Embrace Your Dark Side in Marketing
If you’re anything like me, you know, a human, life isn’t always pastels and pearls. Sometimes, it’s slipping down the driveway while taking out the trash in the rain.
I’ve been there. Got the scar to prove it. But you know, our scars, our journey in finding the light through the dark, is what people connect with in marketing for business.
Yeah, yeah, storytelling marketing. We all know it’s important, right? Yeah, it is, but do you know why? It’s more than just stories we liken to fictional tales retold by our mothers before bed. Human history is rich in the storytelling traditions, from the old Norse tales to Plato, Aesop’s fables to Grimm’s fairy tales. It’s as if storytelling runs in our blood. So, it would only make sense that people engage more with this form of marketing than traditional sales copy.
And do you know what one thread ties all of these stories together? They all tell tales that include pain, and even suffering. It’s because people remember and relate to what they can recall the most. The reason for this is called the negativity bias.
“The Negativity bias (also known as the negativity effect) refers to the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person’s behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative.”
Why is recognizing the negativity bias in life important to storytelling marketing?
A good story welcomes the reader, live action, into the story. It engages their mind and ignites their feelings. It has the power to take them on an adventure and really get the juices flowing. When you can take someone on a journey, from pain to pleasure, and make someone feel in the age of a digitally-induced emotional disconnect, you’ve changed their life, even if briefly. This won’t be forgotten, and your brand will be forever linked with that neural imprint.