s magical.
Takeaways for your product storytelling:
Sequence dinosaur encounters.
After the first dinosaur shows up in Jurassic Park, the movie is loaded with problem after problem—there’s a thunderstorm, the power goes out, the roads are muddy, the characters get separated from each other, and, yes, there are villains. The dinosaurs keep coming. In more flavors than before.
You're treated to a back-to-back sequence of heart-pounding, tense dinosaur encounters. The characters narrowly escape being eaten by an angry dinosaur, only to run into another one. A thundering T-Rex chases a Jeep in the rain. A herd of velociraptors, working together in an eerie human-like way, tries to hunt down humans hiding in a kitchen. This roller-coaster of escapades forms the bulk of the movie: dinosaur chases humans (problem), humans escape (solution), a different dinosaur chases humans (problem), humans escape again (solution), over and over again. Every escapade is set in a different location, with a different dinosaur, different humans, a different chase, and a different escape.
Each new dinosaur appears worse than the last—hungrier, nastier, more ferocious, and more relentless. You gasp at the cunning of the dinosaurs but you marvel at the resourcefulness of the humans. You know the formula for each escapade by now, but you can’t look away. Not now.
Takeaways for your talk:
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Provide closure with the final escape.
Jurassic Park is a science-fiction adventure film. You know how it will end—the central characters will escape, the dinosaurs will be thwarted, the humans will have had an unforgettable adventure, friendships will be formed, life will go on. You walk away satisfied, feeling that you got your money’s worth. You have a sense of closure: you came for the dinosaurs and you saw them (check), you learnt something new about dinosaurs (check), your imagination is fired up (check), you got to see some heart-pounding dinosaur chases (check), you got to see feel-good escapes and rescues (check), and you’re intrigued enough to want to learn more on your own (check).
Most of all, you're ready to line up for the sequel. You want more.
Jurassic Park made amateur paleontologists of its audience. The audience walked out, continuing to name-drop velociraptors, triceratops, gallimimus, brachiosaurus, dinosaur anatomy, dinosaur food habits, dinosaur sounds, dinosaur poop (coprolite, if you want to look it up). The audience started to incorporate dinosaurs into their breakfast-table chatter, their water-cooler chatter, their class-room chatter.
Takeaways for your talk:
Leave loose ends for a sequel.
Loose ends serve a purpose. Unfinished business serves a purpose.
In the closing scenes of Jurassic Park, the nomad T-rex makes a surprise reappearance for one last encounter with the humans. As the good humans make their final escape from the Park, the T-rex is showing standing, roaring in his kingdom, in the ruins of the Park visitor center. The T-rex appears robbed of its satisfaction, as the humans escape, but he's got his kingdom back.
What a powerful, dramatic ending. Not only are the good guys alive, but so are the dinosaurs. These dinosaurs just won’t quit. They demand satisfaction. They are raring to go for a future encounter. Secretly, you root for them, too. This moment sets up the possibility of a sequel. Maybe some of the humans return to the Park years later? Maybe the dinosaurs escape from the Park and enter into the city? Maybe, just maybe, those heart-pounding T-rex car chases again?
Takeaways for your talk:
Jurassic Park is a movie, a work of fiction. It is not a scientific documentary, nor does it claim to be one. A product talk, on the other hand, is a presentation that should be grounded in fact, not fiction. What is important to learn from Jurassic Park, though, is how its story unfolds, and how the audience stays with it.
Jurassic Park maintains anticipation and excitement for a whopping 128 minutes. That's remarkable. At the end, the audience is left emotionally drained, but fully alive, with a sense of wonder (I’ve never seen a movie like this before), a sense of happiness (The humans escaped, thank goodness), and a sense of anticipation (What will that escaped T-rex do next?).
30 years later, Jurassic Park still educates, captivates, terrifies, and inspires. You learn a little bit more, every time you re-watch the movie. You're a bit more awe-struck every time. Jurassic Park feels satisfying, from start to finish. It delivers.
And that is worth copying.
CEO of Shokwave Productions, Professor, Management Consultant
1yNot only are your blog posts educational, but they're written in a way that makes me want to keep reading to the end because each of them tells a story. They speak to who you are as a person, and it's fun to get to know you through both the topic and the style of your writing. In terms of this topic, it gets me thinking about how I can tell my own story in a more riveting way. Thank you for that! I have a brand-spanking new start-up company, and your posts are helping me create a solid foundation.
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1yThank you for starting this newsletter. Such great insight and storytelling. It's a joy to read every Saturday!