I was talking to a friend today about her Friday night drinks. She mentioned that she’d been to a new cocktail bar, but once she got to the bar couldn’t decide what she wanted (standard!). The barman asked a simple question – “What drinks do you like?” She told him, he made her a drink based on her answer, she loved the drink. It later transpired that her ‘special’ drink was merely a random cocktail off the menu. This mattered little – she felt special, enjoyed the experience of drinking a ‘personalised’ drink and, more importantly, told me and many others about how good it was.
It’s a simple concept really, but it got me thinking. In his “De Officiis” Cicero outlines rules to ‘Good Conversation’. Sure, this may have been some 2,000 years ago but his points still ring true:
- Speak clearly
- Speak easily but give others their turn
- Be courteous
- Deal with topics in an appropriate tone/manner
- Never criticise others behind their back
- Stick to subjects of general interest
- Don’t just talk about yourself
- Don’t lose your temper
In the marketing/advertising world we constantly talk of ‘conversations’ between brands and consumers – creating them, managing them, inspiring them, encouraging them, etc, but are we doing Cicero proud? Brands can certainly deliver clear messages on appropriate themes in a courteous way yet they often fall short on a couple of vital points: “Give others their turn” and “Don’t just talk about yourself”.
In the cocktail story above these points were vital – allow the consumer to talk back to you and listen to what they say (and act accordingly). Without these points we treat our audiences like EM Forster’s “primitive audiences of shock-heads… only kept awake by suspense”. In short, we act as nothing more than a ‘storyteller’.
In a world currently consumed in conversations us marketeers could learn a trick or two from Cicero and it’s vital to keep ALL of his rules in mind. It’s easy to be a storyteller, but what the consumer really needs is a conversationalist.
If nothing else, according to Forster storytelling can result in two possible outcomes: the audience falls asleep, or simply kills the storyteller.
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