Hey all,

This week we’re incredibly excited about the release of Colin’s Castle. It’s the story of a vegetarian vampire called Colin who bought a castle that’s inhabited by a duck who won’t leave. It was written and illustrated by the supremely talented Holly Swain, a newsletter subscriber and friend of Storythings. Talent clearly runs through the family as her husband, Matt Locke also runs a pretty good Brighton-based agency you may know. Congrats to Holly. Now go order your copy.

If you’re struggling to understand what kind of content will help you get the best out of your marketing budget, we have a product that you will save a lot of money and time. Our Content Audit will give you a clear plan for what you should start doing more of and what you should stop. It will help you understand the landscape, how your customers engage with content and give you a workflow that suits your team. Hit the button below to chat!

OK. Time for some stories. Have the most wonderful weekend!

Hugh

Jon Ronson - How to Find Stories (7-minute read)

Why the Culture of Leading Companies Is Dominated by Marketing People (1-minute read)

How to Tell Great B2B Stories in a Complex World (7-minute read)

An Unmissable TV Recommendation (5-minute watch)

Conformity Be Damned: How to Crack the Black Sheep Paradox (5-minute read)

People Don’t Buy Products. They Buy Stories That Turn Them On (3-minute read)

Exactly How Valuable is 100 Million Views (8-minute read)

The Wombles Get a Rebrand (2-minute read)

Proof That Email is the Most Consistent, Reliable Marketing Channel on the Web (2-minute read)

Notes on Love (1-minute play)

How we can help you

Storythings is the content marketing agency of choice for some of the world’s most forward-thinking B2B brands and organisations. Here are 2 reasons to get in touch. 

1. “I don’t know what to do” – You’ve been creating content but it’s not having the impact you need. Talk to us about our Content Audit Workshop.

2. “I need something making” – You know what you want to make, but need an agency to make it. We can help make your podcast, video, publication, animation or newsletter. We do other things too. Get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

Jon Ronson - How to Find Stories (7-minute read)
If you only read one story this week make it this. A lot of attention is given to the art of storytelling but not nearly enough is given to the art of storyfinding. It’s something we work incredibly hard on at Storythings. Many of our clients have complex stories about people whose work really matters. But often there’s a blindspot. So finding ‘the right story’ is crucial in making people care. We have our methods, many borrowed from the wonderful Jon Ronson, one of our generation’s most brilliant storytellers and storyfinders. As a free post on his new Substack Jon outlines how he found stories for his Things Fell Apart series.

Why the Culture of Leading Companies Is Dominated by Marketing People (1-minute read)
Rory Sutherland pulls out this interesting quote from John Kay’s new book The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century: Why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong. That’s my weekend reading sorted!

How to Tell Great B2B Stories in a Complex World (7-minute read)
In the second part of this series on how to tell B2B stories, our very own Matt Locke digs into the challenge of making people care about complex stories: “Compelling stories have protagonists, not subjects. This means the people at the centre of the story need to talk about their own actions and decisions, not be described second hand as if their lives were out of their own control. A subject is someone that a story happens to; a protagonist is someone who affects the story through their actions. Too often, organisations describe complex situations from the perspective of data or processes, not people. Data should never be the protagonist in your story.”

An Unmissable TV Recommendation (5-minute watch)
It’s not often that I include TV recommendations but I’ve been so bowled over by Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams that I felt I had to. It’s wonderfully heartwarming and essential TV. Former cricketer Freddie Flintoff puts together an unlike team of teenage cricketers from the north of England. They all come from diverse backgrounds and face different challenges in their lives. Between season 1 and 2 Flintoff became a bigger part of the story after he was involved in a life-threatening accident that seriously impacted his physical and mental health. This video shows the story arc of Sean in series 1. UK viewers can watch both series for free on iPlayer. For everyone else, find a way to watch it. You won’t regret it.

Conformity Be Damned: How to Crack the Black Sheep Paradox (5-minute read)
As this piece points out - going with the crowd will result in, at best, average results. To achieve high-level success, great leaders have to be black sheep. This piece from Big Think outlines three things you can do to cultivate a black sheep mindset.

People Don’t Buy Products. They Buy Stories That Turn Them On (3-minute read)
As Matt alludes to above, there is a temptation to over-use facts and figures to explain complex issues when research has proven time and time again that our brains are wired to pay attention to stories. Stories are not only more persuasive but when facts are wrapped up in a story they are 22 times more memorable. In this short post, Miguel Ferriera shares the story of musician Sun Ra who built a story universe around his music and instruments.

Exactly How Valuable is 100 Million Views (8-minute read)
An interesting read on the opaqueness of video views, why Trump still obsesses over TV ratings, and the big challenge for advertisers: “Obviously digital advertising works because if it didn’t Alphabet wouldn’t have made more than $200 billion in Google Search and YouTube advertising in 2023 alone — an increase of 7.7% compared to the year before. But when there are so many platforms competing for so much attention, with each of those platforms operating by different views metrics and no benchmark for what those views actually represent, we get into a world of whack-a-mole. A very, very costly game of whack-a-mole.”

The Wombles Get a Rebrand (2-minute read)
For the benefit of our younger or non-UK readers, the Wombles was a 1970s children’s TV show about creatures that lived on Wimbledon Common and made use of the rubbish they gathered. They were lovable environmentalists who taught children about complicated environmental issues in the most engaging ways. This rebrand is very exciting!

Proof That Email is the Most Consistent, Reliable Marketing Channel on the Web (2-minute read)
Regular readers will be familiar with Storythings preaching the gospel of taking ownership of your audience back from the platforms. This newsletter, launched 12 years ago and was the first piece of marketing we did for Storythings. Platform influence came and went but email remained consistently valuable throughout. In this piece, Rand Fishkin looks at the data to show how consistently reliable email has been over the last 15 years.

Notes on Love (1-minute play)
This is lovely and fun and just what one needs last things on Friday. This Tiny Award winner allows you to read a bunch of Love Notes. But first, you must send one yourself.

We hope you've enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Spread the love and forward it on to a friend, relative or colleague. If you’ve received this from someone else yourself, you can subscribe below and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the whole team at Storythings.