Storytelling and the power of vulnerability in higher ed marketing
Show Notes:
Text version of this episode below. It’s a transcript made by a robot and all the “ums” are in there, just FYI.
Download: The Unignorable College Enrollment Video A simple 5-part storytelling template for creative emotional videos that boost enrollment.
Higher ed marketing is all about building an emotional bridge between prospective students and your school, and stories are the fast track to emotions. But you can't do good storytelling without vulnerability. Vulnerability involves showing people as they really are, not as they wish to be seen. Vulnerability creates emotional bonds because we can all relate to the human experience of being imperfect, and when you tell a story that takes the reader/listener/viewer through a journey of imperfection, the result is a heightened emotional bond between your audience and your institution.
So I am an introvert. Therefore I hate small talk. I hate it. I hate it so much. I so much, I will arrange my life around not having to make small talk with people last year. In fact, I made this, I made a major life decision would it would eliminate one area of social discomfort completely. I had for years been trying to make the experience of getting a haircut, less uncomfortable. Cuz I just hate that feeling of like sitting in a chair, somebody's touching you and you know, you're staring at them in the mirror. You can, you can see them. They can see you and having nothing to say, except maybe asking about the weather or like what my plans for the weekend were, whatever. So a year ago I just said, you know what? I'm, I'm just gonna buzz my hair. It's easy to maintain.
I can wake up and not have to think about how my hair's gonna look that day. I can throw a hat on. I can take it off whenever I want. Not have to worry about having hat hair. This is the clincher. I can cut it easily at home by myself and not have to feel the social anxiety of sitting awkwardly in a chair while someone's touching me and feeling like, you know, should I ask if she has kids? No, uh, maybe she had a miscarriage and that's a sore of subject. Should I say something about the weather? No, that's cliche. What holidays are coming up? Uh, maybe a sh maybe she has plans. She can tell me about, um, ah, it's stressful for me. I'm just sitting the whole time trying to think of something to talk about cuz I can't stand the silence, but my wife on the other hand is the complete opposite.
Whereas I hate going to, you know, my kid's friend's birthday parties because I really don't know many people there. My wife will walk in like who wants to be my friend? And, and before we leave, she's she's made dinner plans with some new mom friend that they've, they've told her their deepest insecurities. I, I love her for it though. She balances me out and makes our life fun with lots of people in it that we care about. I would have a lot less friends if it weren't for Laura, uh, small talk in most cases is not enticing. It's not gripping it. Doesn't give you anything worth sticking around for it. Doesn't reveal things about the other person that will lead to a deeper emotional connection because it's just surface level stuff. It's it's what do you do for a living? Well, I do this for a living.
Great. Cool. It's not like, you know, you know, I'm really unhappy in my current career and I'm not sure where I'm gonna go. Next. Small talk is how many kids do you have? I, I have two kids. There's seven and four. Okay, great. Mine are six and two. Cool. It's not, you know, I was a little more harsh with my kids today than I wish I would've been, you know, that's the deeper stuff, which, which brings us to the point of this episode. Vulnerability. Now I am an engram four. If you're familiar with engram, it's a system of sort of categorizing people into numbers, one through nine, according to personality traits and the way their minds work and stuff like that. Uh, the way that you relate to other people and socialize, things like that, uh, engram fours are the artsy ones. Uh, they have, they have to be unique and stand apart.
That's very true for me. Uh, as a four, I hate cliches. So it is with much, much hesitation that I'm about to quote Brene brown. Brene is like the Jesus of the internet, uh, pursuing all kinds of emotional wisdom on people ending up in. She ends up in those pictures that people post to LinkedIn with like a quote in like a sunset in the background. But here we go, Brene brown says that connection is why we're here. It's what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Connection can't happen without being seen, really seen. I love that that comes from her Ted talk called the power of vulnerability, which is, I think the one that like made her real popular. Um, okay, great. So what does that mean? We're, we're talking higher education. We're not talking about therapy session here. What does that have to do with anything higher ed marketing?
Well, I believe that connection is essential to human life. It's what we all seek on a deep level. And I would add to Brene's quote there for our purposes to say connection is also what gives meaning and purpose to our brands. And that connection can't happen without being truly seen. Small talk requires little to no vulnerability. Therefore it, it doesn't create a deep connection, a deeper connection with another individual requires vulnerability. And what is marketing and content creation. If not trying to get the message of your school to resonate with prospective students, you want students to connect with the values of your school, with the potential success they can have as a result of your school. I mean, this is the problem with marketing. It's like, how do we take this institution and create a bridge, an emotional bridge between the prospective student and the school, um, that allows them to choose your school over every other school.
I mean, that's, that's the crux of what we're, what we're trying to do. And there's a big movement in recent years towards humanizing your brand, making your brand, your school, resonate with people on an emotional level, by communicating shared human experiences that they can relate to when you're just out there making videos like here's our school. Here's why we're great apply now. Uh, you're not humanizing your brand. That's salesy. Um, that's not a bad approach per se, but if you're one of these higher ed marketers, that's like, we need to do a better job of telling our story. I hear that a lot. That's that's, you know, a lot of, lot of higher ed marketers are like, you know, the price sitting in a meeting going, you know what? We need to do a better job of telling our story. And I'm here to tell you, uh, creating content.
That's just salesy. Here's our school. Here's why we're great apply now, um, is not the way to do that. Or at least not the, um, at least not the most cost effective way to do that. Number one, because that gives the viewer little to no substance to grab onto that they can relate to on a human emotional level. And number two, that's not a story, uh, come to our school because we're great at this, this, and this is not a story. I I'll say it again. Communications or marketing content that follow a come to our school. We're great because we're great at this, this, and this is not a story. That's information and information is good. You need information, you need stuff like that because uh, people need to be inspired, but then they need to be informed. But information is far less likely to bridge that emotional gap between prospective students and your school than actual stories can.
And actual story is about people. It's about a journey through conflict or some obstacles to overcome. An actual story has a beginning, a middle and an end. It transports the listener to an or the reader to another place in their minds where they're envisioning this story, playing out and stories. Good stories often require a level of vulnerability from either the teller or the subject of the story. They involve showing people as they really are, and not as they wish to be seen. Uh, they involve showing the less glamorous side of a person. Good, good stories show us that we are not alone in being imperfect. Perfect. Um, in her, in her talk, Brene says that, you know, she's a researcher. So she was doing all this research on human connection. And she saw this pattern that when you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak.
When you ask people about belonging, they tell you about a time when they didn't belong. Um, and hearing about not belonging. The vulnerability part of the story makes the experience of finally finding a place where you belong that much richer vulnerability tees up the ball to be catapulted toward the value that you're trying to communicate about your school. And that doesn't mean that you have to be sappy and like poor me. You know, for instance, if you're writing an article about a particular student's testimonial, uh, the vulnerability in their story could be like, they felt lost. They didn't know what to do with their life. And your school helps them, you know, chart a path forward that they're excited about. Now, it, it could be, I used to think business was all just people sitting in cubicles and typing on computers. Uh, but since coming to such and such business school, I realized that every industry needs business, mind people it's opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities with a business degree.
Those are examples of someone telling you maybe a way that they were wrong in the past or lost in the past or misguided or whatever it is. But now they're, there's something different stories are about positive transformation. It's a, it's a good kind of different and, and your school helps them get there. Even, even saying your school helped them get there is vulner is vulnerability. It's, it's the courage to say that I couldn't do it on my own. I needed help. I needed guidance. I needed people in my corner. So let's take a look at, uh, an example from Hollywood here. Uh, karate kid, my favorite movie as a kid next to, uh, all the sho movies. I, I hope you've seen this. If you haven't seen this, you should stop what you're doing and go watch it. Um, it is just, it is a cultural staple.
Um, in, in, in any nineties kids' life, um, Daniel LA Russo moves to a new city, goes to a new school and the whole movie's about him being vulnerable. He gets bullied and beat up. So he's vulnerable there. He's trying, he tries to learn karate and he sucks at it at first. And so he is vulnerable there. And as, as you watch him struggling to grasp what Mr. Miyagi is, teaching him, he's like doing the, you know, the car thing, the wax on wax off, like, what the heck am I doing here? He has a crush on a girl. He's trying to look cool in front of her, but these bullies aren't gonna let him look cool. Um, but I tell you what, when you get to that scene at the end of the movie, Daniel has now learned karate, uh, he's come into his own.
He's fighting in this tournament with the main bully Johnny, he gets kicked around. You think he's gonna lose the fight, AKA vulnerability. And then here comes the iconic scene where he does that sweet crane, kick smashes, Johnny in the face and wins the fight, good triumphs over evil. He gets the girl. It makes the big, you know, this big emotional moment. So if Daniel never experienced vulnerability, there, there would've been no movie. If he just walks into high school and everyone's swinging over him and he gets the girl with zero effort, there would be no reason for karate to even enter the story. Vulnerability tee up the eventual triumph to hit so much harder. If karate were to enter that story without vulnerability, it'd be like, he goes to a new school, uh, wants to be even more of cool guy. And so he learns karate and never loses a fight.
Enters a tournament, wins, gets a trophy at the end lives, happily of ever after with the girl, his crush. Um, who's gonna watch that movie, but let's be honest. So a lot of higher ed marketing looks like that. It's, we're great. Everything's great. Nothing's wrong here. Everything's great. Uh, everyone's loving it. Here's all the reasons we're great. The end and marketers will pet themselves on the back and say, we've told our story. Now. That's not to say that you have to say like negative things like, oh, we really struggle with, uh, our school is actually not that great at this. You know, that's not, it's not to say that, but, uh, you don't have to that's that's not, I'm not what I'm trying to say. I mean, obviously you wanna paint your school in a, in a positive light. Um, but it's really just about telling that story of transformation and specific transformation.
Don't just tell me that. Don't just tell me that you have like top topnotch world class professors, you know, tell me about a time when that at changed somebody's life, when that actually was lived out in a certain way, um, that has impact that had impact on somebody's life that took them from where they were to where they wanted to go. So that, that whole, like, we're great. Everything's great. Come to our school cuz it's great. There's no human struggle. There's no conflict. There's no vulnerability in that. Nothing that normal people can relate to and the message can easily fall flat because you haven't teed up any contrast to the message of we are great. Um, there's a really great example of all of this, um, that a good example of great, uh, video from Western Sydney university. I love this ad. It's a video it's about a minute long I'll link to it in the show notes or description or whatever.
Uh, but if it's about this guy, dang, I think his name, I think he pronounce his name. Dang. I could be wrong. Uh, when D E N G when he was six years old, he was taken from his mother forced to March 33 days to Ethiopia and be a child soldier for the rebel army. If you know anything about child soldiers, it's awful. It's, they're forced to kill like random people. Uh, you know, just kids are just giving guns and just basically forced to just kill people, even their own family. Um, so he's caught up in that. He gets rescued by the U the United nations ends up coming to Australia and Western city university takes him in kind of helped him, helped him educate himself while he lived in his car. Uh, eventually he gets a law degree, turns around. He uses that law degree to fight injustice like he experienced in his home country.
Great story, super well done. It's like a minute long, a minute and a half long video. I wish my company had produced it, but the, the vulnerability there is what melts your heart. A six year old taken from his mother forced into slavery, basically was rescued. Still had to fight to get an education, teaches himself, to read all that, all, all that stuff, all that stuff is the stuff of stories. And, and that's the stuff that makes you go, Ugh, it's, it's a punch in the gut. It makes Western Sydney shine so much brighter because they were a part of this transformation from child soldier to world changing lawyer. And that's, that's stuff that humans can connect to. We need more of that in higher ed. Now, most of our stories within our midst are not going to be rescuing someone from a life of slavery.
Um, you know, they, they're, they're gonna be a lot less probably dramatic than that, but that's that, that's an extreme example of that sort of positive transformation, uh, that stories offer. Um, and, and, and that story that, that get you to a place of show versus tell, um, not just saying we're great. Here's all the reasons why we're great, but, but saying here's what happened and letting the viewer letting the listener or the viewer go, wow, they're great. Um, so, you know, we, we need more of, I once was this, but then this happened and now I'm this. So we need less information, more emotion, less bullet points about all the reasons are great, more backs stories of people who have been through obstacles and rose to the top with the help of your school. So if any of this stuff, and if any of this is stuff you can get on board with, I want to invite you to download a free resource.
I have, uh, available called the unignorable college enrollment video in it. I share with you the very storytelling framework, the very storytelling framework that my company uses to create compelling, uh, videos in my case. But you can use this in any sort of marketing content, blogs, news articles, videos, email blasts, wherever you want to tell a student or alumni story in a compelling way, uh, go to unveiled.tv. That's UN V E I L d.tv/unignorable college video. Um, I hope you check it out. My name is John Ooni. I'm a video producer working specifically with college and university marketing teams, uh, across the country on telling compelling student testimonials. So if you want to hear more about some of the unique things that we have to offer schools, um, we have a unique approach to, uh, video content, uh, that makes life easier for marketing teams like yours, uh, and puts your content on autopilot. Reach out to me, John unveiled TVN.
