Substance and Form

At FirstVoice we study the substance of our client’s stories. We look for the power they can gain by properly defining and using the basic story elements every story (TV commercial, feature film, love sonnet or sales pitch) needs to earn shelf space in our overcrowded memories. This doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the importance that form plays in making some stories – particularly TV ads – stickier than others. I stumbled across a slide show connected to Seth Stevenson piece in Slate, “There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the World - Resist them all!” in which he discusses a theory by Adman Donald Gunn that all ads are based on 12 “master formats.” The theory is strong, and the 12 example ads the slide show uses to make his case are great examples of how to use the five story elements in practice. Plug into the slide show at slate.com and we’ll talk more about how form (the 12 master formats) and substance (the five story elements) interact to create a hit.