Stories that Roar (or Whisper): How to meet your audiences where they are
My mom — proud Navy veteran, child of the Depression, Midwestern Jewish elder — would have hated the political ad “Get Your Booty to the Poll.”
A lifelong Democrat whose first vote was for FDR, my mother (mercifully) did not live to witness the wreckage of the Trump presidency. She would have been completely offended by everything he said and did. But she also would have been offended by “Get Your Booty to the Poll.”
My cousin Philippe, who identifies as African American and gay, works as a flight attendant. He raced on his roller blades to the burning towers on 9/11 to help with search and rescue. Philippe and I both loved my mom, and mostly vote like her. He and I thought “Get Your Booty to the Poll” was great.
On the other hand, my mom would have loved this workhorse spot from the Biden campaign.
Philippe and I thought it was corny as hell, and just kind of politics as usual.
An ad all three of us probably would have agreed on was:
Funny, cute, intergenerational. A little bit sweet. And it sure gets the point across quickly: Donald Trump. Pyewwww!
We all might have liked this one, too (and my mom would have been proud that I helped make it):
Inspiring. Uplifting. Authentic. All three of us would be so glad there are organizers like Kortni in the world, fighting for their communities.
I’m a one-time movie marketer, a some-time media producer, and a most-of-the-time story strategist. I spend my days helping content creators and other communicators tell stories that win campaigns in the short term and shift narratives over the long haul.
I’m lucky that I get to work with some stone-cold geniuses, one of whom is Dr. Riki Conrey, a data scientist who introduced me to The Theory of Basic Human Values, developed by social scientist Shalom H. Schwartz. Another is the political narrative strategist Kirk Cheyfitz, who reconnected me with The Hero and the Outlaw, the brand bible by Carol S. Pearson and Margaret Mark that’s based on Jungian archetypes.
In combination, these two frameworks — one science, one art — provide a powerful approach for telling stories that make an impact with audiences, whether we’re looking to connect with folks like my mom, folks like my cousin Philippe, or folks like my plumber Bob (who helped me with a frozen pipe today and with whom I never discuss politics or political advertising). The theory of basic human values helps us understand what makes our audiences tick: the values different audiences hold and the stories they already believe. And the archetypes help us tell stories that resonate with them by ensuring we are using characters that they can identify with and employing tones that resonate with them.
Layering one on top of the other — values and characters — is a major “aha” that can help any content creator or storyteller connect deeply with their audiences and deliver effective campaigns.
I’m happy to share these ideas with you, though promise me you’ll only use these super powers for good.
Predict what will attract your audience with the Theory of Basic Human Values
I love a bunch of things about this theory: it’s universal across languages and cultures, it’s evidence-based, and it’s intuitive — which means it has the benefit of being true and feeling true … plus it looks cool. (I’m a media maker and visual thinker and I love anything that involves a cartesian plane.)
When thinking about what values people hold, there are two key tensions to keep in mind. The first (the x-axis in the illustrations below) is the pull between getting stuff for myself vs. helping a larger group: I can fill my belly with all these delicious berries, or I can work with others to gather and store enough food for the winter for our community. The second tension (the y-axis) is the opposing disposition to pursue new things vs. protecting and defending what one already has. Do I want to explore new ideas and experiences or do I want to feel secure and enjoy my traditions?
Some values serve “me” and some serve “we.”
Some values help us “protect” what we have, and some help us “pursue” what we want.
Schwartz’s research points to 10 distinct basic human values.
For practical purposes, Riki Conrey suggests reducing this complexity to four values quadrants.
Instead of looking at an audience’s demographics or their voting behavior or purchasing habits — common ways to understand and segment groups — we work to identify the audience’s values and mindsets. Sometimes strategists use the term “psychographics,” but what was once a benign-enough market research concept started feeling extremely creepy after the 2016 scandal involving the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica. Plus, psychographics, even if used ethically, are technically different from and, IMHO, less informative than values anyway. So as a content creator and communications strategist, my preference is to stick with the idea of “human values.” If I understand what my audiences value — and appreciate not everyone is wired like I am (or like my mom or my cousin Philippe or my plumber Bob) — I have a much better chance of communicating effectively with them.
Every campaigner should ask: Where do my audiences live? Which quadrant is their “home”?
Below is an example from Story at Scale, a gender justice narrative research project that Riki and I led in 2019.
It’s easy to think these folks simply live on a left-right ideological binary. But if we add that second dimension, we get a much richer understanding of their mindsets which allow us to understand how various audiences align with and differentiate from one another. Look, for example, at how close “Kids First” and “For the Win” appear to be in the chart above and yet how distanced they are in the illustration below.
Story at Scale is not the only audience research effort to employ the theory of human values; other examples are included in the “further readings and resources” section below.
Discover your audience’s true voice by exploring the twelve character Archetypes
Archetypes are characters that appear again and again across time and across cultures. The ruler, the lover, the sage, the explorer are all familiar types of characters that appear in stories around the world from ancient myths to Hollywood pop culture. They reoccur in storytelling because they reoccur in life.
People of any race, gender, class, or identity can be any archetype. Though stereotypes abound, great characters and great storytelling expand expectations and defy clichés.
These 12 character archetypes are best used as points of departure for exploring and discovering your true voice, who you — the storyteller — really are. Because your character is indeed your destiny.
Driving social change through strategic storytelling
Now we layer the 12 character archetypes onto the human values model to discover which voices and characters are more natural fits for different audiences. As protagonists in their own stories, audiences are drawn to content that matches their own archetypes and core values. Different audiences have different ideas of what constitutes their happy ending. (Cinderella’s, for example, is my idea of a living hell.)
Combining the two frameworks is especially powerful when used to build a campaign’s core story (something Kirk Cheyfitz calls a “story platform”) to ensure that it is consistent with the various audiences’ values and features characters with whom those audiences identify most closely. The stories that result have been shown to earn audiences’ attention, affect their feelings and beliefs, and, ultimately, stimulate lasting change.
I’m not in the business of art for art’s sake. (Some might argue there’s no such thing, anyway, but that’s a topic for another day.) My objective is to tell stories that make an impact; stories that help forge an equitable, inclusive, just, and sustainable world. This is not short-term work, and it’s not a goal that can be achieved by storytelling alone … but it definitely can’t be achieved without great storytelling.
Whether our aim is to win campaigns in the near term (which we did by the skin of our teeth in 2020) or to shift narratives and norms over time, we need to harness strategic storytelling. We need to be great at production and distribution; we must feature charismatic, authentic storytellers; and we can’t succeed without the ability to listen to and learn from our audience through great research and analytics.
One of the best ways to start on that journey is by understanding the Theory of Basic Human Values and the 12 Character Archetypes. This way, you’ll understand both parties in the conversation: the audience and the storyteller, who you are speaking with and who is doing the speaking.
P.S. Even if she were alive today, my mom’s booty would never be getting to the poll. Her tuchus, on the other hand, might.
Further readings and resources
The Human Needscape by Riki Conrey (Medium, April 2019)
An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values by Shalom H. Schwartz (Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), December 2012)
The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by Carol S. Pearson and Margaret Mark (McGraw-Hill, 2001)
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by C.G. Jung (Princeton University Press, 1969)
How We Win with Story Platforms by Kirk Cheyfitz (Medium, 2018)
In addition to Story at Scale, here are two different audience research efforts that employ the Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values (Riki Conrey worked them, too):
- Beyond Demography about different Black audiences (A/B Partners and Harmony Labs)
- Narrative Observatory about different audiences’ beliefs about poverty (Harmony Labs)
Grow Progress is a data supplier that allows clients to target audiences based on their values.
Images created by kaze design and provided courtesy of and © Story at Scale.
