Stories vs. information in ads

Hello my nerdy friends,

Do stories work better than informational ads?

Researchers tested three versions of a radio-style ad with an almost identical script for a fake luggage brand.

One ad told a founder story about a bad travel experience that led to creating better luggage.

Another told a customer story about the same experience.

The third shared the same info, but without a specific speaker or story.

Then researchers measured how the ad made people feel and which would create the most word-of-mouth (Kang et al., 2020).

The ads with stories created more word-of-mouth intention, than the informational ad.

But what’s interesting, is that the founder story was more likely to be shared than the customer story.

The founder story created more positive emotions and was rated more believable, creative, touching, and meaningful.

The researchers suggest that a customer feels more relatable, while a founder comes across as more aspirational “special character”…

…but didn’t investigate the exact emotions behind it.

In the study, emotional response was the strongest predictor of whether people wanted to share the ad.

I think that it seems very likely, this means that the aspirational “I want to be like that” feeling creates a stronger emotional response, than the feeling of relating to someone already like you.

So, the founder story likely worked better because the “aspiration“ behind it created a stronger feeling.

This study measured whether people said they would share the ad, not whether they would buy.

If you want to use storytelling in your ads, do not assume a customer story is the best option. If your founder has a real emotional story behind the product, test that angle.

See you next week,
Ksenia (the biggest nerd)

P.S. A word from today’s awesome partner, Hubspot!

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