Sticky Stories Start with the Itch Your Audience is Already Scratching

Generic messaging fails for a simple reason. It speaks to everyone, which means it actually speaks to no one. The messages that stick, the ones people repeat, forward, and act on, are never written for "employees" or "stakeholders" or "our valued customers." They are written for one person, with one specific frustration, in one specific moment. 

That’s not a nice idea about storytelling. It’s a framework, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it in every all-staff email that gets ignored and every campaign that gets remembered. 

In this episode we get the five tip framework behind stories that actually stick, from a communicator who has spent her career studying why some messages disappear the moment they’re sent while others get repeated for years.

Listen for:

3:17 The Five-Step Framework for Sticky Stories

7:12 Finding the Frustration: Real Communication Examples

10:34 Break the Fourth Wall to Make Messages Memorable

13:54 The Recipe for Stories People Remember

Guest: Eduvie Martin, FCIPR, Past President of IABC UK and Ireland

LinkedIn | Comic Republic 

Doug Downs

Substack | Website | LinkedIn

Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter

Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it.

Apply to be a guest on the podcast

Connect with us

LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest

Transcript

Lady Emily (00:00):
The most enduring stories, the ones that outlast their time, are rarely written for an audience. They're written for one person. Dolly Parton proved that with Jolene, and the same rule applies to every message a comms team ever sends.

Doug Downs (00:23):
Dolly Parton didn't write a song about jealousy. She wrote a song about Jolene. One name, one woman, one specific threat to one specific marriage. Fifty years later, people who've never even been cheated on, never even been married, still know every word of that song. Not because heartbreak is universal, although it is, but because Dolly didn't write it for everyone. She wrote it for one person and then pleaded with her by name again and again not to take the man she loved. The name itself came from a young red haired fan waiting for an autograph after a show. Dolly asked her her name. The girl said Jolene. And Dolly repeated it back. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Just remember it. And though it sounded like a song, the story underneath that name came from somewhere else entirely. A real bank teller who had taken a liking to Dolly's husband, Carl, and a marriage Dolly protected not with a policy or a lecture or a confrontation, but with a song written for one very specific woman whom she never even confronted directly.

(01:32):
 See, that's the trick great communicators have known for a long time. And most PR and internal comms teams, we still get it wrong. We write for employees. We write for our valued customers. We write for stakeholders. And nobody hears a word of what we're writing or saying because nobody in that room is named Stakeholder. The frustration that actually drives people to act is never general. It's always specific and it feels personal. It belongs to someone specific in a specific moment, and it only becomes a story worth telling once you find it. Today on Stories and Strategies, we find out how to write a story so good even Jolene would have to listen. My name is Doug Downs. My guest this week is Eduvie Martin. Did I say that? I said nailed it?

Eduvie Martin (02:32):
Nailed it.

Doug Downs (02:33):
Nailed it. Okay. Past President of IABC UK and Ireland, you are a Fellow of the CIPR, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and you are based in London.

Eduvie Martin (02:43):
Correct.

Doug Downs (02:43):
Great to have you.

Eduvie Martin (02:44):
Thank you for having me.

Doug Downs (02:45):
Thanks for joining. Stories. I've heard this tale that stories actually count. No, I'm being facetious. Stories for PR pros. Every single PR pro knows that that is the magic elixir to get through to the human brain, but you've codified stories in such an amazing way. And you gave a presentation here at the IABC World Conference in Toronto talking about five tips to create memorable, sticky stories. What are those five tips first, and then we'll walk through them one by one?

Eduvie Martin (03:17):
Oh, thanks for having me, Doug. I think that there's been a big understanding that stories will help us make our messages more memorable, and more people are beginning to understand the impact of stories. So we've got five things I think you need to do to be able to understand and remember stories. The first one is find the frustration. There's always something that's annoying about a process or a situation. If you are able to identify what that is, you can turn that into your story, which can then help you to drive the desired attitudinal change or business outcomes.

Doug Downs (03:48):
So the find the frustration helps create an identity moment because there was another presentation talking about 1.7 seconds on social media, at least, to decide that I'm going to click or I'm going to watch it and all that. If you find the frustration, that's what's top of mind for someone. This is their symptom and maybe you have a prescription or the solution.

Eduvie Martin (04:09):
Absolutely.

Doug Downs (04:10):
Okay.

Eduvie Martin (04:10):
Yes.

Doug Downs (04:12):
The way to solve that is by knowing your audience.

Eduvie Martin (04:15):
Absolutely. The next thing is to absolutely understand your audience. And I'm not talking, "Oh, this person is five feet four." No. I'm talking about the pattern of your audience, the lifestyle of your audience. Is this an Eduvie who walks to the gym every afternoon and who doesn't like to drink water while she's in the gym? That kind of understanding of your audience. When you understand the path with which they go towards consuming your message, then you can write the story in a way that you are living inside their day to day, and then it resonates.

Doug Downs (04:48):
Perfect. Why don't you drink water when you're in the gym?

Eduvie Martin (04:51):
Do you have tea or something? I have no idea. It's just been me, but I have water afterwards.

Doug Downs (04:54):
Okay. All right. Okay. You replenish afterward. And then it's walk the path.

Eduvie Martin (04:59):
Walk the path. Absolutely. That's the third one. Walking the path is very interesting because I think there is a consensus that people are supposed to be in certain places at certain times. So, for instance, if you're talking to shop floor employees in your factory, you expect that they're always in the factory on the shop floor. Or it might be that they're most times in another corner that's not close to the shop floor. Have you actually walked the path? Well, the physical path. Gone through their physical path and seen what their day looks like. It's like a day in the life of. Spend a day with the stakeholder, where you can, and understand what their day looks like. Walk the path, and then you can tell a story that is absolutely related to the path that they walk.

Doug Downs (05:38):
That's so interesting. Something I talk about in presentation coaching is to actually get on that stage the day before you're going to give that presentation and know what the room looks like, know what the sound feels like. That's really good. Number four is write for one. Very similar to a podcast. While there's an audience, and I happen to know the thousands that will listen, you never say, "To all those listening," or, "For you listening." That's kind of what you're talking about.

Eduvie Martin (06:10):
Absolutely. And I'm thinking there's a busy employee who has only 15 minutes to consume a podcast and has to commute from one point to the next. This podcast is for that employee. And so when you're writing, you're thinking about that particular individual who's busy, who's got lots to do, and has just 15 minutes to get that done. That's who you're writing for. And I know there are some conversations about different personas and writing for different types of people. There's also that, but I'm thinking about your message meeting the audience because you clearly understand who this person is.

Doug Downs (06:43):
Before we get to number five, which is one of your favourite parts, which is break the fourth wall, but we'll get there in a second. That understanding your audience and walking their path and understanding the symptoms that they're suffering, can you give me an example of a comms plan or a programme or campaign that you started, maybe where you were surprised or at least got a bit of learning along the way, as opposed to your hypothesis?

Eduvie Martin (07:12):
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Which example can I give you? So, finding the frustration is, we launched our AI strategy recently in the organisation and we found that quite a number of people were already using AI tools, and we wanted to find out what they thought about us launching our own tool. And so we decided to find the frustration in the sense that we could see that they were using the tools, but they were not exactly talking about the fact that they were using the tools because they were using other tools that were not approved tools. So we took that, which is the need for the use of the tools, and put that front and centre and said, "We know you're using the tools. Now let's talk about it."

Doug Downs (07:51):
Did they really know that they were using, or was this one...

Eduvie Martin (07:54):
Well, we can tell.

Doug Downs (07:54):
And they just didn't share that.

Eduvie Martin (07:55):
We just said to them, "We know you're using the tools, so let's talk about it." So people resonated with that. We got very good feedback in our feedback form, but it was because they understood that people were using the tools and dealt with it from that frustration. So that's one example. Another example can be, you are trying to communicate about a feedback form. I seem to like feedback forms.

Doug Downs (08:19):
Don't blame you.

Eduvie Martin (08:20):
You're trying to communicate to employees to complete a feedback form, but you know that they don't complete feedback forms because they don't think that they will be responded to. So you then go and say something like, "We know you don't think that the feedback will be responded to. However, here's what we're going to do differently." So you talk about it from the frustration that you're hearing back from people, the voice around the room about the particular process, and then you hit it from that angle.

Doug Downs (08:47):
Okay. I'll tell you a quick story. You tell me what you think of this strategy. It was the CEO of Marriott doing an interview on a business media show, and they were just at that point where, you know those little shampoos and conditioners in the little bottles, and we all steal them and take them home when we go to the hotel? And they were just getting rid of those and putting the fixtures on the walls. And he knew intuitively that people would get ticked off because I expect to steal my shampoo and my conditioner and my soap and all that stuff. When he was asked the question, "What are you going to do about people getting upset that they can't take those home anymore?" he simply answered, "You can get more by calling down to the front desk, so you'll always have plenty." And he told a story about his elderly mother, who'd lived through the war years and through periods of rationing, and that he was visiting her and she had a drawer full of Marriott soaps and shampoos. They're all branded Marriott and she'd never used them, and no one could possibly blame her because hoarding was not a bad thing during her time.

(09:53):
 It was what you did. And it was so relatable because he was a son to a mother who had adopted this innocent habit, and times were changing. Do you think that was an effective strategy on his part? Because I felt very warm.

Eduvie Martin (10:07):
I suppose so. I think it depends because, when you think about finding the frustration, it's also about looking at the things that people are saying are wrong with the process or wrong with the situation and taking it from that angle. So that's a way to look at it.

Doug Downs (10:23):
Okay. So he could have addressed that a little bit more.

Eduvie Martin (10:25):
A little bit more. Yes, I think so.

Doug Downs (10:27):
Good note. Okay. Number five is break the fourth wall.

Eduvie Martin (10:34):
That's my favourite one. I just want to talk about it. So I'm talking Deadpool, The Office, Fleabag. If you've watched all of those movies where the character comes out of character and is staring you right in the face, that's...

Doug Downs (10:46):
She's talking about staring you in the face.

Eduvie Martin (10:48):
Sorry.

Doug Downs (10:48):
Go on.

Eduvie Martin (10:48):
Staring me in the face. I love it. See, we have to come out of character sometimes when you are expecting a story to go a particular way, and then it doesn't. That's my favourite part. I think the shock factor, the disruptive element of it, is brilliant. It's almost like coming out of character. I've seen this play across multiple platforms. Let's use an example of a video I watched with a CEO talking about deepfakes. He's watching a video of himself, and we, first of all, the audience sees the video of the CEO talking about deepfakes and how you should be careful and mindful of deepfakes. The camera then pans over to some glitches, and you can see there are some glitches in the video, like, "What is going on?" And then the next thing you see is the actual CEO staring at a laptop and thinking, "That's not me."

(11:36):
 And then the advert kicks off and he's like, "That's not me." So he's speaking directly to camera and he's like, "That's not me. That's a fake of me. And that's why you shouldn't believe everything that you see." So that's almost breaking the fourth wall, coming out of that character and driving the key message. So that's one example.

Doug Downs (11:52):
So is that because it's authentic? Is it because we're breaking the pattern? Suddenly there's the red M&M in the bowl of blue M&Ms? Is it all of those pieces together?

Eduvie Martin (12:03):
Absolutely. I think that is it. It works so well. I used it recently for one of our AI strategies, where we were trying to draft a note for employees to encourage them to actually come to the town hall to hear about the AI strategy we're launching. And we said to them, "Well, let AI smooth your processes. This is actually a shameless attempt to try and make smoothing rhyme with smoothies, only because we want you to come over to the town hall and grab a smoothie." And somewhere in there, I listed that in with, "We've written it with Copilot, by the way. See you at the town hall." And it got quite a rave review because people were, I mean, you'd be like, "What is this? This is very cheesy. What do you mean, AI smoothing your process? Grab a free smoothie. What is this cheesy message?" I'm like, "Oh, by the way, we wrote it with AI, but see you at the town hall."

(12:58):
 "There's a voucher in there for you." So it's almost like putting in some humour and breaking the pattern to get people to listen to your message a bit more. So you're telling a story with that dimension.

Doug Downs (13:10):
You know what you're making me think of is social media clips, the ones that are effective that influencers do. It's just to hold your phone and to walk and talk with your phone.

Eduvie Martin (13:27):
Exactly.

Doug Downs (13:27):
And you can get one of those devices that levels the shot, I guess. But actually, the sloppier, the better.

Eduvie Martin (13:30):
Yeah. Very unfiltered is what people are going for these days. That's more authentic, away from the AI slop. Everyone is now craving a bit more authenticity. So, yeah, I think it's absolutely something you need to do. Find the frustration, walk the path. You also have to write for one. You also have to break the fourth wall and absolutely know your audience. So those are the key things I think you need to do to create more memorable messages.

Doug Downs (13:54):
Okay, chef, I have the recipe. Now tell me the cooking instructions to put together an effective story. I'm assuming that identity moment, that symptom, that pain needs to come pretty quickly. And then Aristotle said stories need to have a character. They need to have a challenge and a growth of some kind, an outcome. What's the cooking recipe?

Eduvie Martin (14:21):
You know what? In all honesty, if I hear someone try a story and it's boring as hell, it's such a turn off. It feels manufactured.

Doug Downs (14:31):
Yeah.

Eduvie Martin (14:31):
Absolutely. I mean, just like you, I used to be really critical of stories. I'm just like, "I don't have the patience for this. Get to it. Where are you going with this?"

Doug Downs (14:40):
I'm not in the story.

Eduvie Martin (14:40):
What is going on? So, for me, you just need to remember that the story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end. No faff. Get to the point. Whatever it is you're trying to say, every story you tell needs to have an angle. Where exactly are you going with this? And it needs to be concise, in my opinion.

I also think that you need to have a character worth fighting for. We need to fall in love with this character worth fighting for. If it's you, if it's a friend, if it's an aunt, forget about the data or the details. Don't get stuck in the, "Oh, it was 18 years ago. Oh, was it 20? Or was it 25?" No one cares.

Doug Downs (15:16):
I was wearing my red blazer at the time.

Eduvie Martin (15:17):
Yeah, right. We don't care about all the detail. Just get to it. Then also you need to think about what you're trying to achieve, what you want the audience to feel afterwards, and just be honed in on that.

And sometimes you have some storytellers play to the audience, and when your audience starts laughing, they then try to embellish that element of the story, and then we're just going on and on and on. It's understanding what you're trying to achieve with your story and getting there. And then practise, practise, practise, I think, is also very essential to telling good stories.

Doug Downs (15:48):
Okay. I think you and I talked about comedians a little bit. And so I'm going to ask you a favourite story that you've heard. Maybe it had a business connection. Maybe it was just a story that really, really stuck with you, and something preferably that you can do in 60 seconds or so that stands out.

For me, it's an old country song by a guy named Don Williams called Señorita. And it's about a young cowboy and a Mexican girl. And he's worried that he'll never be able to fall in love with her because of all the range wars. And he introduces himself and he tips his cap. By the spring rains they're married. And then he says, "There's an old story that my family has always told. It's about a young cowboy and a Mexican girl." That's a heck of a story. But what story stands out to you?

Eduvie Martin (16:39):
I've been quite big on financial books lately and I really like Rich Dad Poor Dad. I like the way Robert... what's the last name? Kiyosaki? I'm going to mispronounce it now, but Robert, whoever wrote the Rich Dad Poor Dad story.

Doug Downs (16:50):
Oh, Kiyosaki?

Eduvie Martin (16:51):
Kiyosaki, that's the one. I thought that was the name of the bike, so okay. Kiyosaki.

Doug Downs (16:55):
Richard Kiyosaki. You're right. You're right.

Eduvie Martin (17:00):
Which is what I was going to call him as well. I wasn't sure. Anyway, I like Rich Dad Poor Dad because the story is very... Every story has a moral. I'm one of those who cannot stand The Boys. I don't know if you know The Boys, the Amazon Prime series called The Boys.

Doug Downs (17:16):
Yes.

Eduvie Martin (17:17):
I cannot stand a story that doesn't have a moral at the end of it. So I like a story that leads to something, that leads you to do something better or become a better version of yourself.

So what I like about Rich Dad Poor Dad is he tells a story about how his dad gave him money to go and do something. He came back and, at the end of the day, he did X. And you can tell that you're rooting for him because you can see him trying to be better than himself. And then you can see him achieve his objective at the end, and that makes you feel happy for him.

So I want a character worth fighting for. I'm rooting for you until the end. You need to have layers to yourself, absolutely. But you also have to be someone that I want to back.

And then at the end you win. There has to be a hero. There needs to be victory, some kind of yay moment. Or tragedy. Tragedy is also fine, but there needs to be a climax, if I can use the word. And that's what I'm thinking about for a good story.

So I like that. And I'm also reading Obvious Adams, which was gifted to me by my boss. Obvious Adams is about a salesman and how he puts his fingerprints on multiple things in the advertising world. He talks about it in a story format where this boy is very unassuming, but he's determined to be the best at sales. And he goes and pitches himself to someone who's the best at sales and says, "I'm going to work for you."

And the person says, "I don't think you can work for me. You have no skills."

And he's like, "No, I'm going to work for you."

And then you're like, "Oh my God, is he going to work for him?" You're now invested and you're like, "I want him to work for him." He's a character worth fighting for.

And at the very end, he does get to work for him. He gets to be his VP. He gets to be one of the biggest people in the organisation. And you're like, "That's brilliant." That's assuring that there's still some good in the world out there.

Doug Downs (19:02):
That's fantastic. I'm so glad we finally caught up late on the final afternoon of the conference, but we finally caught up to do this. Thank you for your time.

Eduvie Martin (19:11):
Thank you for having me, Doug.

Doug Downs (19:14):
Wow. Here are three things to think about today from Eduvie Martin that you could bring up in conversation later on tonight or possibly tomorrow.

Number one. The next time a message falls flat at work, ask whether it was actually written for someone or just sent to everyone. Generic almost always means forgettable.

Number two. The real fix for a boring update is not more information. It's finding the one frustration or pain point underneath the process and starting there instead.

And number three. Breaking the fourth wall. A bit of humour, a surprise, a pattern interruption. It's not a gimmick. It's often the only reason anyone remembers the message at all.

If you'd like to send a message to our guest, Eduvie Martin, we've got her contact information in the show notes.

Stories and Strategies is a production of Stories and Strategies Podcasts. Thank you to producers Emily Page and Jocelyn Floréaldi.

(20:07):
 And hey, listen. Eduvie talks about breaking the fourth wall, so I'm going to do that right now and ignore the rest of my script.

I totally appreciate your time. I mean, you've got that email you've got to send, you've got that report you're supposed to read, that proposal you need to build, the conversation you've got to have, and even that errand you've got to run. I get that.

But you found time for me today in this podcast. And maybe we've met before, even if just by email, or maybe we haven't.

Just please know I totally appreciate you.

Thanks for listening.