What Makes Great Marketing… Great?

There are many words you can use to describe great Marketing.

Seth Godin asks brands to figure out their Purple Cow (or, to "be remarkable"). I’ve made the case (time and time again) for brands to be "interesting" and "relevant". Kevin Roberts asks brands to define themselves by creating Lovemarks (and with that comes "loyalty beyond reason"). In the end, it’s all about the stories that we tell (not about the channels we use or the content we create). And how authentic, real and connected those stories are to the people we’re trying to reach and engage with.

Marketing has always been about telling great stories. The problem is that telling great stories is not an easy thing to do.

The reason most Marketers struggle with telling great stories is because they have not spent enough time deconstructing what makes a great story. Ira Glass is here to help. Glass is a well-known radio personality with NPR. He is the producer and host of This American Life, and there is probably nobody more suited to explain the schematics behind brilliant storytelling than he is.

Watch this video: YouTube – Ira Glass On Storytelling #1.

Why is this not the first thing they show students studying Marketing 101?

(hat-tip Paul McEnany).