Photo: Puma. Loukia Richards. 2016.
Sales experts of luxury goods (such as jewellery) call the new indispensable marketing tool: Story Telling.
Art and craft market professionals in London and Berlin do agree that a good story behind your work is what gives the customer the final incentive or „kick“ to buy it.
My lecture titled „What jewellery designers can learn from media coverage“ at Zimmerhof Symposium 2014 was met with mixed feelings, namely: open hostility AND enthusiasm.
Some established artists were pissed off because I talked about the market; some students were curious and happy because I talked about the market and nobody talks about how to make *dough* at school.
The most important question I have learned to ask during my training as a journalist at Reuters in London and Athens was:
So what?
Or to put it in jewellery terms:
Your jewellery looks great, but so what? I have plenty of jewelry, why should I buy a new piece? Give me a reason, give me a story, convince me that your jewlery makes sense to me!
Inflated egos may be seriously hurt when one asks them what is the meaning of what they do. They talk to you about beauty and about art and about emotions. Their beauty, their art, their emotions… At the end of the day though when your stomach is empty your emotions do not count if they have not managed to touch the heart of your customer.
This is an axiom: There is a a lot of nonsense in the contemporary jewellery world.
The even worse question is: Who cares?
Who cares about your design? Who cares about your show? Who cares about your concept? Who cares about your emotions?
I promise you: Once you find the answers to these questions, your work will be unforgetable!
If there is one thing you may learn from how professionals cover breaking news, this is the following statement:
News published in the press ALWAYS have meaning for the life of other people.
What makes something meaningful for the life of other people so that they must know?
The three things that turn everybody’s head are:
- Sex or how to get more pleasure
- Gain or how to win more money or not lose money/opportunities/status
- Paradoxa or human stories that prove that life is unpredictable and always writes the best scenarios.
You want to know more on How To Tell Your Story?
Stay tuned! Our next Open Calls will be published very soon!
LINKS:
http://www.zlr-betriebsimperium.tk
http://www.initiation-project.com
http://www.leaveyourcrisis.com
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