讀一本書:True Story(節選4)
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/yingyuziliao/185594.html
TRUE STORY: HOW TO COMBINE STORY AND ACTION TO
TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS by Ty Montague(ZT)
4 There is a rational, repeatable process that will enable you to
unearth and hone your metastory and help everyone in your company
understand what their individual role is in "doing" that story.
5 Because your metastory is told by every action your company takes,
ideally everyone in your company needs to understand how this
works--product development, customer service, HR. This is not the
sole domain of marketing, and it certainly isn't solely about
marketing communications.
I hope you find the book both useful and inspiring. I can't imagine
a more exciting time to be in business.
CHAPTER ONE
Your True Story
Why did you buy the car you drive? If I asked you that question, you
would probably have multiple answers: it gets great mileage; you
love the design, the sunroof, the stereo system; you got a really
good deal. These are all rational, logical reasons. The engineers
who built your car would love your answers; they would point to them
as proof of a long-held engineering belief that the world is a
rational, logical place. The label we often use for people like this
is "left-brained." Many of these folks--engineers and others with a
talent for things like math and logic, as well as many senior
business executives, CFOs, and CEOs--harbor a suspicion that
so-called right-brain pursuits like story and storytelling aren't
really serious, businesslike activities. Some are simply
uncomfortable in an area they consider to be subjective and soft,
lacking in rigor. Some of them truly believe that the power of the
internet will eventually make the need for story in marketing fade
away. Their (quite logical) premise is that once people have
perfect product knowledge at their fingertips, they will choose to
make rational, logical buying decisions based purely on comparison
of functional product benefits.
Let's examine that premise more deeply as we consider the original
question. Why did you buy the car that you drive? The functional
purpose of a car is to propel us forward at a rate not achievable by
walking. A number of different configurations are certainly
necessary. Family size, length of average journey, seasons of the
year, and part of the world in which the car is driven all would
need to be taken into consideration. Based on these needs, a few
variations on the standard theme should emerge. For instance, people
who need to drive on rough roads or off-road would require a vehicle
that is tough, with higher ground clearance and probably with
four-wheel drive. That variation would cost more to build, and the
highway driving experience and fuel economy would suffer, but
presumably people with these specialized needs would be willing to
put up with trucklike handling and to pay significantly more for it,
both at purchase and over the lifetime of the vehicle. The basic
engineering problems are straightforward, and once they are solved,
the standard sport-utility vehicle should result.
In the basketball-shoe business, a similar process should occur.
Once height, weight, and player position are known, a standard set
of engineering problems needs to be tackled. There is a natural
compromise between weight and support. A perfect basketball shoe
needs structure and strength to protect joint integrity and to
provide cushioning and comfort, but also must be as light as
possible to promote speed and jumping ability. Again, once the
engineering problems have been solved, the perfect compromise should
be achieved and a small number of variations on that theme made
available to the buying public. These shoes are specialized, so
they cost a lot more than regular sneakers, but to people who play a
lot of basketball, that cost should be well worth it.
So here are a few interesting facts to consider: today there are
more brands and sub-brands of basketball shoes than there are
players in the NBA--over four hundred different variations, in fact.
And (illogically), roughly 80 percent of all basketball shoes sold
in the world never even touch a basketball court. Of the vehicles
sold in the United States last year, 54 percent were either trucks
or SUVs designed specifically for off-road use. Yet 90 percent of
those vehicles never left a paved road.
What's going on here?
The only logical conclusion is that logic has little to do with why
people buy things. They definitely aren't buying them exclusively
for their functional benefits. So what is about basketball shoes and
SUVs that make people willing to pay much more to own them, even
when they'll never use them for the activities for which they were
specifically engineered?
The short answer: "metastory."
The products we buy offer a functional benefit, but much more
importantly, they are a form of personal expression. So, without my
ever uttering a word, when I rock White on White Nike Air Force 1
basketball shoes, I'm telling the world something about me. When I
drive a Toyota FJ down my perfectly paved suburban driveway, I am
signaling something to the world about my worldview and my
intentions. I am giving the world information about what community,
what tribe, I belong to. This is not new behavior. We have always
surrounded ourselves with a variety of adornments and talismans to
signal our tribal allegiance, to bring us good fortune, to ward off
rivals, and to attract mates. When we were still in caves or grass
huts, we were painting and tattooing our bodies and wearing
bear-claw necklaces or great headdresses made of the feathers of
birds of prey. In the modern world, we go to specific schools, we
join specific clubs, we drive particular cars. We wear Air Jordans,
"not" Adidas shell-toes. We wear an Armani suit, or we wear a
Brooks Brothers suit, or we would never own a suit.
When you begin to think of the products we buy this way--not as
functional items, but as a medium of expression about ourselves--
suddenly things start to make a lot more sense. Of course there are
fifty different types of SUV, not because of engineering
requirements, but because each brand--each make and each
model--"says" something slightly different about the owner. In the
modern world, brands and products are language. Think of each
individual brand or product as a word. We can combine these words in
endless variations to produce sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.
You, me, all of us use this language to tell the most important
story in the world to us--our personal metastory or "true story."
Our true story is one we each build over time. We are all born into
families that already have a clear tribal allegiance, a clear
narrative of their own within that tribe. Our parents' stories are
usually still midstream when we are born. So our stories and theirs
are necessarily commingled in our formative years. Discovering our
place in our tribe and our place in the world is a big part of what
childhood is all about. The clothes we wear and how we wear our hair
are completely controlled by others when we're children. As we grow,
we begin to guide these decisions as we come to realize that these
choices are meaningful to our peer group and to our standing in that
group. We learn the hard way that there are cool and uncool shoes.
We learn that there are haircuts that scream "'I'm a complete
dork!'" and haircuts that say "'I'm in charge.'" One might say that
we actually make the leap to adulthood when we finally take full
control of our own life story. At that critical moment, we have to
make choices.
Some of us choose this moment to reject our parents' story. If our
parents are religious conservatives, we might dye our hair purple,
get our eyelids pierced, set fire to our car, and join a cult to
signify to the world that we are now masters of our own life story.
On the other hand, if our parents are ex-hippies, we might choose to
join the Republican Party, buy a handgun, and toss it in the glove
box of our Hummer. Or we might choose not to rebel at all. We might
choose to honor and continue their story, buy a used Volvo or a
Subaru, shop at the local food co-op, and wear nothing but organic
hemp. All of these actions serve functional purpose. But they also
serve as powerful symbols of who we are, what we believe, who our
friends are, and whom we consider to be our enemies.
The products and brands with which we surround ourselves serve as
the words in the sentences we weave together to tell our story.
Knowing the difference in the meaning between giving your boss a
gift of Mad Dog 20/20 or of Johnny Walker Blue Label is a critical
life skill. Both are alcohol. Both come in a bottle. The message
conveyed by each is entirely different because the metastory of each
brand is entirely different.
http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/yingyuziliao/185594.html
TRUE STORY: HOW TO COMBINE STORY AND ACTION TO
TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS by Ty Montague(ZT)
4 There is a rational, repeatable process that will enable you to
unearth and hone your metastory and help everyone in your company
understand what their individual role is in "doing" that story.
5 Because your metastory is told by every action your company takes,
ideally everyone in your company needs to understand how this
works--product development, customer service, HR. This is not the
sole domain of marketing, and it certainly isn't solely about
marketing communications.
I hope you find the book both useful and inspiring. I can't imagine
a more exciting time to be in business.
CHAPTER ONE
Your True Story
Why did you buy the car you drive? If I asked you that question, you
would probably have multiple answers: it gets great mileage; you
love the design, the sunroof, the stereo system; you got a really
good deal. These are all rational, logical reasons. The engineers
who built your car would love your answers; they would point to them
as proof of a long-held engineering belief that the world is a
rational, logical place. The label we often use for people like this
is "left-brained." Many of these folks--engineers and others with a
talent for things like math and logic, as well as many senior
business executives, CFOs, and CEOs--harbor a suspicion that
so-called right-brain pursuits like story and storytelling aren't
really serious, businesslike activities. Some are simply
uncomfortable in an area they consider to be subjective and soft,
lacking in rigor. Some of them truly believe that the power of the
internet will eventually make the need for story in marketing fade
away. Their (quite logical) premise is that once people have
perfect product knowledge at their fingertips, they will choose to
make rational, logical buying decisions based purely on comparison
of functional product benefits.
Let's examine that premise more deeply as we consider the original
question. Why did you buy the car that you drive? The functional
purpose of a car is to propel us forward at a rate not achievable by
walking. A number of different configurations are certainly
necessary. Family size, length of average journey, seasons of the
year, and part of the world in which the car is driven all would
need to be taken into consideration. Based on these needs, a few
variations on the standard theme should emerge. For instance, people
who need to drive on rough roads or off-road would require a vehicle
that is tough, with higher ground clearance and probably with
four-wheel drive. That variation would cost more to build, and the
highway driving experience and fuel economy would suffer, but
presumably people with these specialized needs would be willing to
put up with trucklike handling and to pay significantly more for it,
both at purchase and over the lifetime of the vehicle. The basic
engineering problems are straightforward, and once they are solved,
the standard sport-utility vehicle should result.
In the basketball-shoe business, a similar process should occur.
Once height, weight, and player position are known, a standard set
of engineering problems needs to be tackled. There is a natural
compromise between weight and support. A perfect basketball shoe
needs structure and strength to protect joint integrity and to
provide cushioning and comfort, but also must be as light as
possible to promote speed and jumping ability. Again, once the
engineering problems have been solved, the perfect compromise should
be achieved and a small number of variations on that theme made
available to the buying public. These shoes are specialized, so
they cost a lot more than regular sneakers, but to people who play a
lot of basketball, that cost should be well worth it.
So here are a few interesting facts to consider: today there are
more brands and sub-brands of basketball shoes than there are
players in the NBA--over four hundred different variations, in fact.
And (illogically), roughly 80 percent of all basketball shoes sold
in the world never even touch a basketball court. Of the vehicles
sold in the United States last year, 54 percent were either trucks
or SUVs designed specifically for off-road use. Yet 90 percent of
those vehicles never left a paved road.
What's going on here?
The only logical conclusion is that logic has little to do with why
people buy things. They definitely aren't buying them exclusively
for their functional benefits. So what is about basketball shoes and
SUVs that make people willing to pay much more to own them, even
when they'll never use them for the activities for which they were
specifically engineered?
The short answer: "metastory."
The products we buy offer a functional benefit, but much more
importantly, they are a form of personal expression. So, without my
ever uttering a word, when I rock White on White Nike Air Force 1
basketball shoes, I'm telling the world something about me. When I
drive a Toyota FJ down my perfectly paved suburban driveway, I am
signaling something to the world about my worldview and my
intentions. I am giving the world information about what community,
what tribe, I belong to. This is not new behavior. We have always
surrounded ourselves with a variety of adornments and talismans to
signal our tribal allegiance, to bring us good fortune, to ward off
rivals, and to attract mates. When we were still in caves or grass
huts, we were painting and tattooing our bodies and wearing
bear-claw necklaces or great headdresses made of the feathers of
birds of prey. In the modern world, we go to specific schools, we
join specific clubs, we drive particular cars. We wear Air Jordans,
"not" Adidas shell-toes. We wear an Armani suit, or we wear a
Brooks Brothers suit, or we would never own a suit.
When you begin to think of the products we buy this way--not as
functional items, but as a medium of expression about ourselves--
suddenly things start to make a lot more sense. Of course there are
fifty different types of SUV, not because of engineering
requirements, but because each brand--each make and each
model--"says" something slightly different about the owner. In the
modern world, brands and products are language. Think of each
individual brand or product as a word. We can combine these words in
endless variations to produce sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.
You, me, all of us use this language to tell the most important
story in the world to us--our personal metastory or "true story."
Our true story is one we each build over time. We are all born into
families that already have a clear tribal allegiance, a clear
narrative of their own within that tribe. Our parents' stories are
usually still midstream when we are born. So our stories and theirs
are necessarily commingled in our formative years. Discovering our
place in our tribe and our place in the world is a big part of what
childhood is all about. The clothes we wear and how we wear our hair
are completely controlled by others when we're children. As we grow,
we begin to guide these decisions as we come to realize that these
choices are meaningful to our peer group and to our standing in that
group. We learn the hard way that there are cool and uncool shoes.
We learn that there are haircuts that scream "'I'm a complete
dork!'" and haircuts that say "'I'm in charge.'" One might say that
we actually make the leap to adulthood when we finally take full
control of our own life story. At that critical moment, we have to
make choices.
Some of us choose this moment to reject our parents' story. If our
parents are religious conservatives, we might dye our hair purple,
get our eyelids pierced, set fire to our car, and join a cult to
signify to the world that we are now masters of our own life story.
On the other hand, if our parents are ex-hippies, we might choose to
join the Republican Party, buy a handgun, and toss it in the glove
box of our Hummer. Or we might choose not to rebel at all. We might
choose to honor and continue their story, buy a used Volvo or a
Subaru, shop at the local food co-op, and wear nothing but organic
hemp. All of these actions serve functional purpose. But they also
serve as powerful symbols of who we are, what we believe, who our
friends are, and whom we consider to be our enemies.
The products and brands with which we surround ourselves serve as
the words in the sentences we weave together to tell our story.
Knowing the difference in the meaning between giving your boss a
gift of Mad Dog 20/20 or of Johnny Walker Blue Label is a critical
life skill. Both are alcohol. Both come in a bottle. The message
conveyed by each is entirely different because the metastory of each
brand is entirely different.
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