The Pixar Pitch

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Storytelling Technique: The Pixar Pitch

The Pixar Pitch, made fam­ous by Dan Pink in his book To Sell Is Human, is an excel­lent way to find a nar­rat­ive in your business. 

Emma Coats, a story artist at Pixar, has broken down the key ele­ments of great storytelling in an eleg­ant way that cer­tainly could help improve your storytelling. 

Here’s the Pixar Pitch script for you to try: 

Once upon a time there was _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Every day _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. One day _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Because of that _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Because of that _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Until finally _________. 

Jay Connor gives this example of a plot for Finding Nemo:

Once upon a time, there was a wid­owed fish named Marlin, who was highly pro­tect­ive of his only son, Nemo.

Every day Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean’s dangers and implored him not to swim far away.

One day in an act of defi­ance, Nemo ignores his father’s warn­ings and swims into the open water.

Because of that, he is cap­tured by a diver and ends up in the fish tank of a dent­ist in Sydney.

Because of that Marlin sets off on a jour­ney to recov­er Nemo, enlist­ing the help of oth­er sea creatures along the way.

Until finally Marvin and Nemo find each oth­er, reunite and learn that love depends on trust.

As I tried this for my own freel­ance busi­ness, Spin Factory, here’s what I came up with:

Once upon a time, there was no inter­net.

Every day, com­pan­ies had to rely on a few power­ful mass media dis­trib­ut­ors to mar­ket to their con­sumers.

One day, the advance­ments in inform­a­tion tech­no­logy exploded, and all com­pan­ies had to change their way of reach­ing out, but few knew how to do this.

Because of that, “social media experts” emerged and star­ted mak­ing money from com­pan­ies by advising them to pol­lute the digit­al uni­verse with clut­ter and com­plex­ity.

Because of that, Jerry struggled with the idea that com­pan­ies should strive to be clear­er instead of rely­ing on the same old spray-and-pray strategy.

Until finally, he decided to take a leap of faith togeth­er with a small group of cli­ents, all tired of push­ing one mes­sage after the oth­er with no effect, and so the agency Spin Factory was born.

Learn more: The Pixar Pitch