"Aren't marketing platforms today oversold in what they can do on the business side of things? Are organizations even aware that their message has lost all connection with their audience? Hey, some even seem to excel at finding ways to render their content marketing completely pointless!"

Here's an article by my colleague Raf Stevens who really drives the point home about how most advertising is anything but a story -- yet stories are what customers want. I love the research he shares and charts included. They really help make his point.

Scroll down below the fold when you click through so you can skip the promo for an upcoming workshop. Look for the 'Look Who's Talking" photo.

And I also like the tips and examples Raf gives us for how to actually get our heads away from traditional advertising and into the narrative space.

And then I reflected on another article I just discarded that mentioned Burberry's The Art of the Trench storytelling project: http://artofthetrench.com/  I checked it out and hah! It's anything but storytelling. Just a collection of photographs from customers wearing trenchcoats set to some music: 

But then I realized that if businesses can't figure out how to craft and share meaningful stories (and don't even know/care what a story really is), then customers might not know what to share either! Which means businesses need to get really smart about how to evoke stories -- because people will tell you lots of stories (yes, stories -- not opinions. thoughts, or observations) when you know how to properly evoke them.

OK, I went off on a tangent there because Raf barely mentions evoking stories. For help with story evoking, search this article collection under 'storycapture'.

To get back to Raf and his article -- go read it. It has lots of great info and is a good kick-in-the-pants reminder to build narrative into all of your marketing work.

Link to original article: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=630ffc3b05a1a80b71c170805&id=5705e9c6f3&e=79985a9819 

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it