In the mid-1970s, my parents arranged for a condo in Florida when I was living in New York. We had a family summer vacation, joined by my brother-in-law and sister and their two small girls, aged 5 and 6 who had come down from Canada.
One day we were all heading off to dinner with some people we knew and we had an hour drive to meet them. I piled into the back seat of the rental car with my nieces who were particularly rambunctious at the time.
I decided to tell them a story hoping they would quiet down if they got involved in the story. It worked as I spun a story, involving them, to last the length of the drive. Then I totally forgot all about it shortly after our trip.
Later that year, I visited my sister and her family for the Christmas holidays. My nieces immediately wanted me to tell them the story again. Woops. How did that go… again?
It took some prompting from the two of them to even get started. As I told them the story again, they continually corrected me to keep me on the right track. Eventually we got through the story. I felt relieved. They had remembered it more than I did.
Six months later, I moved to South America. My nieces were now able to read, so I thought I would send them some stories by mail (that’s what we used before email). So, I hand wrote out a story, with pictures, to try to replicate the story they liked.
Then came requests for more stories with the same characters, sometimes with little pictures to show examples. On we went, with a new story being required every few months. And sometimes for a birthday.
Things expanded to other stories. The characters and stories were our own inside-the-family shared experiences.
They often featured a clumsy dragon named Simon whose unfortunate fire breath caused him various problems. Friends turned into burned toast; things burned down. But he was great to have around for lighting birthday cakes.
Simon came into conflict with a group of Ice Crones, including their leader, the dreaded Ice Queen Crone who liked to freeze everything. That was a challenge to a fire breather.
Hijinks ensued in the stories. Original pictures, drawn and crayoned, came back to me from the nieces a continent away.
We moved back nearer to them after a few years and could visit from time to time and read or tell stories face to face.
As the nieces grew, we went quiet for a few years. Then their brother arrived, and new stories emerged to entertain him.
Time has a way of going on… and on. Soon the little nieces were all grown up.
The older one then had her own daughters. Three. On one visit with them, at their house, I wondered if her little girls would also like some stories.
My niece suddenly left the room and, to my shock, came back with the original hand-written stories we had sent to her from South America twenty years and more earlier. She had kept them all those years.
Why? Because stories are special, particularly if they belong to you. After that a new series of stories had to be created for the new generation of little girls. There were three girls whose names (accidentally) were in alphabetic order, so they became the Alphabet Princesses and took on their own adventures.
If you ever doubted, stories have enduring value consider all the stories you know and tell. The closer they are to you and the more you embrace them, the more they are valued and remembered.
This is not just a story about stories; it is a lesson for marketers and advertisers in sharing stories of their products and customers. Stories make their message memorable and worth saving in your memory.
The stories have to be closely allied with their products or services. Relevance matters; the interest should just not be borrowed. The stories should be provocative enough to be remembered. Interesting enough to involve the listener/reader. And have a consistency so it is clear where the message is coming from. Every additional related story enhances the overall message. Stories create a shared linking experience and sense of community amongst those who share it. It doesn’t matter if it is true or not.
Stories allow your potential consumer to see and imagine themselves with your product or service. Stories don’t go away immediately, the way a “buy this now” kind of message does. Stories have staying power, sometimes for generations.