We attended the wonderfully difficult to compartmentalise event, The Story, last week. It was excellent. Curated by Matt Locke, the aim of the day was to get back to what a lot of us in the ‘creative industries’ enjoy doing best… telling stories. Matt had rightly identified that “This is surely the most exciting time in history to be in the story-telling business. Yet most of the conferences and events for the creative industries focus on collapsing business models, the end of once certain monopolies and the perpetual nail-biting uncertainty of living during change. The sheer visceral pleasure of story-telling has been lost beneath the surface of our industry’s obsessions with technological change and economic uncertainty.” I couldn’t have put it better myself Matt.
Many a brief comes our way that asks for the technological bells and whistles of today’s marketing toolkit to be bolted on to campaigns in the interests of generating further reach and engagement, but Friday’s event served as a timely reminder that having a good story to tell and knowing how to tell it are the cornerstones of success.
We’d certainly advocate the use of all the tools in the modern marketer’s armoury to help fan the flames, but an insight into what makes your audience sit up and listen, and a skill in talking to them in a way that leaves them wanting to spend more time with you, will make them much more likely to pass on what you’ve got to say than all the ‘share this’ buttons you can throw at ‘em.

Highlights for me included performance artist Tim Etchells,

The very entertaining – and moving - Tim Wright. His tales of correspondence with Harrison Ford’s office about a fictitious meeting, invented solely to wind up his business partner, were first class. (There’s absolutely no truth in the rumour he’s inspired us to do something similar to Dave P). Tim is also the guy who did that Kidmapped thing last year…retracing the route taken in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel for the digital age.

And finally, the avuncular David Hepworth, whose poignant story was a fitting climax to the day.

So, well done again Matt for a great event, right down to the newspaper of the day given to all attendees. There are plans to repeat the event next year, so if you get the chance, go.