Why Do We Do It?


All of us know the influence of storytelling on our lives. When I was young my grandmother would read many stories to me. I still remember the stories that I heard as a boy. Everyone has stories that one remembers for life. These stories influence our thinking and they change as we change. Each time that these stories are experienced we continue to learn new and exciting things. New stories are added as we progress in life. Thus, the old and new stories show us the path to follow. Stories are our teachers from birth to death. Each of us maintains and transfers stories to humankind. Our lives, work, and actions are the stories that we tell to the world. The human role as individual, ethnic, and universal is to transfer the stories of our generation to those with whom we interact.

The poet tells and retells stories. Those who control the story maintain power and receive rewards from the believers. The actions that we follow are derived from embraced stories. Marketing is the connecting of a story to a symbol and the symbol to a product, service, and organization in the course of time. Marketing is, thus a modern form of storytelling. Successful storytelling changes marketing outcomes. We buy products or services that are linked to the stories that are familiar and comfortable. This book links the power of stories as the critical driving force for all human consumption. The method of learning and teaching in this book through questions and answers has been with us since antiquity. In this book we refer to case stories in the context of marketing strategy. Thus far modern marketing has been limited in its focus on a single form, that is, the rational approach or objective science at the expense of behavioral approach. The latter one is a holistic approach in so far as it studies the consumer as a total or complete human being. In the ultimate analysis marketing strategy can be characterized as an art form, which can also be called storytelling.