Management Tips From Changing Taste Using Stories

Changing taste using stories employs a power that translates into three valuable management tips.

Storytelling plays a valuable role in marketing. It seems though with foods it plays another role. That is one of changing taste using stories.

How Stories Change Taste of Food

For instance, consider Wayne Curtis’ article, “The Secret Ingredient,” which appeared in the April 2012 edition of The Atlantic. He talks about liquor companies’ stories about centuries-old, secret recipes. He says marketing drives the hype of the stories. It’s not “special” ingredients or processes. They’re really aren’t any.

For example, citing chemist T.A. Breaux, Curtis says there are no significant production secrets behind vodka, the best-selling spirit globally. Yet, he concludes:

. . . a healthy measure of mythology actually makes for a better-tasting product. Never mind the mouth or nose as the chief receptors of flavor. Sometimes, imagination and suggestion trump all.

There are many ways to change the taste of food without changing anything about it. Changing taste using stories is one. Yet, stories don’t stop here. They impact people well beyond taste.

Changing Taste Using Stories Shows The Power of Storytelling

Look at how emphatic politicians are about their personal stories especially focus on rising from humble beginnings or overcoming severe challenges, thus working to wrap their story inside the classical hero myth.

Stories influence the intuitive aspect of interpersonal interactions, tapping directly into people’s feelings by way of presentation. The way we present something, including people, dramatically influences people’s perceptions of it. Since stories can change the way we view people, they can change how we interpret what those people say.

Management Tips: Changing the Taste of Change

Therefore, in placebo management, stories are form of branding. They can brand people. They can brand things. Stories can even brand events such as change. They can change the taste of change, making it more palatable.

Consider the story built around IKEA and its founder, Ingvar Kamprad. It’s a motivational force. It motivates employees and consumers alike. So, here are the management tips gleaned from the power of changing taste using stories. Create stories around the:

• People driving the change or initiative
• History and reason for it
• Change or initiative itself that puts a face on it, that personifies it

If stories can make food tastier, why can’t they make you and the outcomes you want to see tastier too?

Other posts in this series:

• Placebo Management: Impacting Employees’ Beliefs
• Placebo Management (Pt 2): Tapping Emotions