The Power of Storytelling
Stories are the most powerful tools we have. Good stories move us emotionally and make us susceptible to buying or doing things we might not otherwise have done.
In 2006, New York Times Magazine journalist Rob Walker set out to determine if storytelling was the most powerful tool of all.
He started his project by collating two hundred thrift items of low value (the average cost of each item was $1.25). He took care to ensure that none of them were particularly special.
A plastic banana here. An old wooden mallet there. Even a plastic motel room key. You get the idea. They had no intrinsic value whatsoever.
Next, he telephoned two hundred professional authors and invited them to participate in his ‘Significant Object’ study and asked them if they would each write a story about one of the objects.
They all said “Yes.”
He then auctioned the items on eBay, adding the stories to the descriptions.
Can you guess what happened?
One of the items was a small plastic bust of a horse’s head. Rob had paid just $0.99 for it. What did it sell for now that it had a great story attached to it?
$62.95.
Was this a one-off? Not really.
In total, he spent $197 on the items and ended up selling them for almost $8000. That's a markup of more than 6300%!
And all thanks to the stories, which transformed these otherwise trite objects into things of value.
How is it so easy for us to fall for stories?
How could someone part with more than $60 for a secondhand plastic horse's head that someone else had bought for less than a dollar?
The simple answer is that they play on our emotions.
When we feel these emotions, we become less objective and critically observant. We are easily duped into buying and doing things we might not ordinarily do.
Rob's brilliant project is a shining example of the enormous power of storytelling and highlights its importance as a skill worth developing.
For more on this fascinating study check out the Significant Objects website or buy the brilliant book that contains images of the original objects and their accompanying stories.
