By Remy Raitt
Presenting to a jam-packed Sandton Convention Centre, speakers ranged from agency CEOs, businesspeople, techies, writers, actors, slam poets and of course the guest of honour, Spike Lee. The buzzwords of the day included co-creation, authenticity and data but the focus was how to tell a good story; something users want to be involved in, share and believe in.
Managing executive of Nedbank Group marketing, communications and corporate affairs, Thulani Sibeko reminded the audience that storytelling is not a new concept. “Storytelling is as old as humanity. We have a basic need to hear and tell stories and the sweet spot of communications is getting a human response,” he said from an armchair, peering over a book. “Great advertisers use the same techniques as great storytellers.”
NATIVE VML CEO, Jason Xenopoulos echoed these thoughts. “Storytelling must reach into the core of what it means to be human,” he said. “We must use story to journey into the heart of who we are, by telling stories we bring ourselves into being.” He said the pairing of technology with storytelling further extends these metaphysical connections and their possible reach.
Through storytelling connections are made. Dr Michael Wu of Lithium said that the conversations these stories spark need to be used to their full-potential. He said people still just acquire and then monetise social media. Without engagement, this will never be sustainable. “You need to acquire, engage, monetise and enlist all at the same time or it won’t work.” He said that enlistment helps you scale acquisitions, which gives the customer leverage, essentially enabling them to do the work for you. “The most compelling stories are brand narratives co-created with your customers,” he said.
Fran Luckin, group creative director at Quirk South Africa further proved this using examples like the #WaterstoneTexan story, which blew up on Twitter. “The authority of storytelling is radically decentralised,” she said. Audiences will take a good story far, Luckin says agencies don’t have to create extravaganzas, just good content.
Lucia Maseko, regional digital chairperson of Nestle said this collaboration needs to happen across the board, from the source right to the consumer. “It’s no longer about suppliers and agencies, it’s rather about co-creators all working together. We need to break down the silos. It’s about clients and agency love.”
Another big love topic was data. Chris Roper ICFJ Knight Fellow, Sub Saharan Africa drove home the power that data has. “There’s a revolution going on now, the data revolution and data is the best weapon we have to hold government and big business accountable.” He said we should all be striving for open data and transparency. “Open data is an essential tool to build democracy, it allows us to build tools to make our lives and the lives of others better.”
NATIVE Media’s Matthew Arnold and Gordon Muller discussed the power data has for media owners. “Media owners need to transform themselves. They must be a portal into communications, where audiences can be looked at holistically,” Gordon said. Arnold used the analogy of a ripple effect. “If you drop your brand into a pond, what happens? Where do those ripples touch? How close is the medium to your audience?” he asked.
Spike Lee closed off the day with a screening of snippets of his new feature film Chiraq. The film looks at black-on-black murders in Chicago. The film will be Amazon’s first theatrical release, and Lee, who will be presented with an honorary lifetime achievement award at the Oscar’s this year, said his goal for the film is for it to save lives. “Art can impact the world in a positive or a negative way,” he said. Telling stories through art is what he is known for and his advice to the crowd was to do things their own way.
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