Apply Star Wars Storytelling Tactics to Your Brand
You can apply Star Wars storytelling tactics to your brand with these simple steps.
In my most recent article I evaluated the first act of Star Wars IV: A New Hope using Storyteller Tactics by Pip Decks and Fabula story structure deck by Siferot. Everyone today is aware that building a brand is one of the most important things a company can do to resonate with their customers beyond simple product evaluation and use. To take “resonance” beyond simple affiliation to more lasting connections like “relationship,” we need something the customer or prospect can take with them in their mind. One of the most powerful ways a brand can resonate with their audience is through story.
Why does Star Wars resonate with audiences even today?
The film Star Wars was anticipated by film critics to pan at the box office. The US had just gotten out of the Vietnam War in a messy way, and a film about an intergalactic war didn’t seem to be the ticket to motivate audiences. What the critics missed, but audiences did not, was that the narrative arc isn’t about war, but rather the struggle with the self. People related to Luke feeling stuck on his home planet. They resonated with the sense of justice in overcoming tyranny and the goal of reforming the republic. They resonated with the desire to learn the truth and the willingness to take the journey.
How businesses an brands connect through story
These are all powerful emotional connectors that brands can tap into when they enter a story relationship with their audience. In my work with small businesses that are working to create resonance with their communities, I help them find the things that are most important to their customer’s journey to help them show, through stories.
Tools to apply Star Wars Storytelling Tactics to your brand
One tool I use regularly with brands that want to use stories to connect is the Storyteller Tactics deck by Pip Decks. The Storyteller Tactics deck was created to help people create better presentations, establish brand stories, motivate teams, and provide clarity through the power of story.
Three of the storyteller tactics that brands can adapt from the Star Wars IV first act that can be very powerful are Dragon and the City, Hero and Guide, and Man in a Hole. Here’s how
Three Pip Decks cards that drive the story include:
Dragon and the City Pip Decks Card
This card is all about the world as you would like it to be (your city) and the threats that tear away at your ability to build that world (the dragon). In Star Wars there are two visions of the city: one based on a Republic of interconnected worlds and cultures, and an Empire, an all-encompassing order built on authority and power. To the rebels, the Empire is the dragon. It’s already torn their “city” asunder, and is pillaging everything for its own power. To the Empire, the rebels are the dragon, attacking and breaking down order and diminishing their authority and dominion.
Brands can effectively utilize dragon and the city stories to motivate customers and prospects. To a data security company, hackers are the dragon. To a data security company’s customers, the system of access and proper use of data is the city. The data security company needs to speak to both needs of the company – to build their system of access so the city grows consistently and in an orderly fashion, and protects against unauthorized access.
Gosh, it sounds like I’m on the side of the Empire!
Not to worry, small startups that are attempting to reconfigure entire industries are much more like the rebels. How many corporations have been brought to their knees by startups founded by people who said, “Instead of climbing the ranks within a singular industry, maybe there’s a better way that creates unique outcomes for more people.” Economic and brand diversification has become a successful counter to the monolithic corporations of the past. In promoting a punchy startup, the successful story has often been about the struggle to create something new or different in the face of existing industry power and perceived authority.
So, maybe I’m on the side of the rebels….
Not so fast! Rebels can build their own authoritarian empires. There are another couple of storyteller tactics I won’t dig into too much here, called Universal Stories, which addresses the cyclic nature of many stories, Pride and Fall, which addresses stories when something gets out of hand and fails due to the blindness created through pride, and Thoughtful Failures, a story arc that can split the difference, when a brand creates a learning culture that tests to see what works, what doesn’t, and which pathways, among a variety of options, seem promising.
Hero and Guide Pip Decks Card
Another Storyteller Tactic that is important to Star Wars IV: A New Hope is the hero and guide card. In, Star Wars, Obiwan Kenobi offers guidance, mentorship, and insight to Luke, the hero of the story. In branding, the Hero and Guide method has been adopted to help brands overcome their own egos. If a brand is not what the company says it is, but what everyone else says it is, doesn’t it make sense to put the audience in the driver’s seat?
With the Hero and Guide storyteller tactic we learn how to put our business in the role of Obiwan and our customer on the hero’s journey. Our business better have some insight about what our customer is trying to do, otherwise what is the value of our products and services? We gain more authority when we step back and put the customer’s journey at the forefront.
There’s a catch to this tactic, however, that I always warn my clients about: you can become a cypher if you just fade away into the force like Obiwan and (LOL, spoiler alert) later on, Yoda. A company has to balance the components of its own story and its customer journey.
When I work with businesses to develop their messaging strategy, often, finding the balance between the customer story and the company story is a major part of the process. In marketing, “cadence” means the pattern of content. In a future article, I’ll talk about the importance of reading your audience to understand the cadence of content that relates to them the most.
Man in a Hole Pip Decks Card
This story structure is pure gold. If there is one thing the film critics could have seen during their screening that would have helped them understand the potential of Star Wars it would have been the particular way each major character is stuck in a hole, and they have to dig themselves out. To get themselves out, these characters not only need to change their behaviors, but their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs around something they’ve previously blocked out.
Luke needs to leave his home planet, and he needs to transition his mindset from logic to intuition. Han Solo owes Jabba, so he needs money to pay off the bounty on his head, but he also needs to start working with other people rather than just relying on his own ability to dodge asteroids both physical and metaphorical. Leia has been captured by the Empire, and she needs to stop relying on her royal lineage and moral authority to carry her decree. Darth Vader, clearly isn’t going to respond to Leia’s narrative of authority, but even once she’s on the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo, the ultimate individualist, isn’t going to respond to her demands either.
Leia Faces Her Daddy Issues
All of these people in a hole converge together in the biggest hole in the entire universe: a trash compactor inside the Empire’s greatest weapon, the Death Star. Their limited views have gotten them into a worse an worse situation. To get out of their hole, they need to start to change and to work together.
Brands can use the person in a hole narrative in powerful ways. In athletics, the idea of striving from where you are, where you can’t, through training, using the tools provided by the brand, to the point you can. Therapists, life coaches, colleges – any product or service that is focused on change – can show how the customer is stuck, and what the journey, strengthened through your tools and techniques, changes their scenario from stuck to dynamic.
Applying Star Wars storytelling tactics to your brand
If these story structures resonate with you, it is worth doing a deep dive on these and other tactics from the Star Wars universe. The Storyteller Tactics deck provides many more story frameworks that play out in Star Wars IV: A New Hope and throughout other films and shows in the franchise. The first step is choosing the tactics that resonate with your brand and your audience, then creating a game plan to create your own rich stories.
I recommend the Storyteller Tactics deck to anyone building a brand, but I also recommend taking a course or working with a story coach. My course, “The Branding Class for Artists, Small Businesses, and Anyone Who Wants to Make a Big Impact” helps people create their branding platform and to create a communications platform to make brand strategy useful in your brand’s everyday communications. Whether you are running a small business, or are leading the charge on a social cause, this class helps you understand the opportunities, risks, and foibles of brand messaging, and gives you the tools to create your own path in an impactful, memorable, and meaningful way.
Story Coaching is ideal for those seeking feedback or that have become stuck in a messaging rut. I work with people to get unstuck and to return to flexible, dynamic communications and storytelling.
Get your own Storyteller deck to build your own stories. It provides 42 story structures you can apply to branding, advertising, presentations, pitch decks and more. Follow the prompts to apply each story recipe, then add your unique experience and scenario to enliven your communications. Get your Storyteller Tactics deck with a 15% discount using our affiliate link below.
Want to learn more about Story development?
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The Storyteller Tactics Deck includes 54 recipes that will immediately impact your storytelling. From pitch decks to ads, blogs, webinars, trainings, coaching, and more, these tools help you connect with your audience so they will remember, the “say, think and do” outcomes you are aiming for in your communications.
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