05 An intro to narrative design Ensure brand identity and voice is present Try to avoid stereotypes “Heritage is important when telling your story. I think “You have to be careful not to stereotype. However, in sometimes we forget that the product story has to be saying that, it’s strange because what we’re doing is completely related to the brand story. stereotyping. We’re building a demographic but then we “For example, the language at Puma is completely can’t get to know people individually, so we have to base different from ASICS. Heritage also makes a difference: our research on these demographic stereotypes. one is from Germany, and the other is from Japan, so “There’s a quote I really like: ‘’the mistake is when you they’re separate in that way, too. mistake one story for every story”. For example, when you “I think that’s the exciting part of our job, we have different ask one person from a focus group and think “ah, what teams, and different points of view- so the vision is never she said is what all people believe”. exactly the same.” “There’s a very dif昀椀cult balance to play in a story. But, Simplify your story to make it memorable I think that’s the difference between people thinking they’re being patronized or thinking “oh my God, that’s “What’s the true reason for storytelling? Nobody really me”. That’s basically the science or the creativity of remembers numbers. If I ask you right now to tell me a product storytelling.” great story, I’m sure something will pop up instantly. Tell a visual story “The key is that the story has to be great. It has to be easy “The simplest way to tell a story is visually telling the story to understand and completely relatable. itself and then putting a pop color next to a part of the “If I do something too complicated and nobody technology. Try to get to the point where the person can understands it, then how can you expect a sales team to wear it and feel as though they know the story just by remember? Or how do you expect someone in a store to ‘wearing’ it. Products de昀椀nitely do that. remember it? “For example, Apple is famous for not needing to read the “When you’re looking at things, and they’re telling you manual. You can just pick it up, learn it and understand. stuff about them, and there’s a constant stream of The dream is “I don’t need someone to tell me, you can information, it feels too dif昀椀cult to process. just show me” but that’s a little bit more dif昀椀cult.” “Product creation is constantly thinking about this. So there’s a lot of information and a lot of stories, but we must 昀椀nd a story that’s smaller because sometimes it’s just a small little thing that actually clicks in your brain.”