Storytelling can be incredibly powerful in marketing. I’ve been reading a book that shares some interesting insights into the science behind storytelling – how selflessness is seen as good and heroic, while selfishness is seen as evil and villainous.
This video shares a quick breakdown of this core idea and considers how the science of storytelling may be able to help you understand your target person.
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In today’s video, I want to talk through an excerpt from a book I’ve been reading and explain how it might help you define your USP in a way that your target person might care about.
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I’ve been reading an interesting book, The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. One section in particular stood out to me, so in today’s blog post I want to explain how storytelling might be really helpful when you’re defining your USP.
Heroes and Villains: Exploring the Science Behind Storytelling
In Will Storr’s book, I was drawn to an explanation of the science that backs up the power of storytelling. It made think about how storytelling connects to the way we understand our target person (step 1 of my five steps).
As Storr explains: “We’re wired to find selfless behaviour heroic and selfish deeds evil. Selflessness is thought to be the universal basis of all human morality.
“An analysis of ethnographic accounts of ethics in 60 worldwide groups found they shared these rules:
- Return favours
- Be courageous
- Help your group
- Respect authority
- Love your family
- Never steal
- Be fair.
“All are a variation on ‘don’t put your own selfish interests before that of the tribe’.”
Illustrating the Science Behind Storytelling
A little later in the book, Storr goes further and shares a great example of how we are wired to favour the good and punish the bad, which begins from the youngest of ages.
“Even pre-verbal babies show approval of selfless behaviour. Researchers showed six- to ten-month-old infants a simple puppet show in which a goody square selflessly helps a ball up the hill while a baddie triangle tries to force it down. When offered the puppets to play with, almost all the children chose the selfless square. Psychologist Professor Paul Bloom writes that these were bona fide social judgements on the part of the babies.”
He later continues: “Just as our storytelling brains are wired to valorise pro-social behaviour, we’re designed to love watching the anti-social suffer the pain of tribal comeuppance. These darker instincts are also evident in children. Another psychologist puppet show starred an evil thieving puppet who is struggling to open a box. A second puppet tried to help the villain, while a third puppet, the punisher, jumped on the lid, slamming it shut. Even eight-month-olds preferred to play with the punisher. Brain scans reveal that the mere anticipation of a selfish person being punished is experienced as pleasurable.”
Marketing and the Power of These Hardwired Stories
So, you may be wondering – what does this have to do with marketing your business? What I take away from these two puppet-based experiments is that the businesses and the people that we are hardwired to want to ‘play’ with are those who are helping other people and not being selfish, and those who are punishing those who are being selfish. We favour both those types of people – and that can be extended to businesses, and the people who represent them, too.
If our human brains are wired that way, then this can help your marketing. Consider when you’re building your USP. Your goal when you’re building your USP is to make sure that people want to play with your business – they want to buy your product or invest in your services. If you want people to connect with you, you either need to show them that you are selfless – that you are putting the world’s, or your tribe’s, interests over your own – or you need to show them that you’re punishing someone who isn’t putting the tribe’s interests ahead of their own.
Thinking About Your Target Person
Tapping into the power of these stories can help you understand your target person – and in the process, it can help you stand out from the crowd if you are operating in alignment with your values and showing that you want to help people.
If you’re currently thinking about your USP and your target person’s wants, needs, fears and frustrations, maybe you can also think about who is in your target person’s tribe. How can you show yourself or your business as being a hero for that tribe? How can you show yourself as someone who can help that tribe succeed or who can help to minimise any damage to their tribe from others?
Do These Stories Resonate with You?
What do you think about people being hardwired to favour the good and punish the bad? I find it really interesting, though I feel as if this walks on some ethical boundaries, perhaps, with regard to the darker instincts in human behaviour that this seems to explain.
I’d love to hear if you have any comments about how our storytelling brain works, and whether it’s right or not to consider these stories in our marketing. Please do get in touch to share your thoughts or your opinions on this blog post or the book, or to reach out with any questions you may have about the next steps for your marketing. I’d love to take the conversation further!