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5 Ads That Tell Great Stories: Insight From A Pixar Movie Writer

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What makes a good story? Can commercials tell great stories? And if so, how can you tell which commercials tell great (vs. bad) stories?

I recently came across Matthew Luhn, a Hollywood insider who spent roughly 20 years writing for Pixar Animation Studios (with story credits including Toy Story 2 and 3, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and Up) and authored The Best Story Wins: How to Leverage Hollywood Storytelling in Business and Beyond.

After reading Luhn's book and engaging with him over the past couple of months, I am fascinated by his approach. Imagine looking at commercials and storytelling from a Hollywood perspective. Luhn spent years working on one story — the depth of thought that goes into how to create a character and story arc that takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster is unparalleled.

While marketers aren’t trained to think like a movie writer, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be. I have a series of five articles that I will be posting over the next few months that share Luhn’s insight. Below, in the spirit of Superbowl Sunday, I share Luhn’s basics of good storytelling and five commercials that tell great stories.

Kimberly Whitler: Before we get started, can you share some basics of great storytelling?

Matthew Luhn: Business people are familiar with elevator pitches. In the movie business, we have something called a logline that serves a similar purpose. It is a summary of a movie that can be used as a pitch to help somebody understand the essence of the film. The logline usually is comprised of four key parts: 1) hero, 2) goal, 3) obstacles, and 4) transformation.

Whitler: Can you share some examples of great commercials that tell terrific stories?

Luhn: This Coca-Cola ad/short film (“A Bridge for Santa”) is a good example. As you can see, the hero of the film is the little boy. Great stories should be about the audience and the hero shouldn’t be your product. The hero is the target audience. In this case, the little boy is the protagonist/hero. His goal is to have Santa visit his town. The primary obstacle is the broken bridge. The ultimate transformation for the boy is that he remains innocent because he meets Santa. However, in this ad, there are also what we’d call “b” and “c” storylines. The b story is that the dad falls in love again. And the c story is that the town comes together to fix the bridge.

Whitler: One of my current favorite ads is University of Phoenix’ ad about a university built for working adults. The story in the ad is quite compelling. The hero is a hard-working woman and her goal is to get a degree. The obstacle is that universities aren’t built for working adults. The transformation is that she is able to get a degree while still working because the University of Phoenix’ founder created a solution specifically for people like her. What I particularly like is that there are thousands of colleges and universities, with few having a differentiated and compelling positioning, and this ad creates separation. I also think that the music in this story contributes to the emotion. Is this a good or bad example? And do you have some additional examples?

Luhn: That definitely is good example of a 'story' ad. Another example, which also has great music, is the ad by Mercedes called “Snow Date”. The hero is the little boy. The goal is to get him to his date safely. The obstacle is the weather. In this example, Mercedes is the bridge that enables the boy to overcome his obstacle.

Another good example is McDonald’s “Juliette the Doll”. The hero is the doll. Her goal is to find a good home. Her obstacle is that she is sitting in a toy store window with Christmas around the corner. She finally takes matters into her own hands, crosses the street, and goes into a McDonald’s where she finds love and happiness and a home. I also happen to like how the ad company that made the commercial named the toy store, Jeffrey’s Toys (after my family’s toy store). The ad team attended one of my keynotes and heard me share the story of my family’s store and incorporated it into their ad, which is of course fun.

Luhn: As an example of how just a 30-second ad can move people emotionally, watch the Edeka ad, which has over 60,000,000 views. Edeka is a large supermarket chain in Germany. I won’t spoil this ad as most Americans probably haven’t seen it, but it is a powerful example of storytelling.

Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler