I’ve been thinking and writing about stories and their uses recently, for reasons that will become apparent in the Fall or Winter.
A few days ago, a post went by on Signal vs. Noise about the way online retailer The J. Peterman Company spins stories to sell you clothes and stuff for your house. “Banana Republic sells you a jacket,” they write. “J. Peterman sells you a tale.”
There’s no denying that J. Peterman’s flavorful and dramatic descriptions are successful in casting you as the protagonist in a serial tale populated by their jaw-droppingly expensive products. When they put it like this…
The only fabric that actually eases the pain of thinking up (and explaining) new ideas is linen.
…how can I not want a pair of their linen thinking pants?
But SvN sells Banana Republic and their worldwide, mall-dwelling brethren a bit short. It’s not that they’re not telling a story, it’s that the tale is so ubiquitous and stale that we almost can’t see it anymore. It goes like this: “Buy this blazer and you’ll be a happy, attractive young person, and people will like you, and you’ll get a promotion.”
I like Peterman’s stories better, myself, but the rest of them are still selling a narrative.