To finish up the steps I want to talk about stories. Now we've talked a little bit about stories already when we talked about getting messages to stick. But I want here to talk about how we use stories to get people to share our ideas, and I want to talk about a particular type of story. So imagine you're at a party, a get-together one weekend with your friends, and someone that you don't really know comes up to you and says something along the lines of the following. Did you know, my new found friend, that the sunglass company Maui Jim has fantastic customer service? What would you do if someone walked up to you at a party and said, did you know a sunglass company has great customer service? You'd probably say something like wow, that's really interesting, I guess. Hang on here for just a second. I left my drink in just the other room. I'll be back in just a sec. And then that person would never see you again, because no one wants to be friends with someone that sounds like a walking advertisement. As much as people like our messages, like our ideas and want to share them, people don't want to be friends with someone that shares something that sounds like ads. In fact, the more something it's like an ad the less likely the people are to share it. So we have to give people an excuse, what's called psychological cover, to get them to share our message. And stories are one way to do exactly that. Imagine for a moment I told you a different story. Imagine I told you a story of a friend of mine who had a pair sunglasses he loved from Maui Jim. But his dog was teething and his dog tore his sunglasses to shreds. He left his apartment for just a couple minutes, he came back to find the sunglasses in pieces all over his floor. He was really upset. He'd loved these sunglasses and he wanted to get a new pair, he couldn't put them back together. But his dog had done such a number on the glasses that he couldn't even tell what the SKU number was. He couldn't figure out which ones to order from the website. So he collected all the pieces, he put them in a box, and he sent them back to Maui Jim with a note that said, hey, I'm happy to pay for a new pair of sunglasses. Just let me know which ones they are, and how much they cost. Well, a couple weeks later, he got a response back from the company. They sent him a box and inside the box was a free pair of sunglasses and a dog bone. And what I love about that story is in a quick 20 to 30 seconds, everything else about Maui Jim, them having great customer service, comes to life. Because anyone can say they have great customer service. Anyone can tell you they have great customer service, but what a good story does is it shows you that great customer service. You can't walk away from that story without realizing how great their customer service actually is. It's what I'll call a Trojan horse story. We've all heard the story of the Trojan horse. The Greeks versus the Trojans, no one can win the battle so they build a big wooden horse and they hide their men inside. Then the Trojans drag that horse into the city, the men climb out and they win the war. Good stories are like that. They’re vessels or carriers of information. Sure, there's an engaging outside but there's a kernel in the middle that comes along. Whether it's a brand, whether it's an attribute or a moral, it's part of the story. You can't forget it while you're listening to that story. Remember for example, Will It Blend, that example that I showed you when they blended an iPhone. Well, if you had to fill in the blank, they make a very blank blender. How would you fill in the blank? You'd probably say powerful, or really strong, which is exactly the attribute they want you to remember. They didn't just build a story, they built a story that carried their message along for the ride. If you have kids and you want your kids not to lie, you might say, well don't lie, and they'll probably cheerfully go back to whatever they were doing before, forgetting a day or two later. But if you tell your kids the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, they'll stay tuned to the end of the story because they want to learn what happened to the boy. And along the way, they'll learn that lying is a bad idea. Let me give you one more example of this idea of Trojan Horse stories. It's my favorite, and it's called Panda Cheese. Now, it's not cheese made from panda milk. That would be amazingly remarkable. I'm not even sure if it's possible and even if it was, you'd have to probably wear a lot of padding and run very quickly to milk a panda. It's an Egyptian company. Their brand is Panda and that's their name and they make cheese. And I want you to watch a couple of their ads. [MUSIC] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] >> Panda, [FOREIGN]. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [NOISE] [MUSIC] Panda [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] Panda, [FOREIGN]. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] >> Panda, [FOREIGN]. >> [FOREIGN] >> [FOREIGN] >> [MUSIC] [SOUND] [SOUND] Panda, [FOREIGN]. [SOUND] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] >> [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] Panda, [FOREIGN] >> And just to wrap up, we've been talking about the six key steps to boosting word of mouth. It's not random luck or chance, there's a science behind why people share. We talked about social currency, how to make people feel smart, special and in the know. The more special we feel, the more something makes us look good, the more likely we are to pass it on. >> Explains why our friends always post positive things on Facebook and how we can use that to get our messages to travel. We talked about triggers, top of mind, tip of tongue. We don't just talk about interesting things, we talk about what we're thinking about. Why do we talk so much about the weather or what we're doing this weekend? It's top of mind. We're more likely to think about it, more likely to talk about it. Find that peanut butter. Get people to share it by linking your idea to something in the environment. Emotion, when we care we share. Public, easier to see, easier to imitate. Practical value, useful information. And finally, stories. When people put their kids to bed at night, nobody tells bedtime facts. They tell bedtime stories. Stories are the currency of the conversation. They're the way we communicate. But certain stories can be more effective than others. I hope you enjoyed Panda Cheese. I hope you found it really funny, but I shared it with you not just because it's funny. I shared it with you because I challenge you to tell someone else about that story and not mention a particular word and that word is Panda. They didn’t just do something funny, they built a Trojan horse that carries their message for the ride. Good stories carry ideas along with it. If you want to get your idea to travel, think about how you can build a story that carries it as part and parcel of the message. Apply these steps and you can get any product, any idea, and any service to catch on.
