Mr Writer

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a CMO and trusted advisor, and in this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of marketing street knowledge that I hope will help unlock the rockstar marketer in you.

Hello!

In the footer of the Rockstar CMO website, I have a couple of marketing quotes, one of which is from Seth Godin:

Is this really true?

Well, one of the podcasts I have on heavy rotation right now is Nudge by Phil Agnew, which talks about the psychology of marketing and behavioral science, which is fascinating.

And this week, his guest, Professor of Consumer Psychology Matt Johnson, referred to an anthropological experiment carried out in 2009 that I wanted to share with you this week, which shows the value of a good story.

In this experiment, called the Significant Objects Project, two chaps, Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, trawled through the flea markets and thrift stores of New York and purchased, what you might describe as, if you had found them in a box in your attic, as junk, and could lead to one of those conversations with a loved one in your household that starts with “Why honey…?”.

It’s a motley collection of over a hundred items of absolute tat, including a Fred Flintstone Pez dispenser, a packet of candles, various little figurines, a cooking fork, a SARS mask, and an egg whisk.

They purchased this horde of crap for $128, with an average price of $1.29 per item, and they then sold these items on eBay for $3,612.51, a staggering 2,799% increase in value.

How?

Well, they had a theory, similar to the Seth Godin quote, that the value in an object wasn’t the object itself but the stories we tell, and they invited writers to write a story for each of the objects.

For example, the cooking fork I mentioned is a two-pronged carving fork with a bright red plastic handle. Dan Chaon wrote a story about the loneliness of a widower, who used a similar fork in his childhood to experiment with pain, a memory triggered by the mark left on his finger when he removed his wedding ring.

That fork (as you can read here, along with the story) was purchased for 50¢ and, with this story, it sold for $26.01, an increase in value of over 5,000%.

We know that the price of something is only what someone is prepared to pay for it, and the stories alongside these objects made them meaningful and memorable, which gave them value to the people buying them.

I am sure you don’t need me to draw the line between how these stories added value to these objects, to how your brand adds value to the thing you sell.

I’ll include links below, where you can, like I have this afternoon, disappear into this rabbit hole, but it proves the value of a good story.

So, this week, the tune is Mr Writer from The Stereophonics, as we all need to be writers, as it’s not about the stuff we sell, but the stories we tell.

Cheers!

Ian

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Ian Truscott

Host & Chief Bottle Washer - Rockstar CMO podcast

Managing Partner | Velocity B

All the links that inspired the above…

This week’s tune!