Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future [Hardcover]

Jonah Sachs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Trying to get your message heard? Build an iconic brand?
Welcome to the battlefield.

The story wars are all around us. They are the struggle to be heard in a world of media noise and clamor. Today, most brand messages and mass appeals for causes are drowned out before they even reach us. But a few consistently break through the din, using the only tool that has ever moved minds and changed behavior—great stories.

With insights from mythology, advertising history, evolutionary biology, and psychology, viral storyteller and advertising expert Jonah Sachs takes readers into a fascinating world of seemingly insurmountable challenges and enormous opportunity. You’ll discover how:

• Social media tools are driving a return to the oral tradition, in which stories that matter rise above the fray
• Marketers have become today’s mythmakers, providing society with explanation, meaning, and ritual
• Memorable stories based on timeless themes build legions of eager evangelists
• Marketers and audiences can work together to create deeper meaning and stronger partnerships in building a better world
• Brands like Old Spice, The Story of Stuff, Nike, the Tea Party, and Occupy Wall Street created and sustained massive viral buzz

Winning the Story Wars is a call to arms for business communicators to cast aside broken traditions and join a revolution to build the iconic brands of the future. It puts marketers in the role of heroes with a chance to transform not just their craft but the enterprises they represent. After all, success in the story wars doesn’t come just from telling great stories, but from learning to live them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Story Wars is a thorough guide for the novice or even practiced storytellers in all of us. Sachs offers story structures, ways of thinking about characters and messages. He pulls artfully from recent brand successes from companies including Nike and Apple. And he tells a few good stories along the way.” — Forbes

“Sachs is full of ideas and strategies to help readers give their brands the rare, compelling story that will raise their message above the melee of advertising noise… the ideas are powerful and solid, and will make inspiring reading for marketing professionals looking to set their stories apart.” — Publishers Weekly

“In this timely, practical, perceptive, and thought-provoking book, Sachs (CEO, Free Range Studios) does a remarkable job trumpeting storytelling as a means by which people can effectively influence others.” — CHOICE

“The book is an interesting blend of marketing and advertising history, mythology, and psychology that pulled me in and kept me turning the pages… the eye-catching illustrations of Drew Beam. Beam's artwork combined with Sachs's writing style kept me glued to the pages… this one has earned a place on my bookshelf and a noteworthy position on my leadership development reading list.” — T+D magazine, American Society for Training & Development

“This fast-paced entertaining book takes on storytelling from the POV of a 24/7 information culture and shares the strategies and tactics that fuel today’s most compelling content.” — Ketchum PR, On the Bookshelf: New Year Reads

“Sachs offers a step-by-step guide to corporate storytelling, showing how brands can use recognisable characters, such as "freaks, cheats and familiars" to create instantly relatable campaigns…Marketers who are able to define the core values of a brand then use them to engage the target audience in a compelling, relatable story are the ones who will thrive in the new media landscape of the "digitoral" age.” — Warc

“His investigation also unveiled a process to help others create winning stories that he shares with great depth and charm in this book.” — 800 CEO READ

“To influence this brave new world, first convince the global media marketplace of your story. The better the story, the better chance of making people think differently.” — Quantas magazine

“In the often superficial, deceptive world of marketing and advertising, social innovator Jonah Sachs is an individual with a conscience...Sachs’s engaging work is a call to arms for anyone who works to influence consumer choices.” — getAbstract

ADVANCE PRAISE for Winning the Story Wars:

Dan Heath, coauthor, Switch and Made to Stick—
“Jonah Sachs knows stories. He’s responsible for some of the most popular and respected viral messages of all time: The Story of Stuff, The Meatrix, Grocery Store Wars, and others. This book is a storytelling call to arms, an appeal to tell the stories that matter. So read Winning the Story Wars—and join the fray.”

Nick Coe, CEO, Bath & Body Works; former President, Land’s End—
“History is written by the winners. And as Jonah Sachs makes abundantly clear, it is now being written by the marketers, the new mythmakers of our time. Whatever your product or your cause, if you want it to succeed, read this wise and enlightening book.”

Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director, Greenpeace International—
“Winning the Story Wars will convince you that storytelling is the most powerful way to move people to action. And it will teach you to use that power to orient our world to a more positive future. If you’re ready to be a great storyteller, read this book.”

Deepak Chopra, founder, The Chopra Foundation—
“Great leaders transform the world through stories that inspire hope, stability, trust, compassion, and authenticity. This important and thought-provoking book shows that leadership in marketing will require the living and telling of such stories as well.”

Bill Bradley, former US Senator; Managing Director, Allen & Company—
“We know about who we are both individually and as a society through stories. In this brilliant book, Jonah Sachs tells us how we lost our storytelling capacity and how we must regain it, constructing our own myths and living the truth of the stories we tell.”

Paul Hawken, author, The Ecology of Commerce and Blessed Unrest—
“In the current maelstrom of media babble and corporate deceit, Jonah Sachs makes sense where none appears to exist. Winning the Story Wars explains why we respond to lies—whether in political or product ads, campaigns or speeches—and how truth ultimately trumps all. This remarkable book delivers on that rare promise of changing how you see the world.”

About the Author

About the Author: Jonah Sachs.
As the cofounder and CEO of Free Range Studios, Sachs has helped hundreds of major brands and causes break through the media noise with unforgettable campaigns. His work on renowned viral videos including The Meatrix and The Story of Stuff have brought key social issues to the attention of more than sixty-five million people online. A constant innovator, his studio’s websites and stories have taken top honors three times at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. Sachs’s work and opinions have been featured in a variety of media, including the New York Times, NPR, and Fast Company magazine, which named him one of its fifty most influential social innovators.

About the Illustrator: Drew Beam
Drew Beam is the Innovation Director at Free Range Studios, where he helps clients see the future and leap into it. After earning his BFA at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Beam built a successful career creating visuals and innovation strategies for dozens of Fortune 500 companies. His illustrations have been published by Time Warner Books, Penguin Books, and Rolling Stone magazine, to name just a few.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; First Edition edition (July 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422143562
• ISBN-13: 978-1422143568
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonah is an internationally recognized storyteller, author, designer and entrepreneur. As the co-founder and creative director of Free Range Studios, Jonah has helped hundreds of social brands and causes break through the media din with breakthrough campaigns. His work on legendary viral videos like The Meatrix and The Story of Stuff series have brought key social issues to the attention of more than 60 million people. Sample his work now: Check out the compelling book trailer for "Winning the Story Wars" on Jonah's author page.

Jonah's passion lies in exploring the intersection of ancient storytelling techniques, social responsibility and emerging technologies. In his upcoming book, Story Wars to be published in 2012 by Harvard Business Review Press, he argues that brands that tell values-driven stories through the right channels will not only revolutionize marketing, they may become humanity's greatest hope for the future. Jonah's work and opinions have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX News, Sundance Film Festival, NPR and in FastCompany Magazine who named him one of the 50 most influential social innovators. He lives in Oakland California.

For more information:
www.freerange.com
www.winningthestorywars.com
http://amzn.to/storywars

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but .... December 28, 2012

By Joan Zott

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've now read two important books on the subject of story-based branding: StoryWars by Jonah Sachs and StoryBranding by Jim Signorelli. Both take different paths but have the same moral: successful brands should draw from the way stories can empower audiences.

Whereas Sach's book is replete with beautiful air-brushed drawings and is well laid out, Signorelli's book uses whimsical cartoons that can be distracting. Furthermore, the cartoons themselves give one the sense that this book is too simple. Simple yes, but powerful nevertheless. In fact, putting looks aside, I favor StoryBranding for its approach.

Sach's approach is testimony to how verbosity can get in the way of interest and meaning. At times, while reading about the supposed learnings one can glean from religious or well-known tales, I found myself thinking hard to understand the point. At times, I had to let go hoping that things would get clarified with more reading. Signorelli's staright-forward, and sometimes humorous, self-deprecating style is in stark contrast with Sach's. Wheras Sach's writes more from the clouds down. Signorell writes from the ground up. Additionally, at times, I felt that Sach's was also interjecting his liberal political philosophies. Whereas he tries to hide how he feels about Glen Beck in his first chapter, its an obvious all-too-obvious "get back" for some not-so-flattering comments Beck made about one of his videos.

Another interesting contrast is seen in the different ways each author portrays the hero of a brand's story. Sach's subscribes to the notion that the hero is always the consumer. He sees the role of the brand as more of a mentor or advisor who is interested in showing the consumer how to overcome certain conflicts on route to his or her goal. Signorelli, on the other hand, suggests that the brand is always the hero. He believes that like any story protagonist, brands are judged by their actions and evaluated either positively or negatively on the basis of implied values and beliefs deduced from those actions. Both models are illuminating. But I personally think it is easier to think of the brand as hero, made up of layers, as Signorelli describes.

Signorelli asserts that a brand's outer layer consists of its functional attributes and benefits. It's inner layer consists of the values and beliefs the brand implicitly subscribes to and shows how both layers must be interconnected in order to gain consumer credibility. Sach's book over emphasizes the intangible aspects of a brand that are important for the purpose of making an emotional connection. He does very little to recognize that a brand must provide some important functional benefits and these too must be promoted. Additionally, the StoryBranding model focuses on obstacles that the brand must overcome in order to establish a trusted relationship with the consumer. On the other hand, Story Wars does not account for these obstacles. Rather, throughout, it is assumed that the consumer is ready and willing to listen to the whatever the brand proposes as a way to become "empowered" just as long as what the brand represents is a shared belief. There is no accounting for any baggage or bad-feelings residue that might stand in the way of the consumer listening to and/or believing anything the brand has to say.

Don't get me wrong, Story Wars is a good book and an enjoyable read. By itself it is a terrific contribution to the burgeoning field of brand storytelling. It also provides some good "how to" advice, which is sorely lacking from many books of this genre. But had I not read Signorelli's book, I might have given Sach's a better rating. For marketers, it is worth noting that StoryBranding is written from the experience of an advertising professional. All of the examples given are from real world marketing situations. StoryWars is written by a highly successful advocate of social issues. Whereas marketing examples are provided, it is clear that Sachs has probably promoted more social causes than consumer brands. I would highly recommend reading both books, but if you're wanting to get to the meat of the matter in a simple, understandable and practical way, I would choose StoryBranding over Story Wars. Just don't pay any attention to the silly drawings.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Queen Elizabeth is on Twitter? July 9, 2012

By I.A.

Format:Kindle Edition

If you are reading Story Wars then you understand the power of the narrative. You likely are familiar with buzz terms like: outliers, best practices, brand management, and innovation. You get articles on these subjects sent to you; you seek out books written on maximizing your personal and professional experience. The irony is that much of the writing on the aforementioned topics can be redundant and, well, you know, wordy, which is not what this review should be.

Story Wars gives the reader all the tools to market his or her ideas through applicable and relevant stories. It is a marketing book written for 2012...it tells the story of how ideas become movements set in a world where The British Royal Family is on twitter and the President of the United States carries a blackberry. Story Wars assumes clutter is everywhere and therefore compels its reader to crack the glass and then tells you how with funny examples from the author's Sixteen Candles/Star Wars/Ferris Buller childhood.

Go ahead...Read Good to Great...The Tipping Point...Kellogg on Branding..All great books, I concur...but this one is fun and you walk away with a real understanding of how to market yourself while the Queen is retweeting and the President is BBMing you.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read for non-marketers as well November 4, 2012

By M. Albinson

Format:Hardcover

I am not a professional marketer but picked up Story Wars anyway and enjoyed it. Sachs looks at various ad campaigns and suggests that campaigns which can tap into our human preference for a narrative are the ones that will succeed in influencing our actions. And in today's hyper-saturated media markets it is those campaigns alone which will be effective while others will be drowned out.

As a non-marketer myself it was interesting to recall the various ad campaigns in the book and think about which ones had, in fact, reached me and others which had not. But Sachs takes it a step further encouraging marketers to employ his story telling technique (or really, to fight the Story Wars) not just so that they might reach more consumers but also so that the entire discourse of marketing might reach a higher plane. This was a marketing book with a greater message about personal authenticity and truth to self that I found very rewarding to read. Highly recommended.