We’ve all had those Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot kind of days where we look at someone and think (or just plain blurt-out), “What?!”
It surely made sense in the other person’s head, but by the time brainwave transmission occurred, something got lost in translation. It happens all the time, and none of us are spared that occasional eyebrow raising confusion. But there is a way we can mitigate it when it comes to advertising our brands.
Throughout our Bossify Your Brand series, Be a Better Storyteller is our #1 mantra. You see, developing a concise message, stripping away the noise of an inauthentic voice, and carefully measuring the relatability of that story to the intended audience is the most effective only way to communicate.
At SJ, we affectionately refer to this as our decoder ring. Just like your audience, our team is made up of different viewpoints, perspectives and paradigms of experience. And even though I’d like to think we’re all smart people, there are definitely times when we’re looking at a brand’s current positioning and still go, “What the…?”
That’s when we pull out our decoder, calibrate it to a cipher, and start translating a better story for brands just like yours.
I know the holidays are over, but I can’t help but think about A Christmas Story and little Ralphie Parker. A newly-minted member of the Little Orphan Annie Secret Circle, Ralphie sits by his radio for the coded transmission, notes the cipher and then dashes to the bathroom, the only room in the house where he can get some privacy! He calibrates the decoder and begins to unravel the message…
And that’s where Ralphie, just like we so often do, realized the audience and message just didn’t match up. If you remember from the movie, it was just a sponsor’s message to a 9-year-old kid reading, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”
You feel it too, right?...Ralphie’s disappointment. Well, that’s the very feeling and experience we strive to avoid at SJ. We want your brand to leave more than a positive impression; that’s a rather low bar. Instead, we want your audience to swell with the excitement of a 9-year old decoding a secret radio transmission!
Just remember, Being a Better Storyteller is a mantra that requires some soul searching, mirror-cleaning introspection, the kind our team specializes in bringing to life.
Without it, well, your audience is going to be sitting there just like Ralphie thinking, “A crummy commercial? – Son of a b….”
