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Plots And Storyscapes

THE PLOT

I want to use a metaphor to explain how cultural rules and plots control people's behavior.  If we think of the streets on which we drive you can imagine all of the street signs, traffic lights and route restrictions as being the cultural rules that we obey.  These rules force us to stop, turn left, turn right and park where there are no restrictions.  The cultural rules limit our activities and decisions.

But within those restrictions we will decide to drive a certain route to our destination.  How do we plan that route and how do we think about it before we set off?  The play behavior of children opens the door to how we do this.

When children play they will often express their play verbally.  Listen to them play and you will hear them create a script for their play.  They will say something along the lines of "Now Mandy runs the shop and danny comes in and buys some green things and then he pays Mandy and then he goes out and then Mandy cleans the shop..."  This is an example of creating a plot.  I call it STORYSCAPING.

And as adults we use the same method to plan our actions.  Though we tend not to create a plot verbally as a child does, we do create a plot in our minds which will include images, sounds, actions and perhaps even smells and tastes.  Before we attempt to start out on a journey we will visualize that journey using the elements stored in our mental map of the world.  That visualization may only take a split second but it will include us getting into our car, starting the engine, driving down the road and other parts of the journey we can add to the plot.  And we use the same method of plot creation for everything we plan to do from making a business decision to knocking a nail into a wall.

We create thousands of these plots.  Some have a short life-span whilst others can last for years.  A short plot may be created for a trip to the grocery store whilst a long lasting plot may be a long-held desire to emigrate to a foreign country.  In either case we create a plot and play it back to ourselves.  These plots are like the scripts to our own personal  movies.

And the actions we take are trying to turn these virtual plots into real life experiences.  When we feel thirsty we create a micro plot of going to fridge, opening the door, getting a drink and drinking it.  We then physically attempt to turn that plot into reality.

When reality does not meet the plots we create we can become surprised, frustrated, happy or angry.  For example, take an average guy who on a Monday morning creates a plot of him driving to work, sitting at his desk and trying to catch up with the leftover tasks from the week before.  But reality has him walking into to work and being asked to attend a meeting where he is made redundant.  The difference between his plot and reality will create an emotional reaction.

So what has this got to do with promoting products and services on a web site?  Well, many of your visitors are arriving at your web site with a plot in their heads.  A clue to that plot lies in the search phrase they may use to reach your site. 

For example one visitor's plot may be "Get dressed up for Cindy's party tomorrow.  Turn up and greet her with a gift and some wine.  Tell her about my new job.  Stay clear of Dave and Joan to avoid a repeat argument.  Congratulate Debbie on her engagement.  Just have a couple of drinks.  Leave before eleven o'clock."   So where in that plot is there anything about searching the internet using a particular search phrase and looking for a particular item?  There isn't.  But scene 2 of the plot is to give Cindy a gift.  Perhaps that would lead to a second micro-plot.  "We went shopping together last week.  Cindy stood outside the chocloate shop and made a comment about a pink box of chocolates she liked."  This second plot is created from a memory of a past event but the web site visitor is likely to amend her first plot..."Turn up and greet Cindy.  Hand over a pink box of chocloates to her and a bottle of wine.  Cindy smiles and says she always wanted a pink box of chocloates."    This is the plot the visitor has created and she will now attempt to turn it into physical reality. 

You may notice there is very little use of abstract concepts here.  The visitor is not drawing up a logic diagram, or using calculations and formulas to calculate an ultimate benefit.  The visitor has created a little movie in their head and will use this to direct their plans.  This is how people plan their future actions.  They forecast the future by creating mental plots of the world in the future.  Of course reality may be different for this visitor.  At the point she hands over the chocloates, the response from Cindy may be news that she has started a diet and is avoiding chocolate like the plague.  But those considerations are not driving the visitor's current actions.  Fulfiling the plot is driving them. 

There are two approaches to dealing with this. 

The first approach would be to present web content that resembles the plot your visitors have in their heads.   In this visitor's plot the ideal content would be a offering a pink box of chocolates as birthday gift with the image of someone handing it over on the doorstep to the smiling host of the party.  The closer the site created content that fitted the visitor's plot, the greater the probability of a conversion.  But there is a downside to this approach.  A thousand visitors will provide a thousand different plots.  How can you possibly provide web content to meet all of these plot variations.  You could find the common factors among these plots and display them.  That would improve the conversion rate but would never be a 100% match for any individual.  The other problem to overcome is how to discover what these plots are in the first place?  The answer to that is to talk to as many people as possible to discover the variety of plots that are being created and find common elements.

The second approach is to ignore the visitor's plot.  Instead, create your own plots on your web site and let your visitor's accept them.  We know this works because this is why so many people buy novels and watch movies.  People are quite happy to accept other people's plots.  Of course these plots have to fit within the visitor's cultural rules.  If they do not, then the visitor will not go there.  Returning to my street sign metaphor, it is like asking a driver to turn right when a road sign shows the road is blocked.  Their cultural rules do not allow them to turn right at that junction.

Creating your own plots is more flexible and allows you to steer visitors into your world.  And creating them is relatively easy.  The traditional way of presenting a product is to show an image of it with a description, a price, maybe some reviews or star ratings and order/delivery instructions.  Where is the plot in that?  There is hardly any at all unless a reviewer supplies a story of the product's use.  Instead, why not create a plot based around the product's use in a situation.  For example, say the product is a tool such as a drill.  The plot could be a workman getting his tools together, measuring a wall, fitting a drill bit, drilling the holes, inserting screws and fixing a cupoard to the wall.  Here the drill is part of a plot and there is good chance this is exactly the plot that many visitors will have created themselves.  The plot does not have to created in a script format.  It could just be a serise of images above the product display and description.  Once again there is nothing abstract here.  This is a plot containing a serise of events and players including the workman and the drill.

Walk out onto a busy street and you will see lots of people passing by you.  You may see people shopping or eating or reading or hailing a taxi.  Each and everyone one of them is following the a plot they have created.  The air is filled with these invisible plots.  If only we could see them in bubbles above each person's head then we would understand the people around us a whole lot better.