"But look at this part of the journey, 'the moment of inspiration,'" author Andrew Davis said. "This is the biggest opportunity to create moments of inspiration that send people on a journey. Think about triggering an irresistible act in the mind of the consumer."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Great storytelling isn't easy, but if done well, it can be more powerful and motivating than any other kind of content, said Andrew Davis, best-selling author of "Brandscaping: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships," and a keynote speaker at Content Marketing World.
"We have a funnel problem, people," he said, as he took the stage after CMWorld founder Joe Pulizzi on Tuesday. Pointing to some diagrams by Elias St. Elmo Lewis dating back to 1898 and purporting to show the factors that drive consumers to buy, Davis said that instead of thinking like consumers, "we keep reinventing the funnel."
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View full sizeAndrew Davis took the stage dancing in his opening keynote at Content Marketing World.Davis compared the way most companies behave to Ptolemy's Earth-centric model of the universe. "Everything revolves around us. We are awesome. We are building a website that everyone will come to," he said, mimicking a misguided brand.
The reality looks more like Galileo's model of the universe. "At the center is Google the Almighty," or search, Davis said. After that, there's Gmail, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and anything else people spend the majority of their time doing.
Pointing to a distant speck in that universe, he said: "We're way the hell out here. We have to get closer and closer to the center of the universe."
"Are you a Ptolemy or a Galileo?" he asked.
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View full sizeAndrew Davis' Google search for meatloaf, mashed potatoes and peas. To illustrate his point, Davis took the audience through a typical search. He started out by looking for Google images of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and peas, to show that "Google is the comfort food of search." He came up with 2,200 images, which after perusing, made him hungry for meatloaf.
So he went to the Allrecipes.com site, where he found one that 22,000 people had given four stars, which must mean it's good, he figured. Davis then went on Yelp to find the best meatloaf in his hometown of Boston, which after reviewing the choices, he decided against.
He then found a 10-minute YouTube video called "Betty's Comfort Food Meatloaf Dinner Recipe," where he could watch someone making meatloaf. Five minutes into the video, she mentioned reaching for a meatloaf pan, which sent him searching for one on Amazon.com. That got him wondering how healthy meatloaf is to eat, so he went to over to WolframAlpha.com and discovered that meatloaf has about 1,138 calories.
That prompted him to join Facebook's "Meatloaf sucks" group. He then looked for references to meatloaf on Twitter, which included Meat Loaf the artist, whom he likes. He went to Ticketmaster and bought tickets for an upcoming concert, where he took photos and uploaded them to flickr.
"And I'm back right where I started," Davis said, as the audience broke out in applause.
Outlining what happens, he starts off the journey with his initial search -- "the moment of inspiration." Then comes the "trigger," where he decided "I'll make meatloaf for dinner." After that is the "initial consideration set," where he figured "Allrecipes must have good meatloaf recipes."
Then came "active evaluation," where he sifted through his choices, and ended up joining the flickr and Ticketmaster "loyalty loops." And finally, "the moment of purchase (or commitment)," which signals the beginning of the relationship with the consumer.
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View full sizeWhat if instead of trying to persuade consumers to buy, brands instead focused on creating 'moments of inspiration,' asked Andrew Davis.Most companies are great at the point just before the "moment of purchase," when people are considering their brand among others.
"But look at this part of the journey, 'the moment of inspiration,'" he said. "This is the biggest opportunity to create moments of inspiration that send people on a journey. Think about triggering an irresistible act in the mind of the consumer."
Davis cited Chuck Williams, founder of Williams-Sonoma, who once said: "We don't sell the drill or the drill bit, we sell the hole." Williams-Sonoma once sent thousand of consumers a catalog showing expensive, premium cuts of meat, but got very little response.
When Williams demanded to see a copy of the catalog, he was livid. "Who wants to eat a raw piece of meat? People don't want to eat raw meat, they're inspired by steak," he said. "This is what people want."
Davis also told the story of Caine's Arcade, a cardboard arcade 9-year-old Caine Monroy made inside his father's auto parts store. One day, a Los Angeles filmmaker named Nirvan Mullick stopped by the shop, and Caine asked him if he wanted to play a video game. Mullick did, and after talking to Caine's father, George, learned he was the only person who had ever played in Caine's Arcade.
So Mullick organized a flash mob that within 10 days had raised $170,000 for Caine's college fund, and created a movie about Caine's Arcade. Caine has become something of a celebrity, has given a TEDxTEEN talk, and has inspired other kids around the world to make their own cardboard creations via the Imagination Foundation's annual Global Cardboard Challenge, Davis said. "Caine's Arcade is a great story that created a movement."
There was no "buy now," "click to download," "sign up here" or "donate now" button at the end of Caine's movie, but everyone who saw it asked, "How can I help Caine?"
"MOI (moment of inspiration) leads to ROI [return on investment]," he said.
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View full sizeAndrew Davis said brands need to stop creating campaigns and start telling stories. "Stop creating campaigns, and start making a commitment to tell a valuable story -- a story that's bigger than you," Davis said. That's more important than how many likes, favorites or followers somebody has.
"Think like an entertainment executive. The masters of MOI are Disney," he said. In 2003, Disney released the DVD for "Finding Nemo," the best-selling DVD of all time. "It'll probably always be the best-selling DVD, because nobody buys DVDs any more," he quipped.
Suddenly every grownup who took their 6-year-old to the pet store was hearing, "I want a Nemo." Not only did the popularity of "Finding Nemo" decimate the global clown fish population and lead to fishnapping from coral reefs, it also spurred sales of aquariums, filters, rocks and other fish.
That's just like what happened in 1961, after the original "101 Dalmatians" movie came out. Suddenly everyone wanted dalmatian puppies. "It turns out that Dalmatians make crappy pets, so people were bringing them back, saying, 'They're not like in the movie,'" he said.
Just as in those examples, "valuable content increases demand for the products and services you sell," he said.
Sales of Lucky Strike cigarettes are up 44 percent and Canadian Club Whisky up 4.3 percent. Why? he asked. The audience said in unison, "Mad Men." He agreed, saying: "Mad Men is such high-quality content" that it can spur impulse buying of smokes and liquor just by being in the scene, he said.
MTV's reality TV series "16 and Pregnant" increased sales of condoms and reduced rates of teen pregnancy after it started airing in 2009, as viewers saw how hard it is to be young, unmarried and raising a baby.
"Start thinking like a television executive," Davis said.
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View full sizeAndrew Davis said the brilliant storytelling like the movie "Caine's Arcade" inspire people and make them want to do something. Davis offered "four simple truths to creating moments of inspiration":
1. "Build suspense: Create anxiety about what will happen." Davis quoted British playwright William Archer: "Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty." Breville, an Australian maker of high-end juicers, decided to sponsor a Netflix series called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead," about an obese man trying to lose weight. When it started airing, people were inspired, and Breville's Juicers sold out worldwide. "Ask yourself, 'Is there inherent suspense in the story I'm telling?'" Davis asked.
2. Foster Aspiration: DCVelocity.com, a specialized website for logistics and distribution centers, started posting "Move It," half-hour shows that take viewers on a factory tour. The show has not only spurred sales of belt sorters and other specialized equipment shown in its episodes, it has also been picked up by Japanese public television. "As yourself: What does my audience aspire to do or be?" he said.
3. Drive Empathy: "In 2011, as IBM was transitioning from a manufacturer to a service provider," it created a robot named Watson who could play "Jeopardy!" and challenged it to beat two human trivia champions. IBM found out that viewers not only cheered on the robot, they felt bad when it missed a question.
IBM created content around it ("The Audacious Quest that humanized the machines"), and Nova created a PBS special called, "The Smartest Machine on Earth." After the special aired, IBM started getting more calls asking for its expertise, and its revenues surged 20 percent in a single quarter. Watson has gone on to create recipes for a food truck and has been asked to predict fashion trends. "Watson proved he could maybe beat Google at the end of the day," Davis said.
4. Harness emotion: "When you harness emotion, you inspire people to act," Davis said. When a Danish TV show called "Arvingerne [the Legacy]" showed the heirs of a matriarch squabbling over her inheritance, viewers started calling lawyers about creating wills and estate-planning.
"What emotion inspires action as it relates to the product or service we provide?" Davis asked. "Those are the things that are going to make a big impact."