selling a story rather than a product

People are always drawn to stories as it has the ability to form a strong emotional connection with the mind. Tony Fadell (creator of iPhone and iPod) in his book ‘Build’, stresses on the importance of a product to have an underlying story that explains why it needs to exist and how it solves the pain points of consumers. A good product story according to him has three elements : it appeals to people’s emotional and rational sides, it takes complicated concepts and makes them and simpler, and most important highlights the ‘why’ of the product. Information presented in a raw factual outline lacks the ability to change the minds of people whereas the same information when presented as a story has the power to magically alter their beliefs and thoughts. From a neurobiology standpoint, stories are essentially a form of information which can incite a wide array of interconnected neuron-firings resulting in less energy-intensive cognition to process information when compared to processing a straightforward non-storied information dump which lacks the ability to incite wide interconnected neuron-firings and is more energy-intensive thereby resulting in cognitive inertia towards seamlessly registering the information. Storytelling is an art which requires a complex skill-level to creatively connect different pieces of information in a simple manner that can universally invoke a deep mental resonance among a large group of people. The product story helps guide the product development process and should be formed well before the development of the product has started. However, the story need not be set in stone but can be dynamic and subject to iterations based on recursive feedback from different stakeholders. Finally, when the product is complete and ready to be launched, effective communication of the product story to potential users is of paramount importance. So when consumers do end up listening to the narrative, they become truly conscious the pain points that are prevalent and why this product needs to exist. A very famous example of selling a story is the historic launch of iPhone by Steve Jobs in MacWorld 2007.