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When Bad Storytelling Happens to Good Brands and People

Everyone thinks they’re a good storyteller. They’re not. Oh dear God, they’re not. I’m following an ill advised and cloying campaign around one of the world’s great philanthropists that is so completely tone deaf, it’s as if it was written by a vein, misunderstood 16 year old girl (is there any other kind?). The title of his blog tries to position him as superior to his fellow philanthropists, deigning to pronounce from on high what others in his position should be doing if they were half the man he was.

It’s nauseating. REally, he’d have been better to spend his money on a giant neon sign that says “But enough about me. What do you think of me?” Idon’t know what he’s paying the person writing his content but God help her if anyone told her she couldn’t use an explanation mark.

It’s completely against the man’s archetype. But little if any thought has gone into that. Every breathless, exclamation point littered sentence is a betrayal of who he is. The articles get shared by his circle of existing supporters but probably not much beyond that. Because the articles don’t really offer any meaningful insight or vision. The man does. The content, not so much.

Missing the mission isn’t just for the rich and famous. Sometimes everyday campaigns become so enamoured of their own PR, they get lost too. Even noble ones. Vague campaigns get vague results. I’m watching one campaign that talks whose mission is to gather the stories of a particular group of people. But they have no plan to collect the stories or share them in any meaningful way, except via their website that gets no traffic. Their video work is a disaster, which means it’s left to the hired hands to talk about how meaningful the campaign is and how much they’re learning by being a part of it. They’re asking for donations but the campaign is so expensive anything raised is just going to lug this slow and plodding beast from one town to antoher. The planners have no understanding of how to build campaigns, so they’ve missed critical photo opportunites, dates around which to pin media events, bypassed cities where they could have reached a much larger audience and

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