If the story below were being told on paper, I’d want a lot more story-showing than story-telling. I’ll write about that next. Until then, the video below is a great example of viral story-telling. Brad Phillips blog, which arrived in my mailbox thanks to PRWeb, explains why. Just one warning: I watched this at 6:25 a.m. and found myself in tears. I’m weak that way, but by the end of this moving little video, I bet you will be, too. Enjoy. And if you’re as moved as I was, you can contribute to Caine’s scholarship fund. After donating my $10, I got an email of thanks from the videographer with this news:
Also, due to the overwhelming support, and the spark of inspiration that Caine’s Arcade has ignited, we are now building the “Caine’s Arcade Foundation” to help more kids! The Caine’s Arcade Foundation will help discover, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in young kids like Caine. The Goldhirsh Foundation is generously matching your donations to Caine’s Scholarship Fund dollar-for-dollar (up to $250,000) to help us get the Caine’s Arcade Foundation off the ground.
That’s the impact that a single well-told story promoted through viral story-telling can have.
The 6 traits of great storytelling—in one adorable video
By Brad Phillips | Posted: April 19, 2012
What makes a video go viral?
A video featuring Caine, an imaginative 9-year-old boy living in East Los Angeles, spread like wildfire over the past week. It’s easy to see why.
This video features all six of the critical elements of great storytelling (more on those, below).
I’ve never posted an 11-minute video before, but this one is that good. I recommend you watch it before reading on.
In their terrific book, Made to Stick, authors Dan and Chip Heath identified six critical traits that make stories memorable. They used the acronym SUCCESs to summarize those elements (the final “s” doesn’t stand for anything.)
It’s no surprise that the video above went viral so quickly, as it had all six of the Heath Brothers’ “SUCCESs” sticky traits:
1. Simple. A boy. An idea. Some boxes. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.
2. Unexpected. This video had at least four unexpected things: An unusually creative boy; a video maker who accidentally stumbled upon the boy’s arcade; a flash mob; and Caine’s surprise at the flash mob. Even though the video’s title (“9-year-old’s DIY cardboard arcade gets flashmobbed”) gave away a lot of the premise, it didn’t matter. We wanted to see how the unexpected played out.
3. Concrete. There’s one moment that stuck with me more than any other: Caine manually feeding prize tickets through a hole in the box. If there’s a second moment I remember, it’s the claw machine. If there’s a third, it’s the calculator he used to track legitimate “Fun Pass” users. All three of those details are concrete, and the story was more effective for its total absence of abstractions.
4. Credible. Totally. Not a single false note.
5. Emotional. Before my wife showed me the video, she sheepishly admitted that it had made her cry. I mildly teased her. Then I watched it and teared up, as well. It felt deeply satisfying to see the boy’s industriousness rewarded. And the father’s pride in his son’s achievement? How wonderful to see a struggling businessman in East L.A. enjoy such rich satisfaction.
6. Stories. Back to the first “S:” a boy, an idea, some boxes. Stories can’t get stripped down much further, proving that good stories don’t require complexities to work.
Made to Stick stands at the top of my recommended reading list. You can order the hard cover here, soft cover here, Kindle edition here, or audio DVD here.
Brad Phillips is the author of the Mr. Media Training Blog and president of Phillips Media Relations, which specializes in media and presentation training. He tweets at @MrMediaTraining.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.