A Tale of Visual Story Telling, Values, and Branding

19 October 2016 12:00 Emilia Natarina No Comments!

"Tell us about yourself" I'm sure you've heard this line dozens of times before, from one job interview to another to meeting new acquaintances.

The point is... Everyone has a story to tell. The digital era is all about storytelling. Don't believe me? Just look at your social media feeds. You know your friend is rocking that bikini in Bali or enjoying that newest dish in town, without having them to tell you personally.

They post pic, post their thoughts, or hinted their emotions through the songs played. You might get carried away, feel sympathetic once you know the type of emotions that your friends are going through. There's always something about that photos, that words, that expressions...

"If you want to change what someone does, you need to change what they feel, and not just what they think."

While participating in JAMMPIRO#2 event in Yogyakarta from 4-6 October 2016, I had the priviliged of joining a visual story telling workshop by Ogilvy PR Indonesia managing director Marianne Armardatine, the woman who I've come to admire.

She said what's more valuable in this world of ubiquitous facts is not so much collecting the facts and lining them up in a logical argument, because that's relatively easy to do. What becomes more important is the ability to take those facts, put them in context and deliver them with emotional impact, and that's what story does. You see, we no longer aim for the mind but for the heart instead. It's all about how to touch people by their heart with your story. It's all about the impact.

One way to deliver your story is through powerful presentation. You know you want to get that donation for your cause, enhance your corporate's brand awareness or sell that product. But first thing first... Impress them with your presentation.

According to Marianne, the need to present stories and information is as great as it has ever been. Greater. But look how the the tools have changed. The sophistication with which we can support our presentations is incredible. With Flash animations, embedded videos, wipes and special effects... And yet--- easy technology is killing our stories. We need to dig deep to find our inner caveman and relight the storytelling fire!

"Let's face it, the ubiquitous Powerpoint has also made us all lazy and assumed that merely putting words on a slide will inspire people and move them to action. The tools have turned us into story killers. The point of giving a live presentation as opposed to handing out something to read, is to connect emotionally, to persuade and to inspire. A great presentation always is remembered even if nothing more than for one key point and usually gets talked about later. So how did we get to this state where powerful storytelling has been replaced by a numbing wave of Powerpoint?" point taken Marianne!

So how does one goes from "naaayyy" to "yeaaayyy"? Apart from that wow images, videos, words, effects, and audio put together on that slides, people are going to be looking at you. Now we're talking about body language. A good story teller comes with distinguished characters, their ability to maintain eye contact and spread attention, belief in the story, manage pace and timing, telling the story from memory, attract attention with their vocal and facial expressions, show confidence, captivate the audience with their gestures, and gain empathy from the audience.

Marianne then demonstrated the proper body language and numerous great ways to deliver stories via videos. You must bring that passion, feel excited about your story when delivering them. At the end of our workshop, we were divided into groups and practiced our own story telling before the Q&A session. Oh... Did I mention that I got a goodie bag from answering one of Marianne's questions?!? Yeaayyyyy! And that's not all... Each of the workshop participants received two books: Quotations of David Ogilvy and So You Want to Work in PR? inspirational thoughts on why working in PR is fun. So, what's your story?