I’m a little time crunched today, so just one highlight to share. In fact, it’s a build on yesterday’s post.

I mentioned yesterday that Coke’s Global Creative Director shared his insights on the power of storytelling for his brand and the possibilities for other brands to make similar meaning for people through advertising. Today Chuck Porter hit some similar points in sharing some greatest hits of his agency. He said there are six elements of good stories, and he shared examples of each:

• Surprise endings (Ikea’s lamp ad)
• Indelible characters (Subservient Chicken)
• Involve the audience (Molson’s magazine back cover ad, above)
• Ordinary people become heroes (I forget the example.)
• A little shock value (Volkswagon crash ads)
• Practical jokes (Whopper Freakout)

I was particularly won over by the Molson example from 2004. Here, the advertising set a goal of helping guys impress the ladies. Being tongue in cheek, Crispin created fake magazine covers for fictional books such as Trustfund, Animal Rescuer, and Aspiring Groom (above). I saw a case study that says these ads were read at 2x the rate of other beer ads and increased brand favorability from 29% to 60%. Further, according to Porter, these ads actually drove higher magazine sales! As I mentioned yesterday, when your customer pays for your marketing, it’s meaningful.

Chuck Porter also commented on something that is at the core of the Marketing with Meaning concept: Interruptive marketing is becoming a tougher path, but “it’s easier than ever for them to fall in love with you” – i.e., with meaningful marketing.

The watchout for all of this, as our President, Jay, reminds me, is that we allow 30-second ads to fall into the meaning camp by claiming that they entertain people. We spent an hour watching hilarious television commercials from around the world, and sure, we smiled and laughed quite a few times (prediction: Axe cleans up tomorrow night). But I think there is a guardrail around interruption that is important to maintain. If TV or print become a part of a “meaningful marketing ecosystem” – say, part of a campaign that is about consumer involvement, storytelling, etc. – then I think it can work; but if we maintain that a pod of clever commercials is still the way to go, then we’ve lost.