Speaker profile last updated by AAE Talent Team on 04/27/2024.
Objects tell stories. And we all tell stories about our objects. But are the stories that brands are telling the stories that consumers want to hear? With many real-world examples, Rob Walker makes some crucial points. First, the story that matters most is the consumer's story-• and how a product or brand fits into it. When the hurricane is coming and you're gathering valuables, you'll take the stuff that means most to your life, not the stuff that had the glitziest ad campaign. For a growing batch of consumers today, the stories they want about products are exactly the ones marketers won't tell-• stories about ingredients and environmental impacts. Brands that can tell these stories honestly have a real opportunity. Finally, and drawing all the above together, the stories that matter are the ones we tell ourselves about ourselves, and brands and products have to fit into that. Too often it works the other way around: We are the best so you should buy our objects. That's not a winning story, because consumers don't care about your brand; they care about themselves. What a brand's story can do, Walker says, is help the consumer tell the self-story he or she wants to tell.
What makes things valuable to us isn't really the thing itself -• it's the thing's story. To explore just how far that point can be taken, Walker co-founded a project, Significant Objects, in which he and his partner bought 100 thrift-store doodads (worthless junk that cost a total of $125) and got a bunch of great writers, like Nicholson Baker and Jonathan Lethem, to make up fictions about each one. They then sold each object, with its "story," on eBay. Result: the flotsam sold for a whopping 2,700% more than they paid for it-• a stunning "significance premium." Along the way, Walker and co. attracted a great deal of attention from the marketing and branding world, which is no surprise, given that they're in the business of telling stories about objects too. But what makes a good story, a valuable story, a story that really adds to a thing's meaning, rather than sets up a false promise that undermines it? In this talk, Walker draws lessons from his project to deliver a powerful keynote on the true nature of value.
Rob Walker is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics such as What Stories Matter Most to Consumers? and Significant Objects: Do Good Stories Make Objects More Valuable?. The estimated speaking fee range to book Rob Walker for your event is available upon request. Rob Walker generally travels from New York, NY, USA and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are Lee Rubin, Tricia Downing, Dr. Eric Berg, Drew Ramsey and Elissa Kalver. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling Rob Walker for an upcoming live or virtual event.
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