Scripps Networks was an American mass media company formed in 2008 that owned a wide variety of niche cable TV channels. In 2018, they merged with Discovery Communications, adding dozens of media properties to their portfolio, and in 2022, Discovery acquired Warner-Media to create Warner Bros. Discovery with hundreds of media properties. When we worked with them fifteen years ago, their list of niche channels included HGTV, Great American Country, Food Network, Travel Channel, Fine Living, and many more.
The challenge they faced then was that the company had to somehow sell their suite of seemingly disparate channels to advertisers all across the country. How could a single company with so many diff erent channels targeting so 16 many different niche audiences possibly present them all together into a unified whole so that they could effectively pitch them? It had the potential to be the most scattered, messy, and boring presentation ever made, not because there was anything wrong with the company but simply because there was just so much information to present and no apparent way to tie it all together.
A young sales leader at the company named Jon Steinlauf came up with a brilliant solution: he decided to use Structured Storytelling. His marketing team created a fictional, idealized household to represent the audience for the family of channels. Then a story was created around the lives of each member of that family, with each of the company’s networks representing a different component of the family’s lives.Nancy Duarte discusses this strategy in her book Resonate.The slides were designed as scenes, each one telling the story of one of their networks, and then we used Ontra Presentation software to structure the slides for easy playback.
That story went something like this:
“Scripps channels touch every aspect of life for your typical American family. Oh, you have to make something for dinner to feed your family after a long day at work? Here’s the Food Network. Now, it’s the weekend, and you want to relax by doing some gardening in the backyard? Here’s HGTV. Also, you have a week of vacation coming up, and you want to take your spouse somewhere romantic? Here’s the Travel Channel.”
This story became a compelling presentation that tied all of the channels together into an overarching tale for the parent company’s target audience—the ideal family—that they were able to use in a high-end roadshow to sell their programming across the country. The presentation was so well structured and such an effective story that media planners could take and present it to specific clients to sell ad time.
Additionally, that structured story was created to be flexible, so it could be used in a variety of different sales scenarios, from the high-profile upfront roadshow with C-suite executives and talent to the one-on-one meetings between account executives and media planners. Account executives could customize the presentation as needed in order to get a contract.
In the end, using Structured Storytelling was a brilliant approach that won Jon acclaim and propelled him to the top of his career. He became Vice President of Ad Sales at Scripps, and he’s now Chief US Advertising Sales Officer at Discovery. If you can tell a good and compelling story, you become more effective at sales, and anyone who can consistently deliver profits is going to reap the rewards in their career. It’s as simple as that.
When you structure your presentation to tell an overarching story about your company, where each component of your company fits neatly into that story, then the value of what you have to offer becomes clear. Suddenly, anyone can understand who you are, what you do, why you do it, and most importantly, why it matters. The institution as a whole can be sold on a higher value than the sum of its individual parts.
That’s the real power of Structured Storytelling. The message is always on point, and every slide points toward the same horizon, which is the ultimate thesis of your entire company.
Imagine The Possibilities
Imagine having the ability to quickly pull the most relevant slides and knowing that any slide you pull from your library will already be formatted to present, consistent in its messaging, and easy to fit into the story you’re trying to tell. Several years ago, Scripps participated in an upfront presentation for Ford executives in Detroit. Like any upfront, it was essentially a large sales presentation to determine how ad money was going to be allocated among various agencies.
Just before the big meeting, a Ford executive for their truck division approached the Scripps account manager and said, “Hey, would it be possible to give a quick pitch specifically for our truck division?”
With the old linear presentations, this would have been an unreasonable request. The account manager had almost no prep time to put together a brand-new presentation with a different focus. However, he merely smiled and said, “Sure, no problem.”
In his book Enablement Mastery, Elay Cohen tells a story about attending an executive meeting at the Salesforce office in San Francisco to discuss their latest corporate pitch presentation. Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, brought the heads of product marketing, corporate communications, and sales to the meeting, and then he went through their presentation one slide at a time, carefully explaining the purpose of each one using customer examples and an overall story arc.
Elay then writes: “The energy was engaging and tense.
Everyone wanted to win. That was the culture. It was the ultimate in messaging alignment…He wanted every sales and customer-facing employee to practice and deliver the corporate pitch in front of a person who would sign off that they had delivered the presentation on message and according to expectations.”
While they weren’t using Structured Storytelling, the idea of ensuring that every slide is on message and meets 21 expectations fits right into the Structured Storytelling approach—every slide used by every salesperson in front of every client has a consistent message and fits in perfectly with the company’s story.
Imagine you’re a junior executive facing an incredibly important sales presentation with a huge potential client the very next day. A lot of money is at stake, not to mention your standing in the company and your future career path.Normally, you’d be terrified of falling flat on your face and blowing the whole deal. You’d feel that same perfect storm of fears that AlexAnndra felt when presenting to the Loews Hotels executives.
But what if you knew you already had the tools at your fingertips to give a clear, compelling presentation? And what if those tools worked like a continual education system that only got better, and made you better, every time you gave a presentation? What if a whole library of slides was at your fingertips, and you knew every slide was already signed off on and getting tweaked and improved over time to stay on message?
Think about how much better communication would be throughout your entire organization. Think about how much more effective it was for Jon at Scripps to try to sell their suite of channels when they were able to tell a compelling story about their company in which every channel played a clear role in the lives of their target audience.
Structured Storytelling transforms your tangled mess of slides into a storytelling library. It works a bit like the photo album on your smartphone. If you have a smartphone handy, go ahead and open your Photos app right now. What do you see? Typically, you see a screen that says “My Albums,” in which all of your media files have already been subdivided into thematic groupings for you. Maybe there’s one that says “Favorites,” “People,” “Locations,”“Camping Trip,” another that says “Birthday,” or “Work Photos,” and so on.
If you scroll down, there are also folders that contain photos and videos of specific people, then links for specific types of media. Every picture or video you’ve taken on your iPhone is readily available, automatically sorted into thematic folders, and ready to be presented.
Suppose you run into a friend at the grocery store one afternoon, and she says, “Hey, how was your trip to Disney World last week? I’ll bet it was a lot of fun.”
All you have to do is open your Photos app and open the “Disney World” folder. Suddenly, without any preparation time, you have a whole bunch of pictures and videos to help you answer that question. You don’t show your friend every picture, of course. Instead, you choose the ones that you think will be most interesting and highlight the story that you want to tell about your vacation.
“Here’s the hotel where we stayed,” you say, tapping a relevant photo to bring it up on the screen. Then you tap another photo. “And this was our favorite restaurant. You can see how amazing the food was in this picture right here.”
“It looks like you had a great time,” your friend replies. “Did your kids have a favorite ride in the theme parks?”
“They sure did,” you say. “They really liked Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Here’s a short video of the kids on the ride.
Take a look.”
“Wow, it looks really fun,” your friend says. “It really makes me want to take my family there, too.”
Every picture or video you bring up is relevant to the overall story, which enables you to 1) tell the story of your recent vacation effectively, while at the same time 2) following the conversation with your friend in a way that feels natural.
With Structured Storytelling, you can rest assured that every slide in every folder is on message, is consistent with every aspect of your brand, and tells a compelling story that can easily become a scene in whatever presentation you’re giving. Plus, it’s being constantly updated and improved.That’s what we’re helping you work toward. Getting there will require confronting your own tangled mess of slides, but don’t worry. We’re going to help you do that, too. Let’s get started.
