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We know that character driven stories do better than brand anthems and stories about abstract concepts. That's a no brainer. What isn't necessarily obvious to people, or at least what I see practiced in the real world, is that people connect much more strongly with individuals than with groups.

That poses a really interesting challenge to corporations, organizations and nonprofits; they inherently are groups and they communicate as groups. In order to tell their stories, you come across a conundrum. How do you tell the story of a group when the science tells us not to?

Are we missing an opportunity as corporate storytellers, by just lumping everybody one into a faceless Corporation and calling that the character?

Meet Baby Jessica

When I talk about storytelling, and how we identify and empathize with characters on a “Hero’s Journey” - the example of Baby Jessica really stands out. Remember her? If not, I bet you’ll recognize the story.

The story goes that in 1987 when Baby Jessica was 18 months old, she fell into a well, and rescuers couldn't get her out. There were complications, and there were dramatic elements in the developing story, and it turned into a viral phenomenon, pre-internet. What was interesting about this was that while she was stuck in that well, she transcended a local news story and became a national figure and icon. CNN broadcast the entire rescue and maintained coverage 24/7. It was one of the first national stories that was broadcast without interruption, setting the template for how news media would cover breaking stories in the future.

And I tell this story in my workshops because not only did the American people rally around her story when it was unfolding, but she, as a character, became both a celebrity and cause celebre. Once the authorities rescued her, she was invited to meet the President of the United States, and even the photographers who recorded the rescue won Pulitzer Prizes. She was a big deal.

Whilst she was down there, a trust fund was set up for her. And people were asked to donate so that by the time she was 18, she would be able to have a nest egg and a place to start her life. That trust fund raised over $800,000. It’s a staggering amount by today’s standards, but in 1987, it was so much more. Random strangers, all around the country, opened their wallets and their hearts to Baby Jessica.

33 years later, even people who are too young to remember the events still know the story of the little girl who fell down a well and became a hero. The story has lived on.

The question is this.

Why do we remember it?

It’s largely because of a concept called The Identifiable Victim Effect.

Let’s talk about math and scale.

It’s astounding that people were able to raise 800 grand in 58 hours. Those are some big numbers right there. But let me give you another number. 66,000,000.

66 million girls in Africa don't have access to education, and are more likely to be sexually abused then to attend high school.

Think about that math. These are young girls who may not have fallen down a well, but they are experiencing life altering tragedy. Imagine if they garnered the same kind of response, and the same outpouring as baby Jessica. 66 million girls across Africa times $800k. If we were to raise that kind of money for each individual girl, that's a lot of money.

That amount of money would probably solve a great many problems, and unlock countless opportunities. And yet, we don't raise that kind of money per African girl, why not? It's the difference between statistics and faceless figures, and the power that a story can have when it is able to present one relatable character.

Baby Jessica was an Identifiable Victim, because she was a character that the story could center on and embrace, and that the audience could relate to. While this is what the effect is called, it's important to recognize that these roles don't always have to be victims. We can insert the word Person to replace the word Victim; in the Identifiable Person Effect or Identifiable Character Effect.

Stories and stats: what works?

There was a study with Save the Children that speaks so well to this. Basically, they split a group of participants into two groups. One group was told a story about a faceless group of children in Africa that were hungry or sick and they were given a range of statistics. In the other group, they were introduced to a child that represented the group, given the story of that child, and that child’s name, the number of siblings they had, their preferred activities, whether they liked the sport or not, which village they were from.

After presenting those different stories to the test groups, one based on data and a generalized group and one based on a highly engaging identifiable individual, they looked at donation patterns. And, as you might expect by now, the group that was given the story of the individual identifiable victim was not only self reporting a greater willingness to donate, but were actually putting more money down. Significantly more. It wasn’t just an attitude change; it was a behavior change!

The ability to empathize with a character made all the difference in the world.

So. Back to the challenge of corporations telling stories about themselves and how their groups...

How can groups leverage the identifiable victim (read: person, individual, or character) effect to their benefit?

Source: Small, Loewenstein, & Slovic (2007) Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102 (2007)

The solution to it is to shortlist individual characters that represent the group as a whole. That could be employees. That could be the founder, that could even be a client. It could be any number of heroes to present to your audience; but the important thing is to have one main character. It's not to say that they have to be the only one in the story, and you can develop a cast of supporting characters. But what I suggest to my clients, when telling their stories is to avoid telling the story of the group as the character itself.

Think about your story in terms of temporal real estate — that every second the audience has to either develop a connection with the character or lose connection with the character is critical. If you're making a three minute piece, and you have three characters that get an equal amount of emphasis and screen time, then you're giving the audience a third of the time to develop an emotional connection with each of those characters.

On the flip side, if you have one main character that gets 80% of the screen time, and two other supporting characters offering something that the main character can't and give the story more dimension, you’ll have a greater emotional pull on your audience.

There are very, very specific traits that make a great main character, whether we're talking about corporate films, whether we're talking about novels, Hollywood or social media storytelling. There are three character traits that make compelling characters as a rule. And if you know what you're looking for, you're going to be able to find those people.

If you don't know what you're looking for, you're just going to pick someone that can talk on camera well or that speaks with enthusiasm and uses their hands. Or you're going to pick someone that's “passionate.” That's not enough. And in fact, it's not even one of the three biggest character traits that you need. Once you have that compelling main character with the right traits that truly represents the larger group, you can feel confident that the hero's journey you're crafting is going to captivate people.

This is something that I do talk about with my clients, and I invite you to reach out and gain a stronger understanding of what those traits are and how to best leverage them for your specific goals. Email me here!