Full Transcript of Think Fresh - Episode 5
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;16
RYAN
We’re doing this. All right. Hello and welcome to this.
JEN
Were you talking? Oh my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative, coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing, insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life. And whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;10;23
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about storytelling. And everyone just wanted to put in a pre-show note here. We are not in our recording studio right now. It was a little toasty in there. So we’re currently in one of our conference rooms. In addition to a heat wave that we have going on, we’ll also have a little bit of construction noise in the background.
00;01;10;23 – 00;01;30;07
RYAN
There is an active construction site happening behind our building, here in Cedar Rapids. So you might notice a few different noises. We’re just going to roll with it today. You’ve still got Jan, me here, and our special guests that we’ll bring in shortly. But Jen, you you had a break last month. What’s been going on with you?
00;01;30;10 – 00;01;51;16
JEN
I’ve been traveling a lot. Whether it’s for work or for picking up my kid from college, but, it feels good to be back in the office for a couple of days. I just returned from Nashville.
RYAN
You were just at a wedding this weekend, right?
JEN
I was, and I think I brought back a head cold. So, I am once again, I think our first podcast, I had a cold.
00;01;51;16 – 00;02;07;15
JEN
And so this is my second one. I’m beginning to think it’s a a pattern now. So maybe every other podcast I’ll just be sick. So there we go. So, you get an extra deep version of my voice today.
RYAN
And you said you’ve been traveling a lot. I think a lot of our clients have been as well.
00;02;07;15 – 00;02;33;23
RYAN
We’ve had a lot of clients out for weeks at a time, balancing that with de Novo’s schedules. And we’ve, we’ve got coverage. But when you enter the summer or the summer travel months, things always get crazy with graduations.
JEN
Yeah. You know, to be honest, it it gets hard to get, some responses sometimes your clients, I think everybody, goes on summer vacation or multiple vacations or they’re just busy with their kids and then, you know, the summer passes.
00;02;33;23 – 00;02;50;03
JEN
And then come September, we’ll have Labor Day, and then everybody craps their pants and wants all their work done all at once. So, yeah, that’s that’s the nature of being an agency. And we’re used to it now.
RYAN
Oh yeah. But we’ve got some pretty cool events that just took place. The downtown Iowa City summer block party just happened.
00;02;50;05 – 00;03;14;26
RYAN
we’re we’re in full farmers market season here in Cedar Rapids with the downtown nighttime market coming up. I, I love Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, mainly for, well, so many reasons. But the farmers markets, growing up in rural Illinois, our farmers markets were two people’s trucks and like some potatoes and strawberries. So these farmers markets are completely different and always one of my favorite parts of the year.
00;03;14;27 – 00;03;33;29
JEN
Well, and just to plug the night market this year, for the downtown district in Cedar Rapids, I just heard they booked Vandello, which is one of my absolute favorite local bands, so I am I’m really looking forward to that one.
RYAN
So if you want to see Jan up front dancing for Vandello, make sure you come to the, nighttime farmer’s market.
00;03;33;29 – 00;03;56;15
JEN
Or that can serve as a warning. If you don’t see that
RYAN
Then just don’t make your way to the front. Still come, you won’t have to see Jen dancing. Just don’t go to the front. In other news, I’ve got an announcement that I need to make for for everyone on the pod. I don’t want to, make this too dramatic, but I like sports now.
00;03;56;18 – 00;04;21;20
RYAN
I did not watch any of, Caitlin Clark’s rise to fame, if you will. I will be honest. I saw the media attention around it. The marketing. The marketing commercials, all of the, NIH deals, and I thought it was amazing. But I didn’t actually watch. I said NIH…, it’s NIL.
JEN
It’s… that that tracks for you.
00;04;21;22 – 00;04;45;12
RYAN
I watched all of that NIL deals and saw all of that happening, but I didn’t start watching, sports until the last two games of the, NCAA, competition. Clearly. I still don’t know… tournament? I don’t know the words, but I have the fever. It’s been exciting to to get into something that’s been so foreign to me for so long.
00;04;45;15 – 00;05;11;23
JEN
I do have to share this story. So. So, I mean, it might not sound like a big deal that Ryan like sports now, but like Ryan really doesn’t know sports or didn’t know sports.
RYAN
Still don’t I’ll be honest.
JEN
And we were doing a, a session on digital marketing and he referred to it as NFL basketball one time. So the whole room just kind of took a breath like, did does he know he’s wrong?
00;05;11;26 – 00;05;29;27
JEN
And we have never let Ryan live this down. So it is really funny now to just see how into this he is. He he knows players names. He’s he almost knows how the game works
RYAN
I do I do I I learned that there are field goals in more than just football, which still I feel like there needs to be a different name if I’m being honest.
00;05;29;27 – 00;05;47;15
RYAN
And that shouldn’t be a field goal. percentage. But but learning all of that, and yes, it was a room of about 40 people. I said, NFL basketball and everyone just like kind of looked confused. There was a mild gasp, and I just kept going because I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know what just what just happened.
00;05;47;17 – 00;06;06;24
RYAN
and then at the end after after everyone was coming up and talking with me, they were like NFL basketball? And I still don’t think it clicked. I was like, yeah, yeah. And then my coworkers gave me a little bit of crap, which is expected and, and hoped for. But.
JEN
I do appreciate that your, your emphasis is on women’s sports though.
00;06;06;24 – 00;06;28;27
RYAN
Yes. Yes. So so Jen, it’s, I was going to say it’s just you and me today, but it is not. We have another de Novian joining us today. I am excited to introduce Chad Cooper. Chad is one of our copywriters and content strategist here at de Novo Marketing. But he also moonlights as the voice of the Roughriders.
00;06;28;27 – 00;06;50;18
RYAN
So you may recognize his voice. He keeps that crowd amped up all throughout the game. And you might have heard him emceeing some amazing events around, around Iowa City, Cedar Rapids. Chad Cooper, welcome to Thing Fresh.
CHAD
Delighted to be here now. I’m excited to be on the podcast, but as hyped as I am for that, I think I might be even more excited by your recent love of sports.
00;06;50;18 – 00;07;11;05
CHAD
Ryan. I mean that that really is the peak for me now. We have so many more new lines of communication.
RYAN
Oh yes, oh yes. And and the fever puns. That’s been my favorite part so far. being able to say I’ve got the Fever is one of my favorites. And I know Jen just has a head cold, but it’s even better to be able to make fun of people that might have the fever in a different way.
00;07;11;07 – 00;07;27;12
JEN
My fever broke last night. I don’t even think I’m contagious. Also, Chad, thanks for not making me the deepest voice on the podcast for once. I
CHAD
I think that’s why I’m here for this part.
RYAN
It’s not going to be me. It’s not going to be me.
JEN
It’s not going to be you.
RYAN
But, Chad. Yes. Thank you for joining us.
00;07;27;14 – 00;07;52;21
RYAN
I do have to ask, what got you started being the voice of the Rough Riders?
CHAD
So I started my entire career in radio, which obviously is a huge surprise to everyone listening right now. But I wanted to use the voice immediately. And so through that radio gig, other opportunities present themselves. And so I used to host a show with the Rough Riders, where I interviewed players on a weekly basis for a three month span, and then that just grew from there.
00;07;52;24 – 00;08;14;15
RYAN
Oh, I did not know that you started started it all in radio. That’s awesome.
CHAD
Yes, it’s my origin story.
RYAN
And now that I’m a, sports fan, I have seen during like half times intermissions, between quarters, they have the people that go out and hype the Fever crowd and they do all of these fun, different games. Do you do things like that at the Rough Riders games as well?
00;08;14;16 – 00;08;35;20
CHAD
Oh, we sure do. Ryan. We we race, we race. Toboggans on the ice. We have
RYAN
what’s what’s it, what’s a tobboggan.
CHAD
It looks like, kind of like a canoe. yeah. That kind of shape. We race karts on the ice. We have three wheel tricycle races.
RYAN
Oh my gosh.
CHAD
Yeah. So we do a lot on the ice, a lot of game competitions.
00;08;35;20 – 00;08;54;09
CHAD
But we do not have a Rough Riders dance team yet.
JEN
So I’ve seen you in action at the games. You don’t sit down a lot.
CHAD
I don’t sit down at all. So that’s the best workout I get all week.
JEN
Yeah. You are up and down those steps.
00;08;54;09 – 00;09;19;22
JEN
You’re. Yeah, you’re definitely gaining elevation. It’s it’s a whole, probably next level of energy that that takes to do that.
CHAD
Yeah. That that floss doesn’t give away itself.
RYAN
How do you, how do you walk on the ice. Do you have special shoes?
CHAD
So it helps after they’ve played an entire period of hockey, their skates have cut it up and roughed it up so much that actually it’s almost like walking on asphalt.
00;09;19;25 – 00;09;37;15
CHAD
After they bring the Zamboni through, that’s a whole different story. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. So typically we do all of the intermission entertainment when the ice is still cut up. And then we have a pretty firm deadline where we have to get off. And then they bring the Zamboni on, and then it looks like a sheet of glass.
00;09;37;15 – 00;09;52;26
RYAN
So that’s a whole other piece of logistics that you don’t know is actually happening. When you’re at a when you’re at a hockey match… meet?
JEN
I kind of assumed you were wearing micro spikes when you have to get out there.
CHAD
No, but that would be a good idea. Maybe from now on. I’ve taken a few almost tumbles from time to time.
00;09;52;26 – 00;10;09;13
CHAD
You know, when that when you get to the edge of that ice, it’s still pretty slick. But I’ve. I’ve caught myself. When you’re in front of a 2000, 3000 people, you want to you want to mind your steps.
RYAN
Oh, yeah. Of course. And now that I’m into once again into sports, my algorithm on social media has shifted.
00;10;09;13 – 00;10;32;14
RYAN
So I know as of last night, the, oh, goodness, the Stanley Cup was named. Florida one for the first time. I want to say Jaguars. I want to say Jaguars. I’m not sure. But the Stanley Cup that is also now now done.
JEN
So you’re doing your best.
RYAN
I’m really trying. And I have just enough to be able to not actually talk about it, but bring it up, which is all you really need, right?
00;10;32;16 – 00;10;55;27
CHAD
It’s just a conversation starter.
JEN
Well, conversations are a great way to kind of pivot into what we’re here to talk about today.
RYAN
Exactly. So let’s talk about storytelling. Chad, Jen how how do you define storytelling? I think that word is used a lot in marketing. Right. but like what’s the difference between a story and like like an announcement?
00;10;55;29 – 00;11;15;19
JEN
Right. I’m going to I’m going to jump in here, but I really, want to hear a lot more from chat on this because this is what he does and this is what he does so well. But, storytelling is an often overused term. and and like you said, the difference between an, an announcement and a story, there’s a big difference.
00;11;15;19 – 00;11;37;07
JEN
And storytelling is really how you share information in a way that engages your audience. And it’s it’s really it is a crucial part of good communications and marketing. But it has to be done well and it has to be done artfully. And that’s, that’s why we brought Chad in here to, to talk about that. So what’s your take on storytelling?
00;11;37;07 – 00;11;54;12
CHAD
Yeah, absolutely. When I think of storytelling, I think of the combination of emotion and information. When those two things come together, that’s the starting point of a story. And to be able to craft something that, to Jen’s point, is more of a narrative than just simply an announcement, simply just a recitation of facts or of benefits or features.
00;11;54;12 – 00;12;16;19
CHAD
Instead, there’s really an arc to what we’re doing, and if we think of just about the basic human nature of how we talk to each other, we’d like to talk in that way, a way that’s human, in a way that’s personal, way that’s emotional, not a way that’s robotic. That just covers a bulleted list. So storytelling is a way to dive deeper on some of those facts, some of those figures, those things that we throw around on a daily basis.
00;12;16;26 – 00;12;43;20
CHAD
It’s a framework that we can use to engage audiences in a way that’s much more authentic than simply just repeating something.
JEN
So I think what happens with with people is that they confuse that announcement with a story. So, here’s an analogy I use when I’m talking to, you know, municipal leaders is, when I ask them, what’s a story about their community, they’ll say, we opened a dog park.
00;12;43;23 – 00;13;11;09
JEN
Well, that’s an announcement, right? That’s not a story. The story would be a couple falls in love while scooping poop at a at a dog park. That’s memorable. Tell the story of how that happened or how these people met or, you know, maybe had some conflict between their dogs and, what that what that did for them and how that impacted their lives in your community that just opened a dog park.
00;13;11;14 – 00;13;37;25
JEN
That’s the difference between an announcement and a story.
RYAN
So can you still talk about the opening of the dog park or do you tell the story? And then in in additional materials around that story, then you talk about the dog park.
JEN
I mean, you’re still going to make announcements, right? You’re still going to do your public relations. I mean, you’re going to want to tell the community a dog park opened so that people can go there and meet and there, you know, fall in love or their dogs fall in love.
00;13;37;25 – 00;14;12;21
JEN
Who knows? But I mean, that’s the difference. You know, you’re going to make those announcements, but then you’re going to look for those stories. And what we like to do is help people realize these stories are in, whether it’s a community or a business or an organization. These stories happen every day. It’s it’s a matter of catching them and being able to identify them and then turning them into that artistic version of, of the, of what happened
CHAD
And to that point as well, with storytelling, companies and organizations
00;14;12;21 – 00;14;35;10
CHAD
what you see is this tendency and it’s we’ve all we’re all guilty of it from time to time. We lean on benefits, features, products and services. But the fact is, is that unless you have something that’s truly proprietary, it’s tough to stand out to be distinctive just based off of benefits, features and services and products alone. That’s all part of what you can feed into a story.
00;14;35;10 – 00;15;01;22
CHAD
But what we talk about when we speak with clients, when we speak internally about developing story, is where do we start? And we typically start with “why?”, which is a basic question that seems very general on the surface. But when you ask an individual why they started a company, why they saw a need for a specific service or product, then you start to get that human story that Jen was talking about.
00;15;01;28 – 00;15;30;16
CHAD
It’s either a love, a deep passion for something, it was a customer complaint or a customer pain point that maybe led to a product or service that allows you to tell a story and then be able to naturally fill in that information about benefits and features and whatnot. We’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen it over the past year or so, this huge emphasis on talk about benefits over features, but I would argue we should go even deeper than that and really look at that storytelling aspect of it.
00;15;30;16 – 00;15;52;23
CHAD
How do we present benefits in a way that engage, that resonate with audiences in a way that they can they can see how the product will actually affect their life on a day to day basis.
RYAN
You mentioned, like talking about customer complaints and pain points. What are other ways that you can get the stories out of out of clients, out of people?
00;15;52;26 – 00;16;13;12
RYAN
How do they be on the lookout for a potential story? I guess.
CHAD
One way is to just look at the day to day interactions they have. I’m I’m huge on touchpoints, so if it’s a business where you’re seeing a lot of business to customer interactions, what do those look like on a day to day basis? Also being able to essentially crowdsource information from your other employees, right.
00;16;13;12 – 00;16;37;20
CHAD
What do those interactions look like? That’s how we start to craft stories. Also. Another point is why are people coming to you in the first place? That’s typically a great starting point for a story, and gives you an avenue to then be able to expand on more information.
JEN
And that can go across more than just storytelling. I mean, even when I’m talking to a prospect, I’m going to keep asking questions because I want to know the real why.
00;16;37;23 – 00;17;09;18
JEN
It’s often not just to increase sales volume. There’s a reason why they want to do that. Like, well, what does that enable you to do if you do that? And then you get to the why behind something, and you get to these motivations that tell you a lot more and they add so much more context and color, to the relationship and gives you so much more to work with when it comes time to develop that narrative behind why this company does what it does, or why this community is a great place to live.
00;17;09;20 – 00;17;34;09
CHAD
And there are organizations, communities and certain municipalities and just overall companies that I think they look at their industry and they say, well, this isn’t really a natural fit for storytelling, when in case the when in fact, the exact opposite is true. So when we think about great stories, I think people tend to look at sports, they tend to look at the fashion industry, they tend to look at industries where stories are maybe more apparent, more on the surface.
00;17;34;11 – 00;17;56;03
CHAD
But in reality, if you can tell a great story about your industry in a way that hits home with your intended audience, that is the most profound way to be able to impact what you’re talking about. So, for instance, I think about this agency, it was an ad from years ago, but it was for a sustainable wind energy in, in Europe, and I think they were called it Epuron is how you pronounce the name.
00;17;56;03 – 00;18;16;02
CHAD
But it was all about wind energy. Wind energy. We can talk all about the proprietary nature of wind, of solar, of, what sustainable energy does, how it impacts communities. But is that really the best way to be able to engage with audiences? We can talk about the benefits, the features of wind energy, of sustainable energy overall.
00;18;16;02 – 00;18;33;24
CHAD
What they did instead was crafted an ad with a huge individual who was they found, an actor who was huge. I think he was a professional wrestler or whatnot. They’re dressed in all black, and they put on this very small kind of derby hat on him, and he walked around this local community and he hit someone’s hat off their head.
00;18;33;26 – 00;18;51;05
CHAD
He overturned one of these, like, table tents. He went over and blew over like a tent that people were sleeping in. He went over and splashed water on somebody. And the whole aspect of it was he was the human embodiment of wind. And what they said is now we’ve taken wind and given it its purpose, giving it its true nature.
00;18;51;05 – 00;19;12;26
CHAD
And the tagline that I love, which ended it all, was “The wind. His potential is ours.” The idea was it was taking something – we look at it on a human nature, day to day interactions. Wind is an annoyance, right? It gets in the way of what we do on a day to day basis. But what it really does is it can be a literal fuel for what we want to do in terms of powering that community.
00;19;12;26 – 00;19;37;09
CHAD
So what we haven’t talked about yet, but what is great to bring in with storytelling is also that humorous aspect to it, that human emotion of what we use. That ad is a great example of that. It took something that could have gotten easily lost in the mix. There are a lot of other companies that talk about wind energy, that talk about sustainable energy, and they typically lean on those benefits, those features, the things that can get lost in the bulleted list very easily.
00;19;37;12 – 00;19;59;09
CHAD
Instead, when you reframe that and tell a story around it in a humorous or human way, then people remember it and it sticks with them.
JEN
And that there are there are actually very few human emotions. Right. and when you are telling a story, you can connect with people by tapping into those emotions. And some of them are positive and some of them are negative.
00;19;59;09 – 00;20;18;19
JEN
I mean, you could use anger and one would say some people do use anger, to connect with, with their audiences. But you can inspire them. You can make them laugh when you do that. There’s actual there are there are connections that happen in the brain that help make that more memorable. And that’s why we have the Super Bowl ads, right?
00;20;18;19 – 00;20;38;22
Unknown
That we do. That is part of that emotional connection.
RYAN
Yeah. You can you can create a a wonderful video, a wonderful story. But if you’re not making people stop and actually listen, what’s the point of that? So leveraging humor, leveraging those different emotions, those are things that make them stop and pay attention. But then like Chad was saying, actually remember it, have that recall.
00;20;38;22 – 00;20;57;26
RYAN
Chad, you were saying that that commercial, was was from years ago and you still remember it almost to the tee.
CHAD
Yeah. And it, it clearly it won a lot of awards. So it was recognized by the industry as well. But it was also something that stuck with audiences because of the way they went about it. And to Jim’s point, it’s not like we have a huge pool to draw from in terms of human emotions.
00;20;57;26 – 00;21;18;26
CHAD
So it’s leveraging which emotion works depending on the situation, depending on the audience, and then figuring out a really distinctive way to use it. Because even though that pool of emotions is fairly small, ways to be able to use humor, anger, love, whatever it might be, that’s where we can start to differentiate some of the messaging we put together.
00;21;18;28 – 00;21;39;13
JEN
Let’s talk a little bit about a video we produced, in conjunction with Indian Creek Nature Center her
RYAN
We’re doing this. All right. Hello and welcome to this.
JEN
Were you talking? Oh my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative, coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing, insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life. And whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;10;23
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about storytelling. And everyone just wanted to put in a pre-show note here. We are not in our recording studio right now. It was a little toasty in there. So we’re currently in one of our conference rooms. In addition to a heat wave that we have going on, we’ll also have a little bit of construction noise in the background.
00;01;10;23 – 00;01;30;07
RYAN
There is an active construction site happening behind our building, here in Cedar Rapids. So you might notice a few different noises. We’re just going to roll with it today. You’ve still got Jan, me here, and our special guests that we’ll bring in shortly. But Jen, you you had a break last month. What’s been going on with you?
00;01;30;10 – 00;01;51;16
JEN
I’ve been traveling a lot. Whether it’s for work or for picking up my kid from college, but, it feels good to be back in the office for a couple of days. I just returned from Nashville.
RYAN
You were just at a wedding this weekend, right?
JEN
I was, and I think I brought back a head cold. So, I am once again, I think our first podcast, I had a cold.
00;01;51;16 – 00;02;07;15
JEN
And so this is my second one. I’m beginning to think it’s a a pattern now. So maybe every other podcast I’ll just be sick. So there we go. So, you get an extra deep version of my voice today.
RYAN
And you said you’ve been traveling a lot. I think a lot of our clients have been as well.
00;02;07;15 – 00;02;33;23
RYAN
We’ve had a lot of clients out for weeks at a time, balancing that with de Novo’s schedules. And we’ve, we’ve got coverage. But when you enter the summer or the summer travel months, things always get crazy with graduations.
JEN
Yeah. You know, to be honest, it it gets hard to get, some responses sometimes your clients, I think everybody, goes on summer vacation or multiple vacations or they’re just busy with their kids and then, you know, the summer passes.
00;02;33;23 – 00;02;50;03
JEN
And then come September, we’ll have Labor Day, and then everybody craps their pants and wants all their work done all at once. So, yeah, that’s that’s the nature of being an agency. And we’re used to it now.
RYAN
Oh yeah. But we’ve got some pretty cool events that just took place. The downtown Iowa City summer block party just happened.
00;02;50;05 – 00;03;14;26
RYAN
we’re we’re in full farmers market season here in Cedar Rapids with the downtown nighttime market coming up. I, I love Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, mainly for, well, so many reasons. But the farmers markets, growing up in rural Illinois, our farmers markets were two people’s trucks and like some potatoes and strawberries. So these farmers markets are completely different and always one of my favorite parts of the year.
00;03;14;27 – 00;03;33;29
JEN
Well, and just to plug the night market this year, for the downtown district in Cedar Rapids, I just heard they booked Vandello, which is one of my absolute favorite local bands, so I am I’m really looking forward to that one.
RYAN
So if you want to see Jan up front dancing for Vandello, make sure you come to the, nighttime farmer’s market.
00;03;33;29 – 00;03;56;15
JEN
Or that can serve as a warning. If you don’t see that
RYAN
Then just don’t make your way to the front. Still come, you won’t have to see Jen dancing. Just don’t go to the front. In other news, I’ve got an announcement that I need to make for for everyone on the pod. I don’t want to, make this too dramatic, but I like sports now.
00;03;56;18 – 00;04;21;20
RYAN
I did not watch any of, Caitlin Clark’s rise to fame, if you will. I will be honest. I saw the media attention around it. The marketing. The marketing commercials, all of the, NIH deals, and I thought it was amazing. But I didn’t actually watch. I said NIH…, it’s NIL.
JEN
It’s… that that tracks for you.
00;04;21;22 – 00;04;45;12
RYAN
I watched all of that NIL deals and saw all of that happening, but I didn’t start watching, sports until the last two games of the, NCAA, competition. Clearly. I still don’t know… tournament? I don’t know the words, but I have the fever. It’s been exciting to to get into something that’s been so foreign to me for so long.
00;04;45;15 – 00;05;11;23
JEN
I do have to share this story. So. So, I mean, it might not sound like a big deal that Ryan like sports now, but like Ryan really doesn’t know sports or didn’t know sports.
RYAN
Still don’t I’ll be honest.
JEN
And we were doing a, a session on digital marketing and he referred to it as NFL basketball one time. So the whole room just kind of took a breath like, did does he know he’s wrong?
00;05;11;26 – 00;05;29;27
JEN
And we have never let Ryan live this down. So it is really funny now to just see how into this he is. He he knows players names. He’s he almost knows how the game works
RYAN
I do I do I I learned that there are field goals in more than just football, which still I feel like there needs to be a different name if I’m being honest.
00;05;29;27 – 00;05;47;15
RYAN
And that shouldn’t be a field goal. percentage. But but learning all of that, and yes, it was a room of about 40 people. I said, NFL basketball and everyone just like kind of looked confused. There was a mild gasp, and I just kept going because I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know what just what just happened.
00;05;47;17 – 00;06;06;24
RYAN
and then at the end after after everyone was coming up and talking with me, they were like NFL basketball? And I still don’t think it clicked. I was like, yeah, yeah. And then my coworkers gave me a little bit of crap, which is expected and, and hoped for. But.
JEN
I do appreciate that your, your emphasis is on women’s sports though.
00;06;06;24 – 00;06;28;27
RYAN
Yes. Yes. So so Jen, it’s, I was going to say it’s just you and me today, but it is not. We have another de Novian joining us today. I am excited to introduce Chad Cooper. Chad is one of our copywriters and content strategist here at de Novo Marketing. But he also moonlights as the voice of the Roughriders.
00;06;28;27 – 00;06;50;18
RYAN
So you may recognize his voice. He keeps that crowd amped up all throughout the game. And you might have heard him emceeing some amazing events around, around Iowa City, Cedar Rapids. Chad Cooper, welcome to Thing Fresh.
CHAD
Delighted to be here now. I’m excited to be on the podcast, but as hyped as I am for that, I think I might be even more excited by your recent love of sports.
00;06;50;18 – 00;07;11;05
CHAD
Ryan. I mean that that really is the peak for me now. We have so many more new lines of communication.
RYAN
Oh yes, oh yes. And and the fever puns. That’s been my favorite part so far. being able to say I’ve got the Fever is one of my favorites. And I know Jen just has a head cold, but it’s even better to be able to make fun of people that might have the fever in a different way.
00;07;11;07 – 00;07;27;12
JEN
My fever broke last night. I don’t even think I’m contagious. Also, Chad, thanks for not making me the deepest voice on the podcast for once. I
CHAD
I think that’s why I’m here for this part.
RYAN
It’s not going to be me. It’s not going to be me.
JEN
It’s not going to be you.
RYAN
But, Chad. Yes. Thank you for joining us.
00;07;27;14 – 00;07;52;21
RYAN
I do have to ask, what got you started being the voice of the Rough Riders?
CHAD
So I started my entire career in radio, which obviously is a huge surprise to everyone listening right now. But I wanted to use the voice immediately. And so through that radio gig, other opportunities present themselves. And so I used to host a show with the Rough Riders, where I interviewed players on a weekly basis for a three month span, and then that just grew from there.
00;07;52;24 – 00;08;14;15
RYAN
Oh, I did not know that you started started it all in radio. That’s awesome.
CHAD
Yes, it’s my origin story.
RYAN
And now that I’m a, sports fan, I have seen during like half times intermissions, between quarters, they have the people that go out and hype the Fever crowd and they do all of these fun, different games. Do you do things like that at the Rough Riders games as well?
00;08;14;16 – 00;08;35;20
CHAD
Oh, we sure do. Ryan. We we race, we race. Toboggans on the ice. We have
RYAN
what’s what’s it, what’s a tobboggan.
CHAD
It looks like, kind of like a canoe. yeah. That kind of shape. We race karts on the ice. We have three wheel tricycle races.
RYAN
Oh my gosh.
CHAD
Yeah. So we do a lot on the ice, a lot of game competitions.
00;08;35;20 – 00;08;54;09
CHAD
But we do not have a Rough Riders dance team yet.
JEN
So I’ve seen you in action at the games. You don’t sit down a lot.
CHAD
I don’t sit down at all. So that’s the best workout I get all week.
JEN
Yeah. You are up and down those steps.
00;08;54;09 – 00;09;19;22
JEN
You’re. Yeah, you’re definitely gaining elevation. It’s it’s a whole, probably next level of energy that that takes to do that.
CHAD
Yeah. That that floss doesn’t give away itself.
RYAN
How do you, how do you walk on the ice. Do you have special shoes?
CHAD
So it helps after they’ve played an entire period of hockey, their skates have cut it up and roughed it up so much that actually it’s almost like walking on asphalt.
00;09;19;25 – 00;09;37;15
CHAD
After they bring the Zamboni through, that’s a whole different story. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. So typically we do all of the intermission entertainment when the ice is still cut up. And then we have a pretty firm deadline where we have to get off. And then they bring the Zamboni on, and then it looks like a sheet of glass.
00;09;37;15 – 00;09;52;26
RYAN
So that’s a whole other piece of logistics that you don’t know is actually happening. When you’re at a when you’re at a hockey match… meet?
JEN
I kind of assumed you were wearing micro spikes when you have to get out there.
CHAD
No, but that would be a good idea. Maybe from now on. I’ve taken a few almost tumbles from time to time.
00;09;52;26 – 00;10;09;13
CHAD
You know, when that when you get to the edge of that ice, it’s still pretty slick. But I’ve. I’ve caught myself. When you’re in front of a 2000, 3000 people, you want to you want to mind your steps.
RYAN
Oh, yeah. Of course. And now that I’m into once again into sports, my algorithm on social media has shifted.
00;10;09;13 – 00;10;32;14
RYAN
So I know as of last night, the, oh, goodness, the Stanley Cup was named. Florida one for the first time. I want to say Jaguars. I want to say Jaguars. I’m not sure. But the Stanley Cup that is also now now done.
JEN
So you’re doing your best.
RYAN
I’m really trying. And I have just enough to be able to not actually talk about it, but bring it up, which is all you really need, right?
00;10;32;16 – 00;10;55;27
CHAD
It’s just a conversation starter.
JEN
Well, conversations are a great way to kind of pivot into what we’re here to talk about today.
RYAN
Exactly. So let’s talk about storytelling. Chad, Jen how how do you define storytelling? I think that word is used a lot in marketing. Right. but like what’s the difference between a story and like like an announcement?
00;10;55;29 – 00;11;15;19
JEN
Right. I’m going to I’m going to jump in here, but I really, want to hear a lot more from chat on this because this is what he does and this is what he does so well. But, storytelling is an often overused term. and and like you said, the difference between an, an announcement and a story, there’s a big difference.
00;11;15;19 – 00;11;37;07
JEN
And storytelling is really how you share information in a way that engages your audience. And it’s it’s really it is a crucial part of good communications and marketing. But it has to be done well and it has to be done artfully. And that’s, that’s why we brought Chad in here to, to talk about that. So what’s your take on storytelling?
00;11;37;07 – 00;11;54;12
CHAD
Yeah, absolutely. When I think of storytelling, I think of the combination of emotion and information. When those two things come together, that’s the starting point of a story. And to be able to craft something that, to Jen’s point, is more of a narrative than just simply an announcement, simply just a recitation of facts or of benefits or features.
00;11;54;12 – 00;12;16;19
CHAD
Instead, there’s really an arc to what we’re doing, and if we think of just about the basic human nature of how we talk to each other, we’d like to talk in that way, a way that’s human, in a way that’s personal, way that’s emotional, not a way that’s robotic. That just covers a bulleted list. So storytelling is a way to dive deeper on some of those facts, some of those figures, those things that we throw around on a daily basis.
00;12;16;26 – 00;12;43;20
CHAD
It’s a framework that we can use to engage audiences in a way that’s much more authentic than simply just repeating something.
JEN
So I think what happens with with people is that they confuse that announcement with a story. So, here’s an analogy I use when I’m talking to, you know, municipal leaders is, when I ask them, what’s a story about their community, they’ll say, we opened a dog park.
00;12;43;23 – 00;13;11;09
JEN
Well, that’s an announcement, right? That’s not a story. The story would be a couple falls in love while scooping poop at a at a dog park. That’s memorable. Tell the story of how that happened or how these people met or, you know, maybe had some conflict between their dogs and, what that what that did for them and how that impacted their lives in your community that just opened a dog park.
00;13;11;14 – 00;13;37;25
JEN
That’s the difference between an announcement and a story.
RYAN
So can you still talk about the opening of the dog park or do you tell the story? And then in in additional materials around that story, then you talk about the dog park.
JEN
I mean, you’re still going to make announcements, right? You’re still going to do your public relations. I mean, you’re going to want to tell the community a dog park opened so that people can go there and meet and there, you know, fall in love or their dogs fall in love.
00;13;37;25 – 00;14;12;21
JEN
Who knows? But I mean, that’s the difference. You know, you’re going to make those announcements, but then you’re going to look for those stories. And what we like to do is help people realize these stories are in, whether it’s a community or a business or an organization. These stories happen every day. It’s it’s a matter of catching them and being able to identify them and then turning them into that artistic version of, of the, of what happened
CHAD
And to that point as well, with storytelling, companies and organizations
00;14;12;21 – 00;14;35;10
CHAD
what you see is this tendency and it’s we’ve all we’re all guilty of it from time to time. We lean on benefits, features, products and services. But the fact is, is that unless you have something that’s truly proprietary, it’s tough to stand out to be distinctive just based off of benefits, features and services and products alone. That’s all part of what you can feed into a story.
00;14;35;10 – 00;15;01;22
CHAD
But what we talk about when we speak with clients, when we speak internally about developing story, is where do we start? And we typically start with “why?”, which is a basic question that seems very general on the surface. But when you ask an individual why they started a company, why they saw a need for a specific service or product, then you start to get that human story that Jen was talking about.
00;15;01;28 – 00;15;30;16
CHAD
It’s either a love, a deep passion for something, it was a customer complaint or a customer pain point that maybe led to a product or service that allows you to tell a story and then be able to naturally fill in that information about benefits and features and whatnot. We’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen it over the past year or so, this huge emphasis on talk about benefits over features, but I would argue we should go even deeper than that and really look at that storytelling aspect of it.
00;15;30;16 – 00;15;52;23
CHAD
How do we present benefits in a way that engage, that resonate with audiences in a way that they can they can see how the product will actually affect their life on a day to day basis.
RYAN
You mentioned, like talking about customer complaints and pain points. What are other ways that you can get the stories out of out of clients, out of people?
00;15;52;26 – 00;16;13;12
RYAN
How do they be on the lookout for a potential story? I guess.
CHAD
One way is to just look at the day to day interactions they have. I’m I’m huge on touchpoints, so if it’s a business where you’re seeing a lot of business to customer interactions, what do those look like on a day to day basis? Also being able to essentially crowdsource information from your other employees, right.
00;16;13;12 – 00;16;37;20
CHAD
What do those interactions look like? That’s how we start to craft stories. Also. Another point is why are people coming to you in the first place? That’s typically a great starting point for a story, and gives you an avenue to then be able to expand on more information.
JEN
And that can go across more than just storytelling. I mean, even when I’m talking to a prospect, I’m going to keep asking questions because I want to know the real why.
00;16;37;23 – 00;17;09;18
JEN
It’s often not just to increase sales volume. There’s a reason why they want to do that. Like, well, what does that enable you to do if you do that? And then you get to the why behind something, and you get to these motivations that tell you a lot more and they add so much more context and color, to the relationship and gives you so much more to work with when it comes time to develop that narrative behind why this company does what it does, or why this community is a great place to live.
00;17;09;20 – 00;17;34;09
CHAD
And there are organizations, communities and certain municipalities and just overall companies that I think they look at their industry and they say, well, this isn’t really a natural fit for storytelling, when in case the when in fact, the exact opposite is true. So when we think about great stories, I think people tend to look at sports, they tend to look at the fashion industry, they tend to look at industries where stories are maybe more apparent, more on the surface.
00;17;34;11 – 00;17;56;03
CHAD
But in reality, if you can tell a great story about your industry in a way that hits home with your intended audience, that is the most profound way to be able to impact what you’re talking about. So, for instance, I think about this agency, it was an ad from years ago, but it was for a sustainable wind energy in, in Europe, and I think they were called it Epuron is how you pronounce the name.
00;17;56;03 – 00;18;16;02
CHAD
But it was all about wind energy. Wind energy. We can talk all about the proprietary nature of wind, of solar, of, what sustainable energy does, how it impacts communities. But is that really the best way to be able to engage with audiences? We can talk about the benefits, the features of wind energy, of sustainable energy overall.
00;18;16;02 – 00;18;33;24
CHAD
What they did instead was crafted an ad with a huge individual who was they found, an actor who was huge. I think he was a professional wrestler or whatnot. They’re dressed in all black, and they put on this very small kind of derby hat on him, and he walked around this local community and he hit someone’s hat off their head.
00;18;33;26 – 00;18;51;05
CHAD
He overturned one of these, like, table tents. He went over and blew over like a tent that people were sleeping in. He went over and splashed water on somebody. And the whole aspect of it was he was the human embodiment of wind. And what they said is now we’ve taken wind and given it its purpose, giving it its true nature.
00;18;51;05 – 00;19;12;26
CHAD
And the tagline that I love, which ended it all, was “The wind. His potential is ours.” The idea was it was taking something – we look at it on a human nature, day to day interactions. Wind is an annoyance, right? It gets in the way of what we do on a day to day basis. But what it really does is it can be a literal fuel for what we want to do in terms of powering that community.
00;19;12;26 – 00;19;37;09
CHAD
So what we haven’t talked about yet, but what is great to bring in with storytelling is also that humorous aspect to it, that human emotion of what we use. That ad is a great example of that. It took something that could have gotten easily lost in the mix. There are a lot of other companies that talk about wind energy, that talk about sustainable energy, and they typically lean on those benefits, those features, the things that can get lost in the bulleted list very easily.
00;19;37;12 – 00;19;59;09
CHAD
Instead, when you reframe that and tell a story around it in a humorous or human way, then people remember it and it sticks with them.
JEN
And that there are there are actually very few human emotions. Right. and when you are telling a story, you can connect with people by tapping into those emotions. And some of them are positive and some of them are negative.
00;19;59;09 – 00;20;18;19
JEN
I mean, you could use anger and one would say some people do use anger, to connect with, with their audiences. But you can inspire them. You can make them laugh when you do that. There’s actual there are there are connections that happen in the brain that help make that more memorable. And that’s why we have the Super Bowl ads, right?
00;20;18;19 – 00;20;38;22
Unknown
That we do. That is part of that emotional connection.
RYAN
Yeah. You can you can create a a wonderful video, a wonderful story. But if you’re not making people stop and actually listen, what’s the point of that? So leveraging humor, leveraging those different emotions, those are things that make them stop and pay attention. But then like Chad was saying, actually remember it, have that recall.
00;20;38;22 – 00;20;57;26
RYAN
Chad, you were saying that that commercial, was was from years ago and you still remember it almost to the tee.
CHAD
Yeah. And it, it clearly it won a lot of awards. So it was recognized by the industry as well. But it was also something that stuck with audiences because of the way they went about it. And to Jim’s point, it’s not like we have a huge pool to draw from in terms of human emotions.
00;20;57;26 – 00;21;18;26
CHAD
So it’s leveraging which emotion works depending on the situation, depending on the audience, and then figuring out a really distinctive way to use it. Because even though that pool of emotions is fairly small, ways to be able to use humor, anger, love, whatever it might be, that’s where we can start to differentiate some of the messaging we put together.
00;21;18;28 – 00;21;39;13
JEN
Let’s talk a little bit about a video we produced, in conjunction with Indian Creek Nature Center her
