Oh, the stories brands tell!

Yesterday. I’m on Twitter. A Tweet leads me to a blog post written by Hugh MacLeod. On the blog – some great quotes about entrepreneurship. One in particular, strikes a chord: “People buy your product because it helps fill in the narrative gaps in their lives.”

I tweet that line. Someone doesn’t get what it means. I answer flippantly. But what I should have said was: “I can’t explain it in 140 characters.” Let me tell you a story.

Here it is. It’s actually five, short short stories of how brands have “filled in the narrative gaps” of my own life.

Hope this helps.

July, 2002 I am on a train, Zurich to Berlin. A giddy, giggling couple sits across from me. They are trying to conjugate the word “Google”, in French. “Je google, tu google, vous googlez.” The couple laughs. They kiss. I am fascinated. What other brand name do people say *while they are kissing*? I can’t think of one.

Google had been around for a while back then, but I hadn’t heard “Google” used as a verb before that moment. I get back to the US, excitedly exclaim to people: “Google has made it!” They stare at me quizzically.

Flash forward to 2010. Google’s Superbowl commercial. A perfect example of a brand demonstrating how they “fill in the narrative gaps in your life.” It is my story, told in different words.

September 2009 Uh-oh. The convertible I had owned for ten years, 200,000 miles, drops dead in the middle of the highway. With the immediate prospect of two children in college looming; two tuition payments and a down economy, I swallow my pride and buy a used Honda Civic on CraigsList. My kids taunt me because it doesn’t even have power windows. I retort back that I am doing my “Civic duty”, saving on gas, saving money so they can go to the college of their choice. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. My kids stop laughing. I grow to love my new old car.

March 2009 But what about pasta?” my fellow Twitterer asks. “Can pasta really fill in narrative gaps or just fill you?” I think about pasta. I think when my kids were young, telling them stories about – yes — pasta. “Strega Nona”, about a pot of spaghetti that bubbles over, consumes a town. I think of my Italian Grandmother, serving her wonderful manicotti to my then fiancé. He eats plate after plate, not knowing it’s only the appetizer. Turns green when she brings out the pot roast. We tell that story forever, even after we’re divorced. I think of how my kids, when stressed and having a horrible day, will instinctively ask me to make Macaroni and Cheese. “Whole wheat macaroni, please, mom”. I think about how they want to know HOW MUCH. HOW MUCH better is wheat than white pasta? HOW MUCH better would the environment be if the packaging didn’t have all that air in it. HOW MUCH would giving back a nickel per box help the world? “Tell me a story, mommy.” But this time, here is what matters.

November 2001 The iPod has been out a year, I finally break down and buy one. It immediately and irrevocably changes my life. Songs – in any order I want – play for me – while I am doing housework. While I am at the gym. This is amazing. Chores that I used to feel, at best, ambivalent about, I now am excited over. It’s like I have won the lottery. Apple doesn’t talk about how their products will change your life, they just deliver one that does so. I am the one that tells the story. And when I talk about the iPod to my friends, I don’t say “hey, I just purchased a cool new product.” I say, “The iPod changed my life.”

March, 1999 and February 2010 It’s a blustery day in March, and I’m in a drafty warehouse. A woman named Stacy Andrus is showing me her pita-chip making machine. Stacy used to own a sandwich cart in Downtown Boston. The lines at her cart grew long and people would get cranky waiting for their sandwiches. So she would roast some leftover pita bread, season it, and give free samples to people standing in line. And those people, now happy happy, would say “HEY. These pita chips are good. You should sell these.” So she did.

But at that moment in the warehouse, it’s noisy and chilly. Stacy invested everything she had into this new machine. And she had underestimated the problems with the bagging process. The seal has to be perfect. It has to be perfect. She’s going on her third year of only making $20,000 in salary with 100 hour workweeks. And she’s worried. Over the din, she shouts the words “It’s harder than people think, you know.” She wants help from me re-designing her bag, but she knows she can’t pay me. Heck, *I* know she can’t pay me. She offers to share with me business plan advice if I will give her packaging advice.

Stacy and I walk to her office, put the current bag on the table, stare at it. The words “Pita Chips” are in large letters. I tell her to reverse the hierarchy, make Stacy’s the biggest thing on the bag. Brand *Stacy* not the generic word “Pita Chips”. And I tell her to put the story, the story of how she started the company, on the bag. I will write that story for her, email it to her the next day. It’s the least I can do. Then I shrug my shoulders, walk out the door. I never see Stacy again.

In December of 2005, Stacy sells her company, Stacy’s Pita Chips, to Pepsico. Sales at the time are $60 million dollars.

Cut to two weeks ago. I’m sitting in my car – er, my Civic — with my daughter Allie. She’s eating from a bag of Stacy’s chips – cinnamon sugar. Suddenly she looks at the bag, shouts, “Hey, Mom, do you know the story of how Stacy’s was founded?” She pauses expectantly, a chip in one hand, the bag in the other. She’s 18 years old. She looks like the bite and smile portion of a television commercial.

“Why, yes, honey.” I reply. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

What do you think?  Can you think of a single brand that is important to you that you can’t tell a story about?

by hugh macleod

Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!

We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.

Man in the mirror

Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.

The noise won’t stop

When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what  you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.

Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play

Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.

Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.

I’m popularrrr

Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.

Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.

Put me in coach I’m ready to play

Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.

Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.

What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.

We all live in a yellow submarine

Twitter is for friends not fiends. I don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.

If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends’ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.

I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand

Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.

One last word, before I go..

Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.

Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.

Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.

These are the people that will carry you to great heights.