I Hate Steven Singer.
Why? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Growing up I just saw these huge black billboards with white lettering all around the Philadelphia area. Each one said the same thing: “I Hate Steven Singer” – and nothing else. No QR code, no explanation, no URL, nothing. Just, “I Hate Steven Singer”.
Intrigued, I looked it up and found out the story behind the untraditional ad campaign, which you can read about here. However, the ad had already done its job – it piqued my curiosity enough that I invested time in learning more. And I was rewarded for doing so with the charming story behind the slogan, one that I won’t forget and which left me with a very positive brand impression.
This ad campaign, which has successfully run for decades now, exemplifies several business storytelling maxims that I teach , and which I myself learned through performing Improv Comedy professionally for several years in Amsterdam, Boston, and Portland, Maine:
Start in the middle
How do all Bond movies begin? In the middle of a chase scene. Our hero skies down a slope with hordes of baddies shooting at him. This begs many questions: Why is this happening? Who are they? Where are they? How will Bond escape? etc.
This works because the human brain loves a mystery, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that human brains love to solve mysteries and puzzles. Starting a story in the middle – in Steven Singer’s case, just after someone has declared they hate him as they leaving his jewelry store – instantly creates a mystery that your brain wants to figure out:
Who is Steven Singer? Why does someone hate him? Why would he put that on a billboard for all to see? And, what is he even selling?
So of course, In order to satisfy my own curious brain, I gave Steven Singer exactly what he wanted – organic, inbound traffic to his website and physical store.
The Truth Is Powerful & KISS
When you do go and read the story behind the campaign, it is funny, cute, relatable and – most importantly – authentic. This is a crucial lesson to learn: the truth is powerful. It doesn’t need to be dressed up or complicated or ingenious. Most often, the simple truth of a situation, a moment, a relationship, is all you need to tell an impactful and memorable story.
And so often the truth of a situation is itself simple, not complicated, which speaks to the related Improv maxim (though you’ve likely heard of this in other contexts) of KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid.
On stage, many new improvisors try too hard to be funny and clever, so they unnecessarily overcomplicate things in a scene:
“Come quick! The barn is on fire and we need to rescue the horses or we can’t race them in the derby tomorrow and we won’t win the prize money we need to save the orphanage!”
It’s too much. Way too much. In addition, I think we all pretty much know how this particular story is likely to play out. Yawn.
All you really need is a simple moment of truth:
“I’m worried that I’m falling in love with you again.”
Boom! As an audience member, I am immediately interested in knowing more. The premise is simple. It starts in the middle and presents a mystery – Why is she worried? What happened before? How will this play out?
Steven Singer could have come up with all sorts of fancy ad campaigns with models wearing diamonds in expensive locations and that would have been fine, but unmemorable. Instead, he started in the middle (a customer leaving his store has just yelled, “I hate Steven Singer”), created a mystery (Who is Steven Singer, why does someone hate him, and why would he pay to advertise that?) and kept it as simple as possible – one sentence in big white letters on a black billboard. Oh, and it was authentic as well.
Yes, and…
And finally, the Steven Singer ad clearly demonstrates one of the most important Improv maxims – Yes, and…
Yes, and… means accepting what you are given and building on it, without blocking or rejection. Most store owners might try to explain, or argue, or obfuscate – but not Steven Singer. He embraced what he was given (an annoyed customer), ran with and added to it by making it the centerpiece of his marketing for more than 20 years.
So yeah, I might hate Steven Singer, but I love how he uses fundamental Improv principles to tell a compelling business story that very successfully gets people into his stores.
What stories do you have lying around in your archives that you could tell? What stories will you make going forward that start in the middle, are simple, authentic, and build off of what you are given to work with?
We will delve deeper into specific story components in future posts – stay tuned!
