Everyone loves to share stories. If I say “here is the story…” half the audience would sit up with anticipation.  Yet, if I were to say “let me tell you the story of my company or product…” no one would be that interested (unless, of course you are considering buying the product!).  That is because stories are very creative and exciting and product descriptions are dry and boring.

Do you see what the marketing guy is battling against? He needs to get across the information about his product in creative and interesting ways.

Television advertisments create little stories around products and actors act them out.  The best ads are those that give you glimpse into the life of the people who use the product and the value it has for them. For instance a wonderful ad from Airtel has a little sentimental plot: grandson visits grandfather–plays chess with him–leaves for his home by train–grandfather misses grandson and the intimacy of playing with him–grandson calls on mobile and continues the game calling out moves on the phone while traveling–grandfather is happy. Interesting? touching? absolutely fascinating? This is real wow marketing!

The web too has created a marketing environment where the old rules no longer apply. Social media networks enable you to communicate with a passionate group of fans and turn them into influencers for you.  It makes it easier for people to fall in love with you or hate you. You can create the stories that can make your brand famous overnight!

The most creative ad on the social media networks in the recent past was that of Photoshop. They did not talk about their product. They created a contest where participants identified the fake or done up pictures from the true pictures.  Once the identification process was complete, Adobe invited the participants to check out how their tool was used to make up the pictures and they invited them to study the tutorials to appreciate the process! Their sales went up and they had a large following on facebook, twitter and other social media networks!

Check out the demo of the campaign at http://showcase.tractionco.com/real-or-fake/

So, forget direct marketing. Build stories and contests round your product. Be as creative as you can! Make your stories market your product!