We are all Storytellers

Peo­ple have al­ways loved a good sto­ry. It has been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven that peo­ple re­act bet­ter to emo­tions than to facts. Con­sid­er­ing this, it’s no sur­prise that just about every­one en­joys watch­ing films. Re­gard­less of whether it’s an ac­tion movie, a dra­ma or a rom-com with Cameron Di­az, all films trig­ger emo­tions in peo­ple. Thanks to TV and the lap­top, we don’t even have to leave our com­fy so­fas any­more to en­joy a movie night. Nev­er­the­less, the cin­e­ma can still cap­ti­vate with that unique all-round ex­pe­ri­ence: The smell of the pop­corn, the loung­ing seats and the ca­vort­ing cou­ple fur­ther down the row can all con­tribute to the per­cep­tion of the sto­ry be­ing told.

Short film festivals – a concentrated salvo of emotions

At film fes­ti­vals, you can re­al­ly dive deep down in­to the world of film. Here peo­ple are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence those in­volved in the film up close and per­son­al, and to catch a glimpse be­hind the scenes in work­shops and podi­um dis­cus­sions. Switzer­land hosts sev­er­al renowned fes­ti­vals, in­clud­ing the Short Film Fes­ti­val of Switzer­land, which is be­ing held be­tween the 6th and 11th of No­vem­ber in Win­terthur.  In the blink of an eye the short films tell emo­tion­al­ly touch­ing sto­ries that can de­light both film fans and those in­volved in the in­dus­try. Be­cause the films are gen­er­al­ly short­er than a reg­u­lar block­buster, you can vis­it sev­er­al worlds in a day or just briefly es­cape the dai­ly of­fice hum­drum dur­ing a lunch­break. It’s def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it.

What do stories have to do with companies?

Just like films, every com­pa­ny has its own sto­ry to tell. Through sto­ry­telling, a com­pa­ny can present in­for­ma­tion to its cus­tomer in an en­ter­tain­ing way, thus guar­an­tee­ing that it will stay longer in their mem­o­ries. Emo­tions play a cen­tral role in sto­ry­telling: view­ers build up em­pa­thy with the ac­tors or the prod­ucts shown so that they can ul­ti­mate­ly iden­ti­fy with the com­pa­ny. This helps to en­sure the long-term loy­al­ty of the cus­tomer.

To tell is to sell

Sto­ries and com­pa­nies – the con­nec­tion is there. The ques­tion then is how a com­pa­ny can write a good sto­ry. In prin­ci­ple it makes no dif­fer­ence whether the sto­ry­telling is in­cor­po­rat­ed in ad­ver­tis­ing, in con­tent mar­ket­ing or in PR. The im­por­tant thing is that the sto­ry should trans­mit a per­son­al touch. The fo­cus can be on the his­to­ry of the com­pa­ny or on a cer­tain prod­uct, but, just as with film, it is the cen­tral thread that is ac­tu­al­ly es­sen­tial. Em­pha­sis should be placed on au­then­tic­i­ty be­cause, con­sid­er­ing every­thing, no­body wants to sit through a pa­rade of false­hoods. In ad­di­tion, less is more in sto­ry­telling mean­ing that a sto­ry should come quick­ly to the point with­out hav­ing to spare on cul­ti­vat­ing the emo­tions. So­cial me­dia is an ex­cel­lent out­let to have con­tent “go vi­ral”, so that Face­book, YouTube and the like should al­so be used to gen­er­ate as much at­ten­tion as pos­si­ble. Cross-me­dia sto­ry­telling, i.e. sto­ry­telling over sev­er­al chan­nels at once, can al­so im­press as a re­sult of con­tent cus­tomi­sa­tion de­pend­ing on the platform’s au­di­ence.

In this sense, we en­cour­age you to dig deep in­to the emo­tion­al tool­box, to write your “script” and cap­ti­vate us with your sto­ry. We can hard­ly wait.