The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Storytelling (Introduction, Habit One)

By Chris Terry

Vice President, Communications Strategy

Telemetry

We’re rolling out a new series on how PR practitioners can use different story-making habits I’ve developed and implemented over many years of trial and error. I’ve used these devices to create stories that have resulted in hundreds of published pieces for clients.

The foundation for these is simple: story “mining” is a myth, a misnomer; PR or comms 

professionals seldom talk to their SMEs and walk away with a story any reporter would write. 

Interviews can yield useful base materials and insights, but great stories are rarely mined. 

They’re created. 

Think “story alchemy,” i.e., creating gold from base materials versus storymining. 

Habit 1: “Get Out of the Category and Into the Culture”

The product or service you’re trying to pitch is likely not unique or newsworthy, especially in the auto industry where I’ve spent my entire career. While the media that covers straight auto stories is bigger than many industries, it’s still limited compared to the audience for bigger, broader stories outside of autos.

When I was hired through an agency to work onsite with Ford Product Communications to develop stories that would attract media attention to the Focus, which had launched a year earlier, all the low-hanging story fruit had been picked. No one was covering the Focus. How could I “get out of the category and into the culture”? How could I get non-car people — including “cars-are-meh” media — to care about the Focus, which has already been on the market for a year? Moreover, how could I make any potential story more about people and less about cars?

Leaning into a relationship I’d developed over the years with NPR’s Tracy Samilton — using a key insight that the Focus, unlike many other compacts at the time, still offered a manual transmission, even on its highest trim level, I had an idea: why not find a well-known, articulate auto luminary to teach a young person how to drive a stick and have the reporter capture the lesson for NPR’s listeners who are mostly not auto people? 

Why not, indeed. I pitched the story to Tracy, who thought it would be fun (it was). Tracy found an engineering student who agreed to have a driving lesson captured on tape; I enlisted the great Eddie Alterman to instruct, who, coincidentally, was advocating for saving manual transmissions. 

The story came out better than I imagined; you can hear the piece to experience it as NPR’s listeners (and our Ford client) did here:

Soon after the piece ran, Time magazine used it to write its own piece, as did several other outlets.

In short, making any product or story about shared experiences is always a good idea. Remember, you’re not just selling a widget — you're selling why anyone should care.

Our next installment on The Seven Habits involves creating a story using data, of which you likely have more than you know what to do with for media relations. I emphasize the word “story” here; many communicators drink so much company Kool-Aid, it’s no wonder that they confuse marketing messages with actual stories. For the world’s greatest explanation of what makes a story, watch this short (4 minutes) Kurt Vonnegut classic.

We have ideas on using data. Stay tuned for Part 2. 

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