Psych Design Series #3: The Power of a Story

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

Its the second week of May — just a few more days to go until the home quarantine order will be over (at least where I live), and I can then go out with my family outside together once again. But for now, I would like to talk about stories — another psych design principle that powers most successful brands.

Have you ever noticed how good you felt after watching your favorite movie? Or after hearing a nice conversation with a friend, where you both tell each other small stories about how your day went by, or how you’ve been after a few weeks / months of not seeing each other. Normally, we don’t observe in great detail how we react to things, unlike how psychologists / psychology enthusiasts like me do. What really matters to us, humans, is that we feel good (oxytocin increase) after doing something, in some cases, that is after hearing a good story.

Now, let’s define what is a story, and what makes up a good story.

According to Cambridge dictionary, Story (noun) means…

“a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events”

Based on the definition, that’s how we normally tell someone (a friend / partner) basically anything that comes up to our mind (may it be a dream/idea or something that really happened on our daily lives).

So, we innately know how to tell a story, the challenge now is how to tell a good story. But first, let’s see what makes up a story first.

A story contains five elements.

• Characters — the who are in your story (can be human / not)
• Setting — location / environment of your story.
• Plot — this is the series of events (where the story begins, and ends)
• Conflict — the problem that needs to be resolved in the story.
• Resolution — the solution to the problem, or the actions done to resolve the conflict presented in the story.

The above elements should be self-explanatory, but if you like to know more about it, feel free to read further.

I know you are now eager to know what makes up a good story, and it seems, like many other beautiful things, the process of creating one involves many different ingredients and recipes — which I haven’t truly explored, as this is more of a professional writer inclined activity. But I would like to try to simplify it into 2 items (since my job is really to simplify complex things).

A story can be a great one, depending on:

• How its told (delivery) — treatment trumps topic.
• How complete / comprehensive it is (details) — it’s in the details, as most people say.

According to American Press Institute, the above items are two research-proven attributes that makes up a good story. Other various tips and techniques you can find on how to make a good story basically revolves around expanding those two attributes.

After knowing what makes up a good story, it makes sense why I got hooked into reading Fumio Sasaki’s book, “Goodbye, Things”, to the point where I finished it in just a few days. When I was still in the first few pages, I even thought of it as an amateur work, because it has pictures — I mean, you know, a real good book doesn’t need to have pictures. But, surprisingly, his book was a page-turner for me, not just because his topic is relevant and important to me, but because he was simply telling a story about his journey to minimalism, and how it made positive changes to his life to the point where he was able to publish a book. And anyone who were on the same page as he is on his pre-minimalism days, including me, would be very eager to know how he did it. We just simple want to know his story.

Having said much about what a story is on a writing context, let’s try to look at big brands that use storytelling as their main marketing strategy, or brand-driven storytelling, in other terms. (I won’t include Disney here, because their product is storytelling itself)

• Nike — This is obvious. They used Michael Jordan’s life story, as a great basketball player, as a long-term marketing strategy, that they even made numerous “Jordan” named shoe products.
• Mattel — Mattel is the creator of the famous Barbie doll girl kids love. And they know exactly how to make kids love Barbie so much, to want to buy them—by making Barbie her own cartoon movies, which is a form of story-telling.
• Moose Toys — The creator of Shopkins does this pretty well too, and I think most toys in the toy stores have its own cartoon movie. Or shall I say, most famous cartoon movies will have a ready-to-buy physical character in a toy store somewhere, because the creators of these cartoon characters know the power of story-telling.
• TokiDoki — This Japanese-inspired brand by an Italian artist, Simone Legno, expanded his collectible items, one character set at a time, and if you look at each character group, it has a written story about them. His designs can also be seen in LeSportsac bags. This brand has already gone global and has become a lifestyle brand.What’s missing I think is a proper cartoon series / Tokidoki movie of their own. For now, they only have a few animations.
• Amazon — Yes, amazon is an online store. But did you know that they have this unique way of packaging called StoryBox ? Its their way to connect their platform users (sellers & buyers), so sellers can get more sales, which means more sales for Amazon.

There are other successful brands that use the power of telling a story, but I’ll stop with 5 examples above, as I don’t want this week’s Medium story to be a lengthy one.

So, with regards to UX (User Experience), its not about creating a great story, its about telling stories that matter to your user, something they can relate to — I will expand more about this in my next Medium post.

What Sujan Patel wrote in his marketing-related article nailed it pretty nicely.

A great story is powerful and moving. It has heart and soul. But not every brand story will meet this criteria. The stories you tell don’t all have to move people to laughter or tears, they just have to be authentic, open, and honest. Show that your company and your customers are real people with real stories to tell. Share what your brand is all about: your core values, purpose, beliefs, and mission. Create and share content, cultivate an active community, and tell the stories that matter to them. — Sujan Patel

Now that you know how powerful a story is, I hope you will incorporate some form of storytelling on your next design project (may it be digital or not).

Thanks for reading!