How to Construct Plot in Narrative Ads

I was recently asked to read a draft pilot script and part of my feedback was that it had no plot - no engine driving the story forward in a way that made me wonder what was going to happen next. It had great characters with funny dialogue, but there was nothing to engage my brain’s constant thirst to connect things. That’s what’s so enjoyable about stories - the tug of war between your brain trying to find patterns and the story twisting in interesting ways that subvert what you were anticipating. 

Overlooking that chemical element of good storytelling is common in pilots because the temptation is to spend all your pages introducing the characters and their unique world, so you end up with a meandering sequence of events rather than a compelling story. When I was screenwriting for a living I made this mistake plenty of times despite reading all the books, listening to all the podcasts and even attending Robert McKee’s famed “Story” seminar twice (McKee and his 3 day seminar were made famous in Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze’s 2002 film, Adaptation). Why? Because storytelling is hard!

But then I heard Matt Stone and Trey Parker talk about their “therefore/but” approach to plotting stories and suddenly plot was a lot less confusing and mysterious. Watch the video below (linked here bc LI doesn't support video embed on mobile ?????♀?) and you’ll get it, but the upshot is that if you can look at your story beats/scenes and see that they’e connected by “and then” statements (e.g. this happens AND THEN this happens AND THEN this happens…) then your story is screwed. You want those beats to be connected by either “therefore” or “but” - e.g. this happens THEREFORE this happens BUT this happens THEREFORE that happens…

That’s the simple key to plot. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated. And once you’ve got your head around plot then your storytelling will be more interesting, unexpected and engaging. 

And that brings me to narrative ads.

Commercial scripts are a narrative form unto their own, but getting them right still requires adhering to basic storytelling principles like plot development. As a director, I see structural issues in many scripts I'm sent and I think it primarily comes down to the way the script is structured. More often than not the characters have been thought through and there's a story, but there's often something seemingly intangible that is missing. It's the thing that is the difference between a great script and a not so great one. It's engagement, and engagement is a product of plot - the way the story is told.  

While a typical broadcast or online ad is a long way from the complexity of a TV pilot, the same story sequencing issues persist because the moment you start a story you are in the attention game. You have to earn attention and hold it, whether you’re telling a story to five coked-up comrades at an industry xmas party, tapping out a 30 second ad an hour before a conference call with client or sitting at home with a cat on your feet writing a book. 

But what’s the way to get attention and hold it? PLOT! And what is plot as it applies to writing ads? It’s just structuring your story in the most interesting and unexpected way, and making sure that each beat pushes into the next. 

Let’s consider the Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” script. A classic. And a great piece of plot driven writing. It’s possibly the most difficult spot I could’ve chosen to demonstrate this idea because its story is deliberately absurd and part of the charm of absurdity is that it subverts your brain’s attempts to anticipate story patterns by jumping into completely unexpected areas. But that doesn’t mean absurd stories are a sequence of disconnected beats. If the story works to grab and hold attention like The Man Your Man Could Smell Like so famously did, then at its core it is using fundamentally solid storytelling techniques. Anything that doesn’t is boring.   

Let’s break the Old Spice spot down into Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s therefore/but theory. A guy is in the shower BUT then the walls are removed to reveal he’s now on a boat, THEREFORE he’s dressed in yacht chic clothes and we're at sea. We look in his hand to see an oyster that produces two tickets and diamonds BUT when we look back up to him we see he is now on a horse THEREFORE proving that anything is possible when your man smells like an Old Spice man and not a lady.  

You might argue that you could put “and then” in between each of those scenes, but you’d be fucking dead wrong you insufferable twit, don’t ever think for yourself again. Each of those scenes is motivated by the one that precedes it and they all feed into the core insight that anything is possible when your man smells like an Old Spice man.

In fact, that’s the basic structure of any effective narrative ad. Each scene exists to support and tell a story that must lead us to the conclusion that the premise/insight is the only logical outcome. And that’s what makes writing ads so freaking hard. You’re not only writing a story, but that story must also prove something in an effective way. 

Let’s consider Luc Schurger’s recent spot for Axe (yes I’m using an example from a HOOVES director - did you really think I’m going to write something this long without using it to try to help fund a family trip to Japan next year?). So, yeah, the VO suggests that it’s hard to believe that fresh forest and graffiti smell better together, just like it’s hard to believe that Kangaroos can’t walk backwards. THEREFORE we see our main character head toward the toilet on a plane BUT he encounters a Kangaroo that can’t move backwards THEREFORE our guy is blocked, proving that Kangaroos can’t walk backwards and THEREFORE proving by default that it’s true that fresh forest and graffiti smell better together. Obviously the meta joke is that the story actually offers no real proof that fresh forest and graffiti smell better together, but to successfully land that joke the script needs to adhere to good storytelling principles. 

I’m interested in breaking down ads in this way because I think they are under-appreciated as narrative forms that are distinct from film, TV, literature, etc. Look at the Spotify spot below - that sequencing can only exist as a commercial. It would make no sense as a scene in a film. But at the same time, it uses the same fundamental narrative tools as a film to engage and hold its audience. 

So in summary, dear ad writer, before you send your next million dollar comedy script to [email protected] make sure you’ve not only paid attention to the product insight and the character, but also to fundamental storytelling technique of plot. In the meantime just remember that HOOVES directors are chosen for their visual wizardry and sense of humour BUT also for their deep command of the craft of storytelling, THEREFORE making HOOVES the number one comedy-focused creative company in the Asia Pacific region. No BUTs about it.