Tell your story Family-Guy-style

Marketing gurus have been talking about why and how you should tell a story (wow! look at all those trackbacks) to your customers. Having a single, simple and solid small message that you repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat is so ‘90s (I wonder... Did you remember more the word "repeat" or the word "message"? please comment!)

Instead, if you have the big bucks to spend on a massive advertisement campaign or, even better, if you are clever enough to figure out how to do it on a shoestring (hint: web, e-mails, blogs, rss, …), you should definitively be telling a much more complex story.

Your story should have different chapters and also a common kernel to them. That surely will be the bold message and style, but it can also be something as simple as sharing the same actors (think Geico advertisements --that is, including the caveman).

It is not enough anymore to just get your customers to just remember your message. You surely want them to remember it, but you also want them to talk about it with their friends, to e-mail the link to your ad video on your web to the friends, to upload your ad to youtube, to subscribe to an rss-feed for your ads and new products, to post comments, to interact with you, to chat with your specialist, to design your next ad… and all this simply because it is funny, because they can, because you have shown them respect, because its worth talking about it and because they use and love your products.



What…? Family-Guy-Marketing?

Ever watched Family Guy? I love it. I know maybe some people find it offensive, and I am not recommending that you use that same exact style to market your business. However, I think you should understand and use their techniques and methodology.

Each episode (your chapters) gets a different blend of their favorite techniques, but also shares a common skeleton (intro, develop several stories, link them, wrap them up, be funny and leave you wanting some more) and a sense of belonging to the same core story.

They play with time, develop multiple stories, play with reality and dreams, with nature, with roles and with so many other techniques and ideas that you can reuse. Think pricesless.com. Now Think BMW. Shaken, not stirred... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred.

They have figured out a format that is both funny and efficient in keeping their fans coming back. And so have many other series, cartoons, movies, books and succesful ad agencies.

I say you can leverage on all that knowledge and experience they have. For example, maybe hire a creative writer from a tv series, instead of one from the old-style advertising agency.