Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell - and Live - the Best Stories Will Rule the Future

280 Pages·2013·2.25 MB·English

by  Jonah Sachs

Advance Praise for Winning the
Story Wars
“You may think you know how important stories are to the success of your
enterprise—but Winning the Story Wars will take your understanding to a whole
new level. A crucial book in our media-saturated world.”
—Robert Hanson, CEO, American Eagle Outfitters; former Global President,
Levi’s
“If the idea of a marketing book based on the mythological explorations of
Joseph Campbell strikes you as an oxymoron, welcome to the club. Yet Winning
the Story Wars proves to be a provocative look at the power of marketing to help
us all along the hero’s journey toward a better world.”
—Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media
“Jonah Sachs powerfully illustrates just how broken and dysfunctional our
current model of storytelling has become. We need to reconnect the vital link
between higher purpose and effective story, and Winning the Story Wars shows
us how.”
—John Gerzema, Executive Chairman, BrandAsset Consulting; coauthor, The
Brand Bubble
“Using stories as his medium, Sachs demystifies the art of storytelling. He
illuminates the transformational social change that is possible if we, as
individuals and marketers, tell stories that engage and empower everyone to
design a better future.”
—Lynelle Cameron, Director of Sustainability, Autodesk
“Jonah Sachs has a gift for telling positive stories that go viral. He sat down to
figure out why his best work has such resonance, then broke the answers into
simple, inspiring steps. The result is a how-to book for communicators who want
to change the world.”
to change the world.”
—Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund

Copyright
Copyright 2012 Jonah Sachs All rights reserved No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for
permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to
Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston,
Massachusetts 02163.
First eBook Edition: July 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4221-4356-8
To
Mira and Orion
the stars that now guide me
CONTENTS
Copyright
Prologue
Part One: THE BROKEN WORLD OF STORYTELLING
1. The Story Wars Are All Around Us
2. The Five Deadly Sins
3. The Myth Gap
4. Marketing’s Dark Art
Part Two: SHAPING THE FUTURE
INTERLUDE: A Creation Myth for Marketers
5. Tell the Truth, Part I: The Art of Empowerment Marketing
BASIC TRAINING: Identifying Your Values
6. Tell the Truth, Part II: Designing Your Core Story Elements
BASIC TRAINING: Designing Your Core Story Elements
7. Be Interesting: Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars
BASIC TRAINING: Generating Your Stories
8. Live the Truth
Epilogue
Appendix
Further Reading
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Prologue
A few minutes after I got home from the audition, my phone rang. I made a
silent wish that it would be the director. It was.
“Jonah?”
“Yes?” I replied, trying to sound as if my nascent hopes for a career in front
of the camera weren’t trembling on his whim.
“Good news. I think you’re right for the part. But there is one thing. ”
“OK . . . ”
“We’re not going to use your voice—you’ll be dubbed. I like the way you did
the lines and you look perfect, but you sounded a little too, uh, squeaky.”
“Squeaky?” I felt the excitement drain out of me.
“Look, Darth Vader is supposed to be the scariest guy in the galaxy. You’re
just not that scary.”
I was in little position to argue. At nine years old, Louis Fox was a year older
than me. He was the one with the camera, the mimeographed Star Wars script,
and the mother willing to drive us on endless location scouts. It was his idea to
remake Star Wars, shot for shot. I was just a third-grader with a high-pitched
voice.
“OK,” I squeaked. “I’ll do it.”
The project, not surprisingly, took a while to get off the ground. Louis and I
spent the first summer poring over catalogs filled with masks we could not
afford, checking out dirt patches that failed to meet even our low standards for
an extraterrestrial desert, and unsuccessfully trying to convince his bookish sister
to play Princess Leia.
In fact, for twenty years, the project was on hold. But in 2005, we finally
launched our own version of Star Wars on the Internet. Within a year, it would
get more than 20 million views, be screened at film festivals around the world,