Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell - and Live - the Best Stories Will Rule the Future PDF
Preview Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell - and Live - the Best Stories Will Rule the Future
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 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,
The list of books you might like
