INTELLIGENT COMMUNICATIONS: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

An interview with Martin Lee, co-founder of Acacia Avenue, on the power of storytelling

March, 2014

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Table of Contents

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This document is based on the full interview with Martin Lee from Acacia

Avenue conducted by Caroline Florence from Insight Narrator in February 2014.

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Introducing Martin Lee, branding specialist

Martin Lee’s philosophy on storytelling

Why formal writing doesn’t cut it

Learnings from journalism and fiction

Storytelling is a different beast

How to find conflict at the heart of any brief

The reality of storytelling v the fad

The benefits to your audience

The power of great writing

Hints & tips for getting it right

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Martin Lee Branding Specialist

Martin Lee is the co-founder of

independent research consultancy

Acacia Avenue. Whilst at Acacia

Avenue, Martin has managed a

diverse set of clients and categories

that includes finance (Barclays and

Barclaycard, Legal & General and

Sainsbury’s Bank); retail (Sainsbury’s,

Morrisons and The Entertainer);

gaming (The National Lottery and

Ladbrokes); e-commerce (eBay and

PayPal) and travel (Carnival UK,

Tourism Australia and Visit

Scotland).

Before moving to agency life, he

worked in retail marketing, both at

WHSmith, as a buyer and marketing

manager, and then latterly at

Waterstone’s, where he was

marketing director.

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This background means that in his

work at Acacia Avenue, he is

especially able to assist clients in

taking insight and turning it into

strategic and commercial

recommendations, whilst ensuring

that customers’ interests are always

uppermost.

One of Martin's abiding concerns is

the way that brands communicate

through language, and this interest

has led him to join the management

team of 26, a not for profit

organisation that is committed to

improving the quality of writing and

self-expression in business.

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My philosophy How my opinions were formed

I was always one of those kids with a

head in a book. I feel that I have lived

my life partly vicariously through

books. I was then lucky enough to

earn a living out of it for 20 years. I

have also, quite rarely, enjoyed public

speaking. When I was working in

Waterstones I would often have to

get up and give presentations. It is

amazing how often when I was

learning how to communicate

effectively that I would stumble

across the revelation that using

vulnerability could help you to get

the audience on your side and make

them more receptive to the things

you wanted to share. As opposed to

adopting a detached persona. This is

the idea of speaking from inside your

own point of view, rather than a

position of detachment, I realised

that this was a successful thing to do

and this made my attempts at

communication work.

In parallel I have always loved

storytelling and it became clear to

me about 2008 or 2009 that there

was just enough interest bubbling up

in storytelling professionally in the

brand and marketing arena, and then

more recently in research. I thought

I’ve got loads to say about this, it is

central to who I am. In the last year

or two I have realised that there is

lots of permission and opportunity to

join the dots. My point of view is

that stories are astoundingly simple

things and I do believe they are the

way we most easily learn about the

world.

View Martin’s philosophy on storytelling in more detail by watching the videos on the website

http://vimeo.com/channels/633057

Top tip: Speak from inside your own point of view

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Formal doesn’t click Thoughts on reports, white papers and case studies

As a rule, formal writing very rarely

hooks me. I don’t know why, I just

said that as an almost instinctive

reaction back, but I do think it is

because when you read formal

presentations, they are normally

written to a template This template

obviously observes some form of

protocol, but I have never been

taught what that protocol actually is.

If you read a research document that

has been written on behalf of a

public sector body following up a

piece of research it rarely sings. I

don’t blame the research company

for that; but it feels to me that there

is a technique of report writing that is

being used. It dots the I’s and

crosses the T’s without engaging the

emotion. It doesn’t connect with me

as a person. It will be an articulation

of a scenario and a set of

observations around that scenario

plus a digest of things that we did

and outcomes - but it feels distant. It

feels like the writing of it or the

communication of it is quite

distancing. Without feeling that you

have been connected with, or your

emotions have been engaged with.

I think that is quite deliberate. I think

it is partly a desire to maintain

objectivity. There is a desired

objectivity because classically if you

are a government department and

you are writing a white paper or

something of that sort; it is perceived

to be a virtue that it looks empirical,

credible, objective and scientific.

Maybe it is a virtue and maybe it is a

defensive way of writing because it is

harder to chip away at it with

accusations of subjectivity, clear bias

or anything of that sort. But you end

up not wanting to read it. So what

need is being served? If the audience

it is aimed at don’t want to read it,

whose interest is it ultimately in?.

And I suppose I would push it a bit

further and say that there is, in my

own personal view, no real objectivity

or empirical distance in any case.

Everything brings with it a certain set

of frames, value judgements, opinion

and human insights, which have

somehow not been allowed to be

reflected in the writing, for reasons

which seem to me to be more about

risk aversion than a desire to

communicate.

Ditch the template – one size does not fit all

Objectivity is a defensive way of writing

A desire to really communicate means taking a risk

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On the other hand when you read

fiction or journalism or you read

articles there is a clear desire to get a

point across. It’s interesting – I spent

most of my career in books and

when you speak to publishers and

editors they often say that it is really

bizarre when you ask an author ‘what

is your book about’ and they say

something like ’a man goes on a

journey, blah, blah, blah.. When you

say ‘no, but what is it about’ they

haven’t actually got an answer for

what is the purpose of the book.

I suppose the bits of writing that

most connect with me are the ones

where you just know intuitively that

the writer knows what they are

writing. Not just they know their

topic but they know why they are

writing. There is a desire, a reason, to

communicate. They know what it is

that they desire to communicate and

so there is coherence. But you also

feel like you are connecting with the

writer. And you more typically get

that outside of formal reports.

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Know what you are writing and why

Desire to communicate Learnings from journalism and fiction

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Stories help us understand our place

in the world and how the world

works. I think that is the role of fairy

tales, which is to understand some of

the enduring human principles. I was

listening to a 4 year old talk the other

day about putting crown on his head.

Someone said ‘why have you put that

crown on your head Arthur?’ and he

said’ because I want to be the one to

talk now’. He has obviously learnt

something about how the world

works through stories and ideas of

hierarchy and power and symbols of

power.

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Storytelling is unashamedly

structured around a kind of artifice.

So you have to have a protagonist,

you have to have an antagonist and

you have to have an opening

scenario where the two are at

loggerheads with each other. Then

you have to have a set of events, the

plot, that naturally arises out of the

opening scenario. Then the events

propel the story forward to a

conclusion. The resolution, whether

it is a happy ending or a cathartic

tragic ending, there is always some

element of transformation –so you

end up somewhere different from

where you started.

Storytelling is a different beast Universal understanding

We understand concepts through associations with stories

Storytelling is structured with a clear beginning, middle and end

View stories as a means to learn something new

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Conflict is central How to find the conflict at the heart of any brief

When I receive a brief I automatically

look for the point of conflict. I

realised when you see that section

‘Background’ there is always a

description to an opening scenario of

a story in there. The brand is

normally up against it. A new

aggressive competitor or the

economy. Or we have been the

architects of our own downfall so we

are at war with ourselves. So you

look for that piece of grit – the

scenario of conflict in the heart of the

brief. Then your project design is in

the service of that story. I find that

you are obviously trying to answer a

brief and provide recommendations

to make a difference to their

business. But I also found that there

is a selfish element to the way I go

about doing my job which is I want

my projects to entertain me. On the

basis that if I am entertained by it,

they will be. If I find it engaging, they

will.

The client has come to us with the

first page of the story and they are

saying to us ‘write the rest’. So

everything you do comes from there

– your sample becomes your cast of

characters for example. You are

explicitly using a subjectively created

cast of characters to create a plot. If

you decide your focus group has a

sample of six people and you have

artificially constructed that sample,

connived with your client, to throw

them into a room, catalyse a

conversation and see what happens,

your job then is to make some sense

of it. So you are then imposing order

onto some event. So what we do is

absolutely a story in the classic sense.

We just need to make it as vivid and

as propulsive as we can and to make

the flow of it feel as if there is some

sense of inevitable logic to it and that

takes it to a recommendation – that

is the stuff of stories.

A potential source of conflict can often be found in the background information

Design your story around the conflict to improve engagement

It is your job to make sense of the information

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When is a story not a story? The reality v the fad

The example I use in our videos is by

John Le Carre. The cat sat on the mat

is not a story, but the cat that sat on

the dog’s mat is a story. The mat in

that quote is a scarce resource. When

the cat is sitting on its own mat the

reason why there is no conflict there

is because there is no scarcity. When

they both want to sit on the dog’s

mat it is turned into a scarce resource

and so a fight ensues. So the whole

structure of the drama follows on

from that. What often happens with

things that have become faddish is

that they get misused. The problem

with storytelling in advertising, for

example, is that they don’t really

obey the very simple rules of what a

story is. It is disappointing when

people use the word story too

loosely.

For example, the latest TSB launch ad,

where the conflict in the story – which

was that they were bought by Lloyds

and the whole financial crisis – is

airbrushed over with just the phrase

‘and then there was a storm. But now

the storm is over and TSB is the same

thing it always was’. Well that is not a

story – it spent 2 minutes setting up the

protagonist but there is no antagonist

and no real plot. So the resolution

hasn’t been earned. So we don’t

connect.

An anecdote is not the same as a

story. An anecdote can be really

funny and brilliantly told, but the

difference is that an anecdote is the

telling of an event but the event itself

doesn’t have to connect to a before

or after, it exists in a moment. An

anecdote doesn’t have to involve

transformation, but a story does. A

lot of communication uses story

when they actually mean anecdote.

So I suppose it the miss-use of the

phrase.

Scarcity is a great source of conflict in storytelling

Storytelling requires some key rules to be followed

Stories differ from metaphors and anecdotes

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The audience feel it emotionally as

people. When something gets past

your job title and it connects with

you as a person, it has a much more

vivid impact on you. You are much

more likely to then fight for the

conclusions because you have felt it.

Our job is to make our audience

passionate about the inevitable

conclusions and recommendations

from our project. If they feel it

vividly I think they will want to fight

for it within their own business. They

will believe it more.

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We as a team are spending more of

our time thinking about stories, and

more consciously creating

methodologies that will offer a

springboard into a plot under a wider

narrative arc. The more we do this

the more we are finding we are being

more useful. So the more that we

actively embrace storytelling and

actually trying to increase the level of

artifice around it, the more potent we

become.

Get past the job title and reach the person

If you make them feel it they are more likely to fight for it

Embracing storytelling makes you more useful

What is in it for us? The benefits

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Bringing to life The power of great writing

There is nothing that is so amazing

here. Video has a role to play, of

course. But sometimes conversations

that are really interesting to watch

first hand are not that fantastic in the

video. So I think a lot of it is in the

writing. When you set up a

storytelling project in an overt

fashion, when the proposal is written

that way and you have already been

given the licence and permission to

try innovative methodologies, you

make the writing job a lot easier. It is

bound to be interesting stuff. I think

one of the things you try to do is to

change the focal lens. So if you think

about movies as a form of

storytelling one of their great tricks is

zooming in and zooming out.. Our

version of that is not having a

monotonous pace as you write your

story. So you establish the

landscape – and semiotics is brilliant

for that as it covers the wider frame

of culture – or the category that you

are looking at, before zooming into

the brand.

I think the thing that we are great

fans of here is metaphor. You are

simply dragging in a word out of its

normal context and putting it in to a

new one to create new meaning. We

are forever dragging in analogies

from other categories or projects too.

We are not afraid to mine our own

personal experiences and will tell

personal anecdotes. Sometimes you

use individual people to tell a story

on behalf of the wider group.

We are happy to make things

deliberately subjective in the telling.

All of that is around making it feel

something you can connect with on

an emotional level.

Zooming in and out helps break a monotonous tone

Metaphors and analogies help to ground your story

Don’t be scared of subjectivity

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Use your analysis to create a plot.

Plots are a sequence of events that

naturally flow from one another. So

a fantastic friend to you as a

storyteller is your guide. It is a

framework for a potential story. What

you are trying to do is to make it

easy for the story to emerge and to

tell itself. So some of that is about

little methodological tricks, some of

it is about the situation you have

created or forced. So you force

some kind of conflict that you can

explore.

The final tip – which is easy to say but

harder to do - is to have the

confidence to believe that the

audience really wants to hear the

story. It is much safer and more

comfortable to sit behind a veneer of

professionalism because storytelling

involves the risk of making a

connection to another person. When

you try to bridge that gap and

establish that connection you risk

rejection. It does involve risk and

vulnerability. Unless you are prepared

to make that particular leap then

ultimately the rest of it is just messing

around with the latest tricks and

methods.

Start with the brief. Ignore the data

in the brief – still read it and absorb it

- but don’t be misled by it. A lot of

briefs look terrifyingly complex so

just try and cut past that and go

straight to understanding the conflict

in the brief. Then go on an

imaginary journey with the brief –

where could this take you? What can

you imagine the arc of this project to

be? It isn’t about second guessing

the answer or writing the content

before you have done the research,

but it is about feeling the potential

excitement of the story unfolding.

Getting it right Top 3 hints & tips

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Acacia Avenue is an independent

research consultancy that has been

trading since 2002. It specialises in

solving complex branding and

marketing problems where

companies need to hear the

authentic voice of customers and

would be customers to aid strategic

decision making. Its founders have

diverse backgrounds, coming from

the worlds of qualitative research,

advertising and retail marketing, and

they use this diversity to give firm,

holistic recommendations to clients.

www.acacia-avenue.com

@AcaciaAvenue

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To start a conversation with Acacia Avenue contact:

Martin Lee

Tel: +44 (0) 207 014 9500

martin@acacia-avenue.com

For more information on Acacia Avenue

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Insight Narrator helps organisations

develop intelligent communications

offering training, workshops and

coaching to help business

professionals gain real results.

Caroline Florence writes, trains amd

consults in key areas of business

communication, including

storytelling, data, content and

presentation skills. The Intelligent

Communications interview series

includes interviews with experts in

communication and marketing and

offer practical guidance and case

studies to help others..

www.insight-narrator.co.uk

@InsightNarrator

insight-narrator/blog

scoop.it/t/insight storytelling

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To start a conversation with Insight Narrator contact:

Caroline Florence

Tel: +44 (0) 7769 207377

caroline@insight-narrator.co.uk

For more information on the Intelligent Communications interview series