The100: Storytelling, Liquid Death and climbing Mt. Everest

Once upon a time…

Jeremy Connell-Waite sheppards us into storytelling’s Elysian Fields with his 9 principles for being better at them. From principle #2:

“This research paper reveals new insights on how fast the average human reads non-fiction. It turns out to be around 238 words per minute. If that is true, and our screen-based attention spans at work based are 47 seconds, then we could make the case that a successful business story rests on the impact of its first 186 words.”

(*checks word count of The100, gulps*)

Meanwhile, Storythings shared Prof Lennart Nacke’s page showing all of the storytelling frameworks. 

Brand: The Great and Powerful

Behind the curtain of a surprising number of our social norms sits a brand. Including, as explained by Miguel Ferreira, Americans brushing their teeth:

“By appealing to vanity instead of health reasons, Hopkins [the legendary copywriter] accomplished two things. Pepsodent became the best-selling toothpaste for more than 30 years. And 10 years after his first ad, regular toothbrushers in America skyrocketed from 7 to 65 percent. Hunt for revelations about what your audience needs, but communicate what they want in a way that resonates.”

More clouds of brand exhaust here. Including smiling in photos, breakfast and carbon footprint.

2 p’s short of an opportunity

Continuing on brand, what about Liquid Death? Mark Ritson says it’s a brand built from packaging and promotion. And that its fame shows how badly marketers neglect the ‘product’ P. 

“Sure, its water comes from the Alps. And there are those lovely aluminium cans. But no one talks about Liquid Death’s product. And that’s entirely the reason why the brand has become so prevalent across PowerPoint decks. It’s all about the ads. The attitude. The social. The events. And nothing else. That makes Liquid Death the perfect pin-up brand for a generation of marketers who define marketing as advertising and who spend their careers ignoring the remaining 90% of our discipline’s hinterland.”

We ran a study recently on what Aussie teens think of Liquid Death. Here are a few quotes:

• “Oh, it tastes like normal sparkling water, but a bit less carbonated. It’s not what I was expecting at all. I guess it’s just sparkling water.”
• “Like, it tastes, obviously, quite normal. It’s just sparkling water.”
• “I definitely wouldn’t swap my usual water for Liquid Death. I would just go tap water, honestly, because it’s cheaper.”

Hmm. Product. If you want the full reel – just email me. 

Oggi, oggi, oggi, Ai, Ai, Ai

Everyone thinks they know what AI is, but no one can agree. And that’s a problem. So says Will Douglas Heaven in MIT Technology review:  

“It used to be like this: There was a problem in the world, and we built something to fix it. Here, everything is backward: The goal seems to be to build a machine that can do everything, and to skip the slow, hard work that goes into figuring out what the problem is before building the solution.”

Failing forward

Dani Gibson of Creative Salon shared a study on the ‘state of creativity’ which found that 70% of respondents thought that having freedom to fail boosted creative output. 

On Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer of Mastercard:

“He reveals that he allocates a separate innovation budget to his teams to allow them to experiment and learn, without any expectation of tangible results. “This grants my team members the freedom to explore new ideas without the fear of falling short of a traditional benchmark. Although testing and learning often lead to necessary pivots, they provide valuable insights that bring us closer to our consumers,” adds Rajamannar.

And finally

DJI flew a drone up a Mount Everest climbing route. Pretty cool. 

Meanwhile, Gaál László created this Volvo advert in 24hrs using AI. The speed is very impressive, and the ad is as good as most car ads, which isn’t saying much. 

Why are longer videos becoming more commonplace? No one really knows, but there are lots of theories.

I’m off to Italy for a few weeks so handing the reins to my colleague Fran for the next edition of The100.

Ciao,

Alistair