"I'll Bring You A New Plate After The Robbery"
Stories With Heart – a fortnightly round-up of the best storytelling, for people and organisations wanting to win hearts and minds by telling better, richer stories.
Hello story lovers, Sam Lightfinch here. Welcome to Stories With Heart.
As a strategic storyteller and speaker, I use strategy, ideas and creative executions to craft and share narratives that resonate with people and drive organisational success.
Ho ho, oh no… Are you ready to ignore all the Christmas ad chat, and plunge your head into the golden autumn leaves to save your eyes the drudgery of wading through LinkedIn hot takes? Will you join me in avoiding cartoon carrots and celebrities from the noughties, and instead check this nice list of Yuletide-free stories? Let’s embrace Grinch-ful ignorance together.
🏆 Story of the week 🏆
Have Your Passport Ready | SBC Theatre
Remember Charlie Brooker’s Bandersnatch? The choose-your-own-adventure TV show? Well, get rid of the budget and swap in an important and urgent story arc and you’ve got Have Your Passport Ready. This experience plunges viewers into an unknown city without an interpreter as they become players collecting evidence to prove their right to remain in the UK.
Based on the experiences of the two brothers who appear in the film, players are invited to watch scenes and then choose their reactions. It’s an engaging way to learn about the UK’s asylum system, and a fantastic bit of storytelling as there’s a cocktail of emotion bubbling under the educational aspect of this piece (it’s really funny in places, and darkly depressing in others).
Takeaway: Storytelling will never ever be able to replicate the gap in lived experience, but it can build empathy and understanding, and bring us a little closer together.
Social post of the week
90KMS/HR.!! | Rise Outdoor
I didn’t read Stephen King for years. I was being a snob because I’d heard other writers be dismissive of his style. I’ve grown up (a bit) and realised the best stories aren’t the ones where the writer noses their ornate prose into the lap of a story like an overbearing puppy with a new toy – they are the ones that focus on the what, rather than the how. The ones that sustain attention and get people talking.
Here’s a great example from Rise Outdoor. No fancy wind tunnels. No elaborate concept or bloated budget. Nope, Rise just found the most simple, effective and compelling way to show what their product does, and then did that.
Takeaway: Don’t overcomplicate your story when there’s no need.
Ad of the week
The Power Of A Fragrance | Lynx | LOLA MullenLowe
This isn’t exactly hot off the press, but it does illustrate something that’s been irking me recently – the sea of sameness that most brands want to play in. I’ve seen Goodfellas rebrand to look like a challenger. The new Jaguar Land Rover logo could be a clothes brand. Where are the brands (and agencies) pushing against monotony?
I want more brands to push originality. I want more surreal, left-field stuff. This is weird. It’s funny. And it isn’t worried about the moral message at the end. When brands are trying to blend in, the fresh and unexpected will prevail.
Takeaway: If you can’t beat ‘em, don’t try to smell like ‘em. Brands that take risk and tell original stories are the ones who stand out.
Wine label of the week
The Chicken Wine | La Vieille Ferme
Too often, brands are guilty of having one-way conversations, with marketers focusing on the outward message and forgetting to listen to the other side… the customer. La Vieille Ferme is hard to pronounce (especially after a few glasses of rosé), so people call it The Chicken Wine.
Rather than being annoyed that people had come up with a nickname for the brand, La Vieille Ferme lent into it, and made customers part of the story. This is a great bit of social listening.
Takeaway: A bottle of The Chicken Wine, if you pop down to the local offy, quick sharp.
My story of the week
“Maybe Some Tibetan Throat Singing?”
5:30pm. A dark Sunday night, and I’m looking for a door on a deserted industrial estate. I find it in between a bathroom wholesalers and a pewter company, behind a tall metal fence.
I know that recording studios aren’t known for their glamorous locations, but this is my first time visiting one. I’ve been invited down by my partner to hang out while her band record their new single.
They’ve been at it for two days, and I get to experience the last few hours. The song is in good shape. They’ve spent the 48 hours slowly nurturing it into existence.
I’m here for the the fine tuning, but what I don’t expect is the playfulness at the 11th hour. Along with the engineer, they are testing and experimenting, as well as tightening and refining.
"I want to try a hand cap before that chorus.”
“What’s it sound like if a cello doubles up the flute part?”
“Maybe some Tibetan throat singing at the beginning?” (that one might not make the final mix)
I always find it fascinating to see other types of creative process, and I’m grateful to the band for inviting me into that sacred space. Being in a different creative setting got me thinking about story types, and how stories have the recorded version and the live version.
What I do with businesses is write the recorded version of their stories.
I pick at every note of it. Question each layer. Make every bar earn its place in the song. I’m looking to tell the best version of the story. The source of truth that people can keep coming back to, even years later.
But the live version is down to brands. Because the live version can’t or shouldn’t have all the finely polished layers. It’s more ad-hoc, more in the moment, more personal.
The live version has a different energy, a different setting. It’s a descendant of the recorded version, but it’s its own beast.
To bring this analogy full circle – us storytellers are the engineers with a good ear, and an endless panels of knobs and dials.
But brands, founders and leaders are the rockstars, the ones with something to say.
It’s our job to capture these songs, and turn them into earworms.
THE END(ISH)
Hopefully, you’re here because you like stories, and not because you signed up after that silly video I posted on LinkedIn of me on a tandem.
If it’s the former, I’d appreciate it if you A) share this newsletter with someone who might like it, or B) check out my website.
If it’s the latter, sorry about the lack of long-bike content. I’m always on the lookout for a riding partner, though.