Each week my wife and I go to Jean Talon Market here in Montreal. It is one of the city’s busiest markets, particularly over the summer months.
Last week I took my camera along, in search of how stall holders might be using stories to help market their produce.
It’s funny how the mind works. As soon as I looked around in search of “story”, suddenly I was surrounded by them.
You’ll get the full roundup in the video above.
But a couple of examples jumped out at me.
If you’ve been involved in marketing for more than ten minutes, you’ve probably figured out that people buy things based on their emotions.
People don’t line up on the sidewalk all night to buy the latest iPhone for any rational reason.
It’s not like their existing iPhone is about to stop working.
They line up for the new phone not because they need it, but because they want it.
Their purchase decision is driven by emotion.
And it turns out that one of the best and fastest ways to trigger emotions is through stories.
You know this already, of course.
Every time you watch a movie you’re taken on an emotional roller-coaster. Movies are stories, and stories move us.
I have seen a lot of changes over the course of my career as a copywriter.
Back in 1979, when I got started, I wrote my copy on lined paper, with a pen. Then a secretary typed it up using one of those trendy new IBM “golf ball” typewriters.
By 1985 I was working on an Apple Macintosh computer, saving my files to those huge floppy discs.
Fast forward to 1995, when I wrote and published my first website. I fell in love with writing for the web from day one.
Over those first 15 or so years of my career, my job was the same. My job was to sell with words. I was a copywriter, plain and simple. I wrote sales copy.