True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business by Montague Ty

Author:Montague, Ty [Montague, Ty]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2013-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5-2

Spike TV metastory quad

Probably most important to Spike’s commercial goals, utilitainment should result in content that is inspiring to both men and women, attracting a more balanced audience for advertisers. One way to measure success is to look at the audience composition of some of Spike’s newest shows. Old Spike staples like Deadliest Warrior and Blue Mountain State routinely attracted audiences that were between 70 and 80 percent male and skewed young (median ages of twenty-eight and twenty-four years old, respectively). New Spike now has several shows where the audience numbers are very different: Bar Rescue and Auction Hunters have both attracted a 40 percent female audience. And two shows, Ink Master and Tattoo Nightmares, have tipped over to 50 percent and 52 percent female skew, respectively. That is a massive audience shift in a very short time. The median age of viewers of these shows is headed in the right direction as well: thirty-nine and forty-six years old, respectively, for Bar Rescue and Auction Hunters, thirty-three and thirty-four, respectively, for Ink Master and Tattoo Nightmares.

So while still early days, it appears that utilitainment is going to be effective for helping Spike to achieve its long-term business goals.

No matter what business you are in, it pays to go deep into the stage and really understand the broader cultural forces that are acting on your story. Often you will discover what Spike has discovered: that what is happening in the stage actually represents a great opportunity to grow your business.

. . .

Five Things You Need to Do to Discover the Truth about Your Stage

Understanding your stage requires observation and analysis of the larger cultural backdrop against which your metastory and the metastories of your participants are playing out. When things change on the stage, both opportunities and threats arise. Hummer’s problems, for instance, arose not from anything Hummer did, but from a change in the stage. Understanding your stage will involve a lot of desk research. Much of what you need to know exists in freely available economic data and trend reports and forecasts as well as in pop culture media: books, magazines, movies, TV and online video, the blogosphere. But you also need to get out in the world and soak up some culture firsthand. So that’s your first step.

1 Get out in to the world yourself. Pay attention to what you’re experiencing in your own life. Go to where your participants are and experience life with them. Have you been to a grocery store lately? What does a quart of milk cost? Are restaurants in your area full or empty? Have you been to a live concert? Whose performances are selling out and whose aren’t? And by the way, are you personally using Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify? If not, you had better start. If you’re in media, technology, or the arts, go to Burning Man, go to SXSW, go to CES, go to PopTech. If you’re in textiles, hang out with some yarn bombers. If you’re in automotive, befriend your local tuner club or hotrodders or extreme ecodrivers.

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