By Christine DeFelice
Many businesses are using storytelling in their marketing strategy. Here are three stories including a popular TV show that highlight the power of storytelling.
Seinfeld
Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote the Beached Whale or Marine Biologist episode together. Here’s a brief recap of the episode.
The story begins with Kramer, (Seinfeld’s eccentric neighbor) hitting golf balls at the beach into the ocean. Then we discover that when George (Seinfeld’s friend) poses as a Marine biologist to impress an old flame he’s in for a surprise when they find a beached whale.
Seinfeld realized the night before the episode was going to be filmed that the original script didn’t connect the dots for the viewer. Why was the whale was distressed? Seinfeld calls David and asks, “What if what puts the whale in distress is Kramer’s golf ball?” David agrees and they rewrite the episode to include the golf ball connector. Next, we get all the juicy details when George is retelling the story to Jerry, Kramer and Elaine at the diner.
George explains how he was walking along the beach with his old flame when they notice a crowd gathered around a beached whale. Someone from the crowd yells “Is anyone a Marine biologist?” George’s old flame comments to him “You’re a Marine biologist.” George is forced to investigate as a Marine biologist and discovers what was distressing the whale. Back in the diner, George reaches into his jacket pocket and shows his friends a golf ball that was lodged in the whale’s blow hole. Everyone turns to look at Kramer. Kramer challenged “Was it a Titleist?” George shows him the Titleist golf ball. Seinfeld got the laugh for this episode and made it easier for his audience to understand the connection between the two stories – the Titleist golf ball.
Chewy’s
In June of 2022, a Chewy’s customer, Anna Brose tweeted “I contacted @Chewy’s last week to see if I could return an unopened bag of my dog’s food after he died.”
Chewy’s response was quite unexpected, they:
- Gave me a full refund
- Told me to donate the food to the shelter
- And had flowers delivered today with the gift note signed by the person I talked to
Anna’s story got 679.8K likes, 50K retweets and the story went viral. It wasn’t only a large company showing some empathy that made this story spread like wildfire.
This story went viral because countless Chewy customers shared their own stories of top-notch service. In this case, Chewy’s marketing team didn’t need to create a storytelling campaign. Their customer shared her amazing experience with the brand and other customers chimed in. Chewy’s is so customer centric that they send their customer’s cats and dogs birthday cards and every week they send 1,000 hand painted portraits of customers pets as a surprise gift.
P&G
Procter and Gamble, makers of Tide, Bounty, Head and Shoulders and many more brands strived to build a deeper bond with mothers while showing their appreciation for Olympic athletes.
P&G created and rolled out their Thank You, Mom ads back in 2010. These ads are really a love letter recognizing the sacrifices and guidance of mothers all around the world. The ‘Thank You, Mom ads drew in 76 billion global media impressions. P&G values respecting all individuals, making their inclusive ads relatable to everyone. These ads span the Summer, Winter and Special Olympics.
This ad follows a three-part story: First, it sets the scene of the children’s childhood and their mother’s guidance; second, it shows the challenges each child faced; and third, it captures the athletes’ triumphs over these obstacles. A common theme among these Olympians and their moms is the mom’s presence at the Olympics, highlighting the challenges they overcame together.
The ad ends with the quote: “for showing that falling only makes us stronger, Thank You, Mom” then P&G shows their brands. Similar to Chewy’s customer-centric culture this was more than a simple ad campaign for P&G. They took it a step further. During the 2010 Olympics, P&G flew all moms of team USA to Vancouver and created an online platform on Twitter and Facebook for consumers to thank their mothers. It’s not surprising that this ad still resonates with audiences and the Thank You, Mom campaign was P&G’s most successful in the history of the company.