Storytelling: The power of telling true stories

Storytelling can be summarized as the art of telling stories in order to connect with your audience – or target audience – in depth, bringing out various feelings and sensations, and creating an attractive and magical atmosphere in the story.

And if we’re going to talk about storytelling and the importance of creating and telling true stories, who better than Juliana Algañaraz, CEO of Endemol Shine Brazil, a Banijay Group company, the largest independent content producer in the world, to “tell us” how we should tell a story.

For the third edition of Hotmart MASTERS, we invited Juliana Algañaraz to tell us about the importance of having a true story to tell our audience, and why these stories have been so successful, her answers will surprise you. 

Why does the market need to tell stories based on real events?

True stories – or stories based on real events – generate curiosity, because when the brain realizes that it’s a true story, it automatically perceives the story from another perspective, and without really thinking about it, starts looking for parts in the story with which it can identify.

These stories, about real events, were thought of in order to become closer with the audience in an inevitable manner, since it’s impossible to listen to or watch a true story or advertisement, without feeling closer and identifying with the characters.

Why pique people’s curiosity?

Curiosity is a great tool that’s still used in advertising and that serves to draw the attention of the target audience and of those who might be interested in our products or services.

However, curiosity goes beyond the concept with which some of us recognize it. Curiosity is related to one of the key factors of social evolution, communication.

But, what is the relationship between curiosity and communication? The answer is quite simple, since one derives from the other and the two feed off each other.

For example, during prehistoric times, communication began to develop as a way to convey information in order to have a better chance of survival.

This is where curiosity comes in, since these stories that were conveyed could be true or not. Therefore, our ancestors could only verify the truthfulness of the story through experience.

Of course, prehistoric men would later share this experience and their own story fueling communication, which is why we say that communication and curiosity go hand in hand.

Identity as an object of desire

As we mentioned, this thirst for curiosity and the desire to communicate, identify us as people, i.e., we completely identify with curiosity and the desire to learn, because this is our essence.

Hollywood knows this and has taken advantage of it, which is why it has placed so much importance on true stories. In fact, it has published a few studies stating that true stories are preferred by the public.

And this is reflected in certain aspects, for example, that movies with the best reviews are almost always those based on true facts. Also, it’s easier to achieve the “best film” category with a movie based on true facts than with fiction.

All of this says a lot about our behavior and how we identify with these types of stories.

The reinvention of the platforms

Before 2000, there were massive platforms that controlled the discourse, and they weren’t bidirectional. The content they offered focused only on one side and couldn’t synthesize the audience’s desires.

However, starting that year, these platforms began to lose control over the discourse as the audience began to control what they wanted to see, who they wanted to see, and when they wanted to see it.

This gave rise to new forms of content creation, YouTubers and influencers emerged, and furthermore, the barriers of time and space were broken down, with content being created in other places and in other languages, could be viewed simultaneously.

Without doubt, this has changed the rules of the game and has forced platforms to innovate and offer content that the audience really identifies with.

And to do so, it’s necessary to know what content the audience likes, what content makes it better, what it offers, and what is entertaining. Therefore, storytelling has practically become a profession.

The language of the Internet – attraction in two seconds

All platforms and content creators are still evaluating and researching “how to talk on the Internet”, because it’s a new language and, like any new language, it won’t evolve over night, but will take a few years.

Within this evolution, we get the term “Dark Social”, which means controlling the discourse about everything that is seen on the web, and this becomes extremely difficult when the most important thing is when you have only 2 seconds to capture your audience’s attention.

Thinking about how to craft and tell a story whose first 2 seconds will draw the audience in is already hard enough.

However, getting the audience interested in it until they finish watching the content is even harder. This is why true stories are used, because they create sensations, share experiences, and therefore, help get closer to the viewer.

MasterChef is a curious case. This show started out with a single massive platform and did quite well. However, it gradually evolved, and this evolution led to new customized content available for various platforms, where each one’s format and language style is respected.

We are seeing a clear evolution in communication, content, and storytelling, where storytelling creates its own identity, which is conveyed and transformed across multiple platforms.

Generating engagement means entertaining

The future of marketing has to do with entertainment, and this is something we need to understand, including brands, content creators, and everyone in the industry.

Entertainment has a great history. As an example, we can mention the Greek stories, the epic verses and many other ways of entertaining. Entertainment has always been a good tool to bring people together, and we need to use it to tell stories as well.

Nowadays, the audience wants to see transparent archetypes, and brands must provide what this audience is looking for. To do so, they need to tell true stories, where nothing is perfect, but stories about real human beings.

What are the next challenges?

The challenges will be varied and depend on each sector and each company, but we can follow the example of education.

For example, in the specific case of education, it has become entertainment, because what we now see more and more, are people who learn for fun, and because of this knowledge, they become an authority on the subject.

This new form of entertainment is what leads us to new challenges, since nowadays, we don’t have the time for traditional education.

If you want to learn something that really motivates you and makes you grow, you need to do it differently. People don’t want long and boring content anymore.

People now want to learn and get results in a fun way that allows them to spend time with their family and doing other things.

The way in which we tell stories has changed and has become an art form, and storytelling is how we integrate information and entertainment.

If you want to learn more about content strategies, storytelling and how to approach your consumers through the use of stories and other copywriting tools, join us on May 24 and 25, 2021 at the third edition of Hotmart MASTERS, an event that’s completely free and online.

Don’t miss it! Sign up now and enjoy this amazing event!