Most brands mistake their origin story for a narrative. A real narrative puts customers at the center and calls them to action around an unmet need, not the company's past. Apple's "Think Different" worked because Jobs and Wozniak actually lived it, not because a PR firm wrote it.
Chapters
I would offer— I've written a bit about this, and it's the focus of a new book that I've just finished, but I have a very specific concept about narratives for companies. And most people use narratives and stories to mean the same thing. I view them as very different.. And for me, a narrative is about something out in the future that has not yet been achieved, not clear whether it's going to be achieved or not. And it's a call to action to the people you're speaking to, to say your choices, your actions are going to help to address this threat or opportunity. And I'll just give a quick example in building trust. I, unfortunately, I think there are very few companies that actually articulate a compelling narrative that is helpful. When I talk to executives about narratives, they say, "Oh, we have a narrative. We started in a garage. We faced incredible obstacles. We overcame them and accomplished amazing things and more to come." That's their story. And it's about you, not— to me, a narrative is a call to action to people outside your company. What is the opportunity for them? Not for you, for them. And again, the example I use, it's pretty well known, but one of the few ones that I found is Apple in the early days, Apple Computer. They had a narrative that condensed into a slogan, which was "Think different." But if you unpack that narrative, it was basically we had digital technology for decades, took away our names, gave us numbers, made us cogs in a machine. Now, for the first time, there's a generation of technology where we can express our unique potential and individuality. But it's not going to be automatic. It's not going to happen by itself. You need to think different. Will you think different? And it was a call to action to people outside that— they barely mentioned Apple in that messaging. It was all about you and the opportunity you have. And the action you need to take. And I think part of what made it so effective, by the way, because many executives when I talk to them about this, they say, oh, we'll get our PR agency to write a narrative for us. No, I think what made it powerful for Apple was if you looked at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, they lived that on a daily basis. They were thinking different every day of their lives. This wasn't just a, kind of fantasy PR thing. This was their passion, their— the way they lived their lives. And I think it's the reason why for many people Apple became the equivalent of a religion. It spoke to something very deep inside, an aspiration that we all have.
