Storytelling is not just about ads or “Oh, God, not another ranch story, Rene”

A client of mine is prototyping a new product and the other day they asked me to find “the most feel good fabric” for it. I asked them what “feel good’ meant–their answer was that I ask too many fucking questions. “Feel good is feel good, Rene.”
Weeellllllll, not really. I said when I was growing up on the ranch, television-time was a big thing. First it taxed the generator and second, there were only two channels and someone had to go outside into the dark to turn the antennae if you turned the channel. Anyway, Sunday nights Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom followed by the Wonderful World of Disney was our big night–we’d make sure all of the rest of the lights were off and that the dishwasher wasn’t running and we’d all hunker down in the living room, with some tussle about who’d get the “The Pillow” on the floor in front of the fire. The Pillow was huge, it was dark green with some kind of ribbed fabric and it had magical qualities–when on The Pillow you were never scared, you could lie perfectly still on it for two hours without bugging your brothers and sisters and everything you watched (or read, in my case) was a million times better for it. You were cozy, comfortable and safe, for lack of a better word. Nothing could go wrong if you were on The Pillow.

A client jumped in and said he had a pair of baseball pants like that when he was younger–they were woolen and scratchy and he’d rub his right hand on them before every play, and he’d feel secure and confident. His partner said that she’d had a teddy that was ‘nubby’–and to this day, she had two or three ‘nubby’ suit jackets that she’d wear on particularly stressful days because she felt ‘cocooned’ and safe in them. There were two or three other stories from others in the room…and in the end, the red thread was obvious and knowing our target, I had my profile for what we wanted as the ‘most feel good’ fabric. And I gotta tell ya, finding enough vintage fabric for the first 50–and that can be faithfully recreated in the future, was really, really satisfying. Dusty, but satisfying.
But that’s not what this post is about–it’s about telling stories and putting yourself out there. And vulnerability and authenticity. And making people feel. And getting them to share. And to tell their own stories. And for them to know they put all the skin in the game. And that rush when you get it right and being able to point back to that pair of baseball pants or teddy bear and knowing they are still with you today in this new thing you are building.
That feels gooooooood.

*no clients were hurt in the making of this post, and all parties said write whatever the fuck you want.