Show and Tell: Creating Connection with Storytelling

Using stories to communicate is a key skill for any data analyst or market researcher. Stories help bring numbers to life and connect an audience to your insights. But too often the tale isn’t told, instead a graph or statistic attempts the heavy lifting of your communication, which is forcing the audience to complete the story themselves and not always the way the author intends.

Storytelling is a fundamental element in the big, bad world of data story. It may feel like it’s just the surface stuff, the icing on the cake, but it can be the most effective communication tool you have, if used correctly.

I just finished my annual re-watch of the brilliant Canadian comedy show Schitt’s Creek. Highly recommended, if you haven’t come across it yet. Accompanying the series was a documentary in which the show’s co-creator, Dan Levy, talks about the many moving parts of the production.

One thing he said really stood out to me. He stated that after the script the most important storytelling device in a TV show is wardrobe – the costumes the characters wear. And the more I thought about it, the more I got his point loud and clear.

Costumes provide so much information about a character. Not just for the audience but for the actors themselves. They help convey a character’s status, their mood, their personal quirks. And in a show like Schitt’s Creek they underline everything the characters believe about themselves and the world around them.

The central characters of the Rose family wear clothes that place them in direct contrast to the outfits worn by the townspeople in the show. The look and styling clearly communicate that the Roses are outliers in their surroundings. The writers don’t need to give clumsy or labored explanations in the script about how the characters feel. It’s all there for us to see. It’s about showing, not telling the story. From these cues, the audience find their connection to the characters.

Drawing the right story connection is just as important in market research and data. Audiences don’t need lengthy explanations on how the data was gathered to understand the meaning. Save that for an appendices. When sharing data, connection comes down to three key things: visual association, metaphor, and specific detail.

Visuals and descriptive language can help us sell the meaning of our data. A picture’s worth a thousand words is cliché for a reason. It’s true! If you want to see data visualization and storytelling done well then look no further than The New York Times. The Times has a reputation for building story worlds through their online articles. They keep explanations simple and add context and meaning through clear graphics and animation.

This example is particularly effective: Your Contribution to the California Drought. It draws on imagery from household foods and places them in relation to the amount of water required to produce an average serving size. It’s compelling stuff and the meaning is shockingly clear.

Here the visual is doing all the work. You don’t even need to read the article to get the message. Consider what visual language you can use to energize your data and land the meaning.

When data gets dense people may need help to understand what they’re seeing. Using visual or written metaphors can help an audience cut through the detail and get to the heart of the matter quickly.

Metaphor, analogy, allegory, simile, etc. work by representing a complex set of information with a simplified or familiar alternative. It’s about the associations the audience makes with the information provided. The brain uses its own experiences to filter the complex data through a more simplistic lens. This can also have the added benefit of making the presentation of data more memorable.

Another way to make information memorable is to get specific. Audiences crave the finer points that make a story more believable and memorable. The brain loves detail. It helps us with visualization, emotional connection, and pattern recognition.

So, take a beat the next time you reach for the graph builder in PowerPoint. How else can you connect your audience to your data? Which storytelling tool could you use? Maybe adding specific detail from some associated qualitative research might help. Perhaps you need to help them see the statistics metaphorically. Or possibly you just need a killer visual to tie everything together to make your work impactful and easy to recall.