Why Ideas > Stories
This is honestly the crux of my creative philosophy and, I think, why our work tends to punch above its weight. It’s a dead simple outlook. But I think it feels barbaric or even threatening to the “captial S Storyteller” philosophy cultivated within many agencies. It feels low.
I disagree with this. Just like, as a side note, I disagree with anybody who tries to disparage viral content as “gimmick-driven” when, in reality, gimmicks are ideas that are so fucking good they get their own category.
Anyway. I believe that Ideas > Stories. At least when it comes to digital/social/advertising. Because ideas are their natural medium. Social media is, almost exclusively, a conveyor belt of ideas. Ideas shine brighter and sharper than stories here simply because that’s what the medium is designed for. Context-free, rapidly metabolized, the meaning meant to be passed along like a relay baton. Books we read in the quiet solitude, movies we watch in loud theaters. Each medium gives us a different way to bring ourselves to it. This sounds so extremely obvious, but the agency-mind resists it because it feels the siren song of story’s “prestige.”
But the thing is: ideas are art. And they’re hard to do well. It takes a ton of work and insight and thought and execution to line everything up inside the singularity of an idea. It’s a beautiful thing. When I say Ideas > Stories, I mean it aspirationaly.
Even Shakespeare understands this. As Hamlet tells us, what we need is “more matter, less art.” And we can read this without the Freudian subtext!
The example I always go back to, even though it’s old now, is this video, Guy Plays Soccer With Lions. What a great headline. You’re going to click it. Why? Because of the IDEA of a guy playing soccer with lions. You want to see that idea come to life.
Watch the video.
We don’t see a guy play soccer with lions until over a full minute in, nearly halfway through the video. Now YouTube can also show the most-watched portions of a video and, guess what, the big spikes come when THE GUY IS PLAYING SOCCER WITH LIONS.
So what the hell are they doing for a full minute before giving us the goods? They’re falling into The Story Trap, telling story for the sake of being viewed as storytellers. A fundamental misunderstanding of the ways an audience engages with the social medium. It cost them engagement and it cost audiences a broken promise from the brand.
Ideas > Stories. Guy Playing Soccer With Lions > Learning About A Guy In A Suit’s Relationship To Lions. Gimmick > Not Gimmick.