What makes stories so powerful?

What is your story?

Everyone has a different answer to this question. Whether their favourite story is moving, exciting or funny, whether they identify with the hero/heroine or one of the other characters in the story, whether they read it, heard it or watched it.

Maybe it was a bedtime story your parents used to read to you, maybe it was a movie that you watched with your loved one that moved you to tears, maybe it was that Nike commercial you watched that pushed you to “JUST DO IT”. 

Video games, many social media posts, TV programs and ads, movies, theatre and opera performances, novels, even many business presentations – they’re all stories. 

Stories are memorable; they stick with us for much longer than facts and figures. So if you truly want to connect with people, engage them in a conversation; if you want to make sure they remember something, tell them a story.

In the influential book  ‘Made to Stick’, one of the authors did a memory exercise with his university students in which they listened to a series of presentations and were tested on what they retained. He found that while 63 per cent remembered the stories they heard, just 5 per cent could recall the statistics from the presentation

One story that really stuck with me was ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, the 2006 movie with Will Smith. In case you are not familiar with it, it is based on the true story of Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), who lost everything and had to live in homeless shelters with his son for a year before he managed to save both of them through sheer hard work and tenacity, proving himself to be smart, resilient, business savvy and a dedicated father along the way. 

The story moved me deeply because despite the many challenges he faces, Gardner (at least in the movie) never even thinks of giving up. He perseveres through the breakup of his marriage, the loss of his home and many other challenges that would have broken a lesser man. 

It is inspiring to see him continuously fighting, getting up again and again – despite numerous setbacks – and eventually succeeding.   

The movie teaches us that faith and determination can get you to your goal. It resonated with so many people because it is about the journey, the fight for what you believe in and in the end the extremely likable main character succeeds against the odds because of his resilience and grit.

The massive appeal of this movie (and many others like it) across the globe shows that stories are one of the things that unite us all as human beings. We all understand the concept of storytelling. We use stories to instill values in our children and to warn them of dangers. We use them to explain to others how we feel, to share our challenges and our joy. We use them to motivate people to take action. 

This list could go on and on. Stories are so effective and so familiar to us because we use them all the time – often without really being aware of it. Our brain has been trained to extract the moral or the message from a story all our lives. We understand how to identify and engage with stories. 

There is even a neurological explanation for that:

“Research demonstrates that the activity in listeners’ brains follows and mirrors the brain activity of the storyteller. In other words, listeners’ brains sync with the storyteller’s, and specific areas of the storyteller’s brain that are active while telling the story become active in the listeners’ brains after a short delay. This may be why we say we are ‘captivated’ by a story.”**

This effect leads to us feeling very much like we would if we had an actual experience. For our brain listening to an engaging story essentially feels like living through the experience. The same areas are activated; the same hormones are triggered, leading to us potentially learning as much from a story as we would from a real event.   

One of the hormones our brain produces when hearing a story is oxytocin, which is responsible for increasing feelings of empathy and the willingness to cooperate in us. Although the story needs to follow a certain pattern, it needs to follow a dramatic arch to stimulate our bodies to react.

Researchers have actually found that listening to a story will affect people’s willingness to help and to give to charity. People who listened to a story about a struggling father were more willing to help, while people who had listened to a story of a normal day in a father and son’s life, where nothing special happened, were not affected.*** 

And this is what makes stories so powerful: they sweep us up and involve us in multiple important ways—physiologically, emotionally, and intellectually. As storytelling expert Nancy Duarte describes in a popular TED Talk, great stories cause our palms to sweat, our hearts to race, and our eyes to dilate. Emotionally, we empathize with the protagonist, we identify with her struggle. 

Mentally, we put ourselves inside that story, asking the essential questions, “What would I do in these circumstances? How would I measure up?”

The basic structure of a story is – a likable hero goes out into the world to achieve something, encounters roadblocks, manages to overcome the adversity and emerges transformed. However, Nancy Duarte also talks about the structure of some of the most powerful presentations - using Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and Steve Job’s launch of the iPhone as two prominent examples. These follow a different structure which is basically going backwards and forwards between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ until they reach the conclusion which talks about the ‘new bliss’. So they compare the current situation to the future they envision and finally paint a picture of that wonderful future for us.

We will talk about the structure in more detail in Chapter 4. 

Telling a story in the first person makes it sound more personal and thus creates an even more powerful bond between the storyteller and the listener. Both Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs used the first person in a powerful way in their speeches. Martin Luther King with “I have a dream” and Steve Jobs starts his speech with “This is a day I have been looking forward to for two and a half years.”

However, all good stories stick. They increase our capacity to focus - just think; most people can sit through a two-hour movie without once looking at their phone or getting distracted in other ways. In a meeting people often lose focus after a few minutes.

Brand identities. Brand stories.

It all begins with a name. A brand new “Brand” name.

According to Steve Jobs’ biography, he came up with the name for one of the most successful tech businesses in the world after a walk in an apple orchard. To him, the name sounded “fun, spirited, and not intimidating,” which aligned perfectly with his brand identity.  It is kind of quirky too, just like ‘Google,’ which makes people talk about these brand names more. 

The name is also easy to remember – unlike their competitors’ names like ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Lenovo.’ This was a huge plus when it came to marketing to Apple’s audience at the very beginning.

Why the Name “MO”?

People often ask me how I came up with the name ‘MO’ for our umbrella brand. Here is the story behind it:    

My brother, Mohammed “Mo” Dewji, has close-to-celebrity status in the country. He is the CEO and President of MeTL, a retired member of parliament, and Africa’s youngest billionaire. His professional and philanthropic works have attracted a lot of followers. So there is faith associated with this name.

Mo, his nick name, is short and simple to remember. 

Seriously, that’s it! 

When someone talks about MO, I want them to think of ‘Home.’ 

From idea creation to manufacture, our products are made here in Tanzania, right under our brilliant sky. They are made by our fellow people. And, they belong right in our homes. 

I want consumers to feel that MO is a trustworthy brand that will take good care of them; that will help them fulfil their daily responsibilities and that it will do right by them and our environment. 

That it stands for everything good and right. 

That it supports them through both fair and bad times.

Why Umbrella Branding?

If you haven’t heard of the term ‘umbrella branding,’ it is a strategy that markets different but related products under a single brand name. 

Two familiar examples of umbrella branding are: Nivea for lip balms, sunscreen lotions, body lotions etc. and Virgin Group for media, publishing, airways, greenhouse gas reduction, healthcare and many, many more. (And I do mean many more. Sir Richard Branson uses Virgin as an umbrella brand for around 400 operations that are often only partially owned by him.) 

At MeTL, we have about 150 products which are categorized in various groups or images. I wanted to find a way to unite them all under one family tree, so to speak. 

So I dove deeper into umbrella branding and found several advantages we can definitely benefit from:

1.    It boosts efficiency. Can you imagine running separate campaigns for our different groups of products? That would mean writing hundreds of lines of copy and scripts, filming dozens of commercials, and designing countless ads. Insane and totally unnecessary! With an umbrella brand, we can gather our efforts and focus on promoting just one brand. 

For example, we could run a single campaign collecting customer testimonials on our various household products and link them back to MeTL. The next time a family needs to buy detergent, they’ll think of us and maybe they’ll stock up on kitchen items like cooking oil, or beauty products like our soaps, too.

The idea is to ingrain and embed MO in consumers’ minds so deeply that when they realize they need something for their home, from dishwashing detergent to laundry soap to cooking oil to wheat flour, or even an air conditioner or bicycle, they will automatically think of MO right away. 

2.    It creates waves of credibility. When one of our products receives raving reviews from our customers, the general credibility of our brand and other products will rise along with it. However, if our products exist in separate brands, our customers will never be able to make the connection and one product’s success will remain woefully brief and limited. With an umbrella brand, we can gain more momentum and let the success ride on.

There’s a flip side to that, of course. It means that one mistake will also affect the whole brand. So it keeps us on our toes, careful to protect the reputation of our brand.  

We Touch Your Life

The benefits of umbrella branding made sense to me. This is why I decided to create a fuller and more complete brand identity. Through years of reaching out and understanding my customers, I’m able to create a proper connection now. I want to make them feel like they are a part of something big. 

Hence, I’ve come up with a slogan for all my advertising, one that brings everything together: Mo…Tunagusa maisha yako, which, loosely translated from Kiswahili, means, “Mo…We touch your life.” 

My plan is that in five years when people see this slogan, they can immediately understand our mission and values. By seeing this slogan, they can feel connected to our company and be part of our family. 

Much like McDonalds for example. Everyone sees the big “M” sign and they know what the company is, what it does, what the food tastes like, and how it feels to be eating their food etc. 

Or if you need toothpaste, you would think of Colgate. If you need a hot, piping cup of Americano, you would think of Starbucks.

If you’re a Tanzanian and you need laundry soap, cooking oil, a soda, fabric for your children’s clothes, bedsheets or even a motorcycle, you’d think of MO right away. 

So, how do you ensure that your brand story is positive and powerful, that it moves consumers to action? 

Use it yourself: the power of stories

1.    Stories tap into emotion. The best stories increase empathy in our audience, evoke trust through a feeling of connection and thus make it easier to make a buying decision. Research suggests that “emotionally charged events” are far more memorable than ordinary, neutral events. Similarly, emotionally charged stories inspire us to do something different, to step up, and to take the plunge! 

What emotions would you like to evoke in your audience?

2.    Stories make issues more relatable. Rather than talking about abstract concepts like processes, programs or plights, we tell the story of one person or one family, so that the audience can relate to these people and imagine what it feels like to be in that situation. So if you can embody your idea, your initiative, your brand in a great character that people can relate to, you’re going to have more success. Let them know how your product could benefit them, how it could play a positive role in their life.

3.    Stories connect us, most Tanzanians haven’t stepped foot in any of our manufacturing units or seen the processes but they can still identify with the message. It’s about everyday products that can be used in their lives from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. What is your message?

4.    Stories show our human side. The stories we tell offer a glimpse into who we are and what we value. And that’s highly appealing. It’s especially important for leaders—people want to follow humans, not robots. They connect to shared values and visions. 

5.    What are yours?

6.    Stories are about “show, don’t tell.” When you think of a story to communicate a message, think about how you can show the feelings that the main characters feel, how dialogue and actions can make clear what is going on in their heads and hearts. This goes back to concepts not being relatable. 

For example, if I tell you “People are suffering” it is quite abstract and hard to imagine. If you hear a refugee tell her story, “I had to work in the quarry for 18 hours a day, carrying 20 or 30 kg of stones on my head. My back was aching, my hands were rubbed raw, my eyes were swollen with all the dust in them.” that is much more relatable, ‘suffering’ has now become something you can imagine. 

Similarly in a business situation, rather than saying “we are reliable”, tell a story about a customer that got their delivery earlier than expected. Rather than saying “we offer great customer service” tell a story about a customer who needed to exchange an item they had bought and made a great experience. 

The Wish shopping app, for example, tells mini stories in their ads, showing how excited their clients get about their purchases. In one advert we can see a woman running through the living room shouting in a sing-song voice “It came, It came, It came! I wonder what It is?” This tells us not only that she is very excited about receiving her purchase but also indicates that she orders from Wish so frequently that she doesn’t know which of the items she has recently ordered this one might be. In about five seconds, the advert has effectively communicated two ideas and put us on the edge of our seats, because now we also want to know what might be in the box. 

Similarly, Nike doesn’t say that their sportswear is for exceptional athletes, they just show you exceptional athletes training hard, wearing Nike outfits. They show female athletes proving themselves in Nike outfits. They give you all kinds of subliminal messages that stick in your subconscious, so that you then associate Nike with exceptional athletes, with social justice, with the triumph of the underdog. All of these are powerful images that draw in a lot of people.