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Storytelling Techniques: Highlighting the Flaws

reimagine prWhen my brother-in-law David died unexpectedly in China, his remains and belongings made their way back to us carried by a friend.

One of the statues, a wonderfully kitchy piece depicting a triumphant Mao with his foot on the back of someone wearing a dunce cap, broke en route.

We gave Mike’s other brother the intact statue. But we couldn’t bear to throw the broken one away.

Thank you interwebs:
I was just about to ask the internet for advice but stopped by my Facebook page along the way. And at that exact moment, up popped a post about Kintsukuroi.

Kintsukuroi:
Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of repairing that which is broken with gold.

The object is to highlight the cracks instead of disguising them; the broken pottery is made more beautiful by its flaws than it was in its perfection.

I had to improvise but glue and gold paint did the trick.

And it means more now than it ever could have whole.

We are all flawed:
To be human is to be imperfect, to be flawed. We might assume others have it all together but we know, deep down, that we are fragile fragments held together by sheer will, some luck and a bit of gold paint.

We need our heroes to be flawed:
Flawed heroes remind us that we can achieve great things despite our flaws. Sometimes even because of them.

Good brand storytelling doesn’t gloss over the flaws. It embraces them. it understands the flaws of those it serves and it allows its leaders to be real enough to shine the light on their own failings.

The worst thing a brand can do:
A brand pretending it is right when it has made a mistake is the worst thing you can do.

Well, okay, vaguely threatening those you are supposed to serve is probably worse than that.

But you know what I mean.

We don’t like perfection:
Things may look perfect but things rarely are. So perfection is a kind of lie. And we don’t trust it.

We all love a good redemption story though, a hero who battles back from or through his personal failings to achieve his goal.

Flaws give us hope:
The flaws in ourselves hold the weight of the world. But the flaws of others make us strong enough to carry them.

Susan McLennan

Susan McLennan

Founder at ReImaginePR
Susan McLennan helps brands become better storytellers both through the media and through direct and digital communications. She is an award-winning communicator with a background in television production who has secured media coverage through some of the top media outlets in the world and created content that has won hearts and changed minds locally, nationally and internationally.
Susan McLennan

@SusanMcLennan