Storytelling Why people matter

[Music]

there is a narrative

all around us but the most engaging and

effective stories

i’ve come across in my 13-year career in

media

have had character around eight years

ago my husband and i were traveling

between london and bristol quite

regularly

as we were on fiancee and in the throes

of wedding planning

on one particular journey i noticed a

small spider had taken it upon himself

to get comfortable in the wing mirror of

our fiat punto

as we left london and thought nothing

more of it

until having been in bristol for a few

days making our way

from the church to the florist and i

noticed the same

small spider was still with us

fast forward five years and i’m heading

back to work after maternity leave with

a

whole load of mom guilt and the memory

strikes me again

and i decide to start writing the story

of towny spider

for my daughter florence towny spider

was an arachnid out of water

or his web in this instance at the time

i was working at the telegraph newspaper

heading up the video team and we were

optimistically trying to monetize our

content

we’d adopted a strategy that was all

about quantity

15 series of eight episodes to be

delivered

every two months working in media i’m

clearly no mathematician

but i was more than aware at the time

that this equated to a whopping 120

episodes

every eight weeks we were embracing a

heavily social media optimized approach

for a time-poor society

top-down filming instructional in 60

seconds

six quick steps etc etc

and it didn’t work we’d forgotten three

fundamental points consider the style

and tone

storytelling techniques and the element

of escapism

puts your audience people and characters

first a spider thrown to the four winds

and completely out of his comfort zone

is one thing

but much like towney for me this hasn’t

always been the case

having started out as a researcher and

producer in the commercially focused

world of interactive tv

i worked on some of the biggest programs

in the country the x factor

britain’s got talent who wants to be a

millionaire dancing on ice

to name but a few even then faced with

armchair critics who would tell us

whether we liked it or not how they

thought our programs

should be made we knew how to get it

right

the most successful competitions we ran

featured past winners

proved to the audience that they weren’t

indeed fixed or we had presenters

directly related to the prizes vicki

butler henderson and quentin wilson

giving away

cars subsidiary sponsors of programs

like the x factor and dancing on ice

were offering experiential tickets and

exclusive access

to immerse yourself and have a front row

ticket

to what everyone else in the country was

talking about that week

we developed mobile apps that allowed

you to purchase the clothes contestants

were wearing on love island

as you watch the program all the time

focused on those three key points

the style and tone storytelling

techniques and the element of escapism

put your audience people and characters

first

so our story continues some years later

not too dissimilar to our main

protagonist towny spider establishing

himself in his new homestead farmyard

environment

at the telegraph we had shifted tack we

were getting comfortable in our new

surroundings

i became the editorial driving force

behind telegraph films

and we started collaborating with the

bill and melinda gates health foundation

on issues such as antibiotic resistance

and the provision of snakebite antivenom

in africa

my own digital world started to evolve

too

i became the executive producer of

bryony gordon’s mental health podcasts

mad world

and if i can do it where we endeavor to

portray to the audience

that it’s perfectly normal to feel weird

we were keeping these three key points

at the heart of the matter

the style and tone storytelling

techniques and the element of escapism

put your audience people and characters

first

and it was working the prince harry

episode of madworld where he spoke about

the death of his mother when he was just

a child

made global headlines with the podcast

downloaded

millions of times around the world

and the digital world keeps evolving

today

the broadcasters publishers and

independent production companies of this

world

are faced with a newer bigger

brighter competitor the esports

or subscription video on demand service

if you will

the likes of amazon prime now tv

apple tv and the mighty netflix latest

stats from the broadcasters audience

research board

tell us that broadcast tv still accounts

for

68 of our video day

and with the average video viewing time

just under

five hours a day for all individuals

is there still space for s-fods and the

smaller fish in the video pond

to co-exist i now commissioned digital

documentaries for the bbc

and in doing a little research

discovered that

taking netflix as an example they’re

looking to spend

17.3 billion dollars

on original content this year alone

compare this to around 4 billion pounds

the bbc has to spend

which is used to fund all their tv

radio and online services

it makes you wonder whether these three

areas

i keep mentioning are going to suffer

the style and tone

storytelling techniques and the element

of escapism

puts your audience people and characters

first

much as the car company’s skoda

volkswagen

say and audi all use many of the same

parts

but we all have a preference over which

one we want to drive

in my opinion the s ford impact

conundrum

can only promote healthy competition and

creativity

in the video landscape yes netflix

has the money they can afford to engage

high-profile celebrities such as prince

harry and megan

spend a fortune on sports rights footage

and having the best basketball players

in the game

as contributors when it comes to

documentaries such as the last dance

engaged the hollywood elite as talent on

films such as the irishman and birdbox

with the latter receiving upwards of 89

million views and counting

yet the top viewed licensed tv shows on

netflix

in the us include the likes of friends

the office and grey’s anatomy so they’re

clearly still

mindful of giving the audience what they

want

particularly if it’s nostalgic

binge-worthy

and watchable in our pajamas much like

my beloved towny spider i’m now settled

into my current day-to-day environment

and find myself leading a team of very

talented young people

making content for young people and our

kpis have proven to be both flexible

and effective we’ve achieved audience

impact with the programme false hope

alternative cancer cures

which as well as coverage across

multiple bbc platforms

including bbc breakfast the today

program

radio 5 live and bbc three iplayer

saw the cancer act debated in parliament

as a direct result of the documentary

we got the style and tone completely

right

with you match the description stop and

search

a documentary that took a closer look at

controversial police regulations

and has since been shortlisted for a

broadcast digital award

we flexed our storytelling braun in go

back to where you came from

exploring themes of race identity and

white privilege in today’s society

we keep people and characters at the

heart

of everything we do

we might not have the sweeping drone

shot openers that most

netflix documentaries indulge in but if

you’re following a family stranded in

the middle of a syrian bombing

the roof caving in over them the walls

falling down

you can see the blood does it

matter if it’s filmed on a shaky

hand-held smartphone

or a state-of-the-art drone positioned

somewhere over the mediterranean sea

i wanted to conclude with a lesson that

towney learnt

and as his creator is at the heart of

everything i do

put people and characters first

i wouldn’t get anywhere in the work that

i do without a brilliant team of people

around me

friends colleagues and my family

my work in the mental health arena in

particular gained me a woman of the

future

award in 2018 and saw me named on the

financial times’s

kindness and leadership 50 leading

lights list in 2019

in september this year i was named a

yahoo finances heroes role model

for women future leaders making a

significant contribution

to gender diversity at work

and even towney spider got a look in and

was named in the top books for

children’s mental health

by modern magazine so

one last time to keep your narrative

effective

and engaging consider the style and tone

storytelling techniques and the elements

of escapism put your

audience people and characters first

we rise by lifting others

you