You know the conversation.

You’re at a social gathering and you’re making small talk with a new acquaintance. It’s going well. Your jokes are landing, you’re building a nice rapport. Eventually you’re asked, “So what do you do for a living?”

My standard answer almost always kill the conversation: I work in marketing.

Most people don’t even really know what that means. Marketing? That’s advertising, right? Things get tricky right away. Very few people love advertising (most people dislike advertising). Outside of a Super Bowl Party, almost no one wants to talk about advertising. 

A better and more accurate answer to this simple question would be, “I’m a professional storyteller.” That’s an answer that’s going to lead somewhere interesting. It also happens to be true.

At Brodeur, we strive to tell powerful stories that make our client’s products or services relevant to specific audiences. Our stories aren’t just judged on how entertaining they are, they’re evaluated by whether they stimulate the desired action. Did the audience click, like, review, share or buy? If the answer is no, well, we’ve got more work to do. That’s our trade.

Some people might reduce our jobs to pitching products to various constituents. That assessment might not be wrong, but it’s a vast simplification of what we do. We are storytellers.

Every product and every service is designed to solve a problem or improve the user’s life in a big or small way. There’s inherent drama within this simple dynamic which means there’s a story waiting to be told. The key is to determine the structure of that story, how to frame it and how best deliver it.

Why do stories matter? Why not just deliver facts, stats and specs? Well, as a species, we think in stories. All of us are constantly constructing and revising the narratives of our lives… it’s how we are built. To sell anything, we know we need to transcend facts, figures and statistics. Science has proven that facts and data activate two parts of our brains while stories can stimulate seven parts and higher brain engagement equates to higher memorability which is key to selling.

Best-selling author Alex Haley said the best way to begin a speech is “Let me tell you a story.” His point: no one wants a lecture, but everyone loves a good story. Think about how those words – “let me tell you a story” – make you want to lean in. It’s like being huddled around a campfire, where you can’t wait to hear what’s going to come next. It’s the same reason why the well-worn introduction “once upon a time” works.

But just telling a story isn’t enough. It needs to be a good story and it needs to be the right story for the audience. (Have you ever heard a wedding toast where the best man tells the wrong story for the audience? Yikes.)

What makes a good story? Sadly, there’s no simple formula to follow (we wish there was), but we know emotion matters. Precisely chosen language matters. Authenticity matters a lot… more than ever actually. Making the audience work just a little bit is important too. Andrew Stanton, one of the wizards at Pixar, encourages storytellers not to give the audience four; instead, he suggests giving the audience two plus two, arguing this engagement makes the story more powerful.

Despite relying on research and data, building a powerful story that changes minds and motivates action is more art than science, but it’s our trade. We believe in stories and we work tirelessly to craft stories for our clients and we never stop evolving and optimizing them.

We’re not just marketers, we’re storytellers.

So what stories have we told for brands?

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Storytelling is integral in everything we do at Brodeur Partners… from media pitches to television commercials to direct mail to PowerPoint.

The power of stories is undeniable, they’re proven to:

• Make people lean in
• Stimulate more brain activity than facts and statistics
• Have greater memorability

Every client’s product or service is designed to solve a problem or improve the user’s life in a big or small way. There’s inherent drama within this simple dynamic which means there’s a story waiting to be told. The challenge is to determine the structure of that story, how to frame it and how best deliver it.

At Brodeur our job is to discover and tell the stories that make our client’s products or services relevant to specific audiences. Our stories aren’t just judged on how entertaining they are, they’re evaluated by whether they stimulated the desired action. Did the audience click, like, review, share or buy? If the answer is no, well, we’ve got more work to do. That’s our trade.

We’re not just marketers, we’re storytellers.

It’s a cool, damp day at a prestigious university in northern California. A well-liked professor divides his class in half and instructs the students to craft short one-minute presentations on a controversial topic. Half of the students are prompted to take a specific view with the other students arguing the opposing view.

After a few minutes of preparation, the students eagerly launch into their presentations.

Then, somewhat oddly, after the final pitch concludes, the professor issues a curt thank you before playing a completely unrelated video. Dismayed the class watches the 10-minute segment failing to grasp its relevance to the previous exercise.

Seconds after the video fades to black, the professor asks the students to write down everything they remember from the presentations.

A murmur of frustration builds. The students are shocked how little they have retained from just minutes ago.

Only 5% of the class remembers any of the statistics shared in the presentations (even though the average presentation included 2.5 stats).

Yet, 63% of the class remembers the stories woven into select presentations.

The point?

Stories resonate. Stories are what we remember. This professor, Chip Heath, teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business and he is a New York Times best-selling author. His books, co-authored with his brother have sold millions copies. You can find this specific story in Chapter 6 of “Made To Stick” co-authored by Chip and his brother Dan.

This little anecdote effectively underscores why storytelling is central to everything we do at Brodeur… from media pitches to television commercials to direct mail to PowerPoint. Stories force people to lean in, they activate more parts of the brain than mere stats and facts and they are proven to be far more memorable.

At Brodeur Partners we take great pride in discovering and telling the stories that make our client’s products or services relevant to specific audiences. We embrace the reality that our stories aren’t just judged on how entertaining they are, they’re evaluated by whether they stimulated the desired action. Did the audience click, like, review, share or buy? If the answer is no, well, we’ve got more work to do.

That’s our trade. We’re not just marketers, we’re storytellers.

STORYTELLING: USNH

The University System of New Hampshire turned to Brodeur Partners to determine how to promote the entire system to both state residents in lawmakers. We quickly conducted research that indicated awareness of the individual institutions was fairly highly, but appreciation of the system and its many contributions it makes to the state were relatively unknown.

As we audited various third-party studies and reports, a narrative theme began to take shape: The University System of New Hampshire is a little-known but highly precious state resource. We also learned many of the expected stories and promotional videos touting various institutional services and student accomplishments were failing to resonate with legislators and residents without college aged children. We needed to determine how to communicate the value of the University System in a new and different way.

We also felt we had to crystallize a sprawling list of benefits of the University System into a concise selling proposition. Yet, as we dug into this exercise, we realized trying condense the value of New Hampshire’s University System was a mistake. The breadth of benefits, services and the widespread value the University System generates was the story.

Rather than crafting a slick commercial, we decided to hit the streets in New Hampshire and to engage directly with its citizens. We decided to concentrate the majority of our efforts far away from state campuses where awareness of the University System is higher. Our plan was to engage real people and share facts and statistics tied to the University System. Our goal was to record what we dubbed “lightbulb moments,” where people learned something new about the University System in real time and we captured their authentic reactions which were usually genuine surprise and pride. These engagements, along with some interviews with unexpected personalities with different ties to the University System, were cut into a twenty-minute documentary entitled “For All of New Hampshire.”

The long-form piece of content was screened in movie theatres for state legislators and placed on USNH’s owned media channels. Highlights were edited into short-form segments promoted aggressively through social channels. We also crafted a multi-media presentation tool kit that is used routinely at USNH road show statewide promoting the University System.  The totality of the content was deemed eye-opening and Brodeur continues to travel the Granite State collecting stories and sincere testimonials that add dimension and heart to the statistics that communicate that USNH is a precious resource that lifts all of New Hampshire.   

STORYTELLING: SMU COX SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

When Brodeur Partners was hired by the SMU Cox School of Business our first order of business was conducting an extensive audit of business school marketing. We found virtually all category marketing was identical. Visually, everything featured eager lanyard-wearing young professionals in business attire at networking events. All copy was generic and vague promoting a promising future around the very broad themes of a better tomorrow, integrity and inclusivity. The only differentiating element of this bland marketing was each schools’ colors. Surprisingly, no messaging acknowledged the significant time and financial commitment of grad school and nothing alluded to the actual outcomes of graduates.

As we studied this sea of sameness among competitive b-schools, Brodeur interviewed dozens of current SMU Cox students and alumni to determine what made SMU Cox unique. We were wowed by the passion and the individual success stories we heard meeting after meeting. Full time students landed impressive dream jobs well before graduating. Part time students were earning multiple promotions before receiving their degrees. Graduates who switched careers were flourishing in new industries. The return on investment tied to an SMU Cox MBA was unquestionable.

We quickly decided have real students and graduates star in all marketing for SMU Cox. We wanted to spotlight their true stories to transcend category marketing tropes. Authenticity and passion were the hallmarks of our marketing—at SMU Cox no spin or jargon was needed. Why manufacture stylized stories when the truth was so compelling? We also created a bold, energized aesthetic that combined dynamic animation with live action footage of students/graduates sharing their success stories. The result looked nothing like other business school marketing and was instantly recognizable as SMU Cox.

SMU was so impressed with this approach for the SMU Cox of Business they embraced it for all their graduate school offerings. More importantly, SMU Cox saw a 10% increase in enrollment within months. The fully integrated campaign is now rolling into its second year as business goals have grown far more aggressive based on our success.

Brodeur’s work with SMU illustrates our commitment digging deep inside the marketing landscape and carving out a fresh, differentiated messaging strategy and then marrying it with a unique creative framing device.