"PIXAR©'s 22" adaption to "STORY's 53"
Description
The strength of Pixar’s storytelling rules lies in their universality and adaptability. They provide a structured yet flexible framework that emphasizes emotional connection, character development, and narrative coherence, making them invaluable tools for businesses aiming to communicate effectively and authentically.
Pixar©’s 22 “rules” are like having an emotional swiss army knife for storytelling. This adaption to business reduces the original version to it’s business applicable areas and complexity. “Toy Story” goes “Professional Storytelling”. 😉
They aren’t sequential, but each one targets a specific blind spot, like emotional depth, story structure, character motivation, audience connection and creative problem-solving. Together, they help redefine storytelling, from mechanical plotting to meaningful, moving narratives.
“Pixar©’s 22” were originally created by Emma Coats, a former Pixar storyboard artist, in the year 2011. They have been widely adapted by businesses beyond animation or movie making since then influencing various fields, including business storytelling.
USED BY
- Branding & Marketing: Crafting narratives that resonate with target audiences and their values, forcing them to unwillingly identify with the product itself.
- Leadership Communication: Pushing vision and values compellingly and filing out the biggest gap in leadership worldwide: human centricity and emotional values.
- Sales & Pitching: Engaging stakeholders through relatable stories and reaching customers by putting their own values into the center of activities and storytelling.
- Change Management: Guiding organizations through transitions with narratives to reach those affected and responding to their needs by putting themselves into their shoes.
Approximately needed time
- Step 1: 4-8 hours
- Step 2: 4 hours
- Step 3: 8 hours
- Step 4: 8 hours
- Step 5: 4-8 hours
- TOTAL: 28-36 hours
METHOD
MATERIAL YOU COULD NEED: Storyboarding tools (digital or physical), audience personas, brand guidelines, customer journey maps.
STAKEHOLDER GOOD TO KNOW: ‘Marketing’ to align narratives with brand messaging, ‘leadership, management or strategy’ to ensure stories reflect company vision and values, ‘sales’ to utilize stories in client engagements and ‘customers’ as sources of authentic stories and testimonials.
STEPS
UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE: Empathy is the cornerstone of compelling storytelling.
“Once upon a time, your customer had a problem ___.”
Understand your customer and how your solution could fit. Empathy is starts the magic. Forget your product! Start with the pain, desire, or unmet need of your audience. What emotional or practical itch does it scratch? What do they desire? What are their challenges? What are their main values? Which experiences and aspirations can you mirror to reach them best?
Supporting methods: Customer interviews, customer surveys, (AI) researches, customer empathy/journey mapping and user/audience personas.
Example: A company selling eco-friendly packaging tells the story of a small business owner striving to reduce their environmental footprint, highlighting shared values and challenges.
DEFINE THE CORE MESSAGE: A clear central “picture” ensures consistency and focus.
“Then, one day ___ everything shifted.”
What changed in the market, technology, mindset, or context that made your product inevitable? Introduce the catalyst by giving context to your hero product. What is the customers take-away? Which value proposition can reach them? Which elements can you use to enforce your messaging?
Supporting methods: Message mapping and elevator pitch.
Example: A fintech startup emphasizes “financial empowerment” as the central theme, weaving it through customer success stories & testimonials and product features.
GIVE IT A PERSONAL STRUCTURE: A well-structured story enhances engagement and retention.
Use the method of the “story spine” (compact extract):
“Once upon a time ___. Every day ___. One day ___. Because of that ___ . Until finally___.”
The stage now is yours. To be precise, your solution has the stage. Place the message with a bold point of view and a clear purpose.
Your product isn’t a feature list. It’s a “character” with attitude, values, strengths and even flaws. Give it a voice. Make it memorable. Describe from the pros and gains a person keeps when using, applying, buying it. Your audience remembers emotions they combine with it, not KPIs or specs.
Supporting methods: Storyboard and narrative arc development.
Example: A health app narrates a user’s journey from struggling with fitness to achieving wellness goals, structured to highlight transformation and impact and showing its potential outcome for motivation.
INCORPORATE YOUR HERO/PRODUCT: Relatable products, solution, message, etc. foster emotional connections with your audience.
“But it wasn’t easy ___ the real world pushed back. In the end, it’s really about ___.“
Use conflict, resistance and your solution. Real or metaphorical. Talk about the market and their solution not fitting as yours. What do users struggle with? What legacy solution is holding them back? Show the battle your product is helping to win. Strip it down: What’s the soul of your product story in one sentence? Something human, emotive, unforgettable. Something your audience really wants. Dramaturgical emotions helps to sells clarity. Feature real customers/cases showcasing their challenges and decisions and growth to make the story feel real.
Supporting methods: Shirt-It, case studies and testimonials.
Example: An educational platform shares a customers’s story of overcoming obstacles to achieve success in storytelling, humanizing the brand and proving that it can support as good (or even better) than a friend.
REFINE AND ITERATE: Continuous improvement ensures relevance and effectiveness.
“Now, life looks like this ___. IT’s not a fairytale. It’s a real story that continues. With you ___.”
Show the before vs. after. Demonstrate transformation in your user’s life. Not just what changed, but how they feel now and how your product builds is the bridge from pain to power. Don’t oversell. Show authentic evolution. Invite users to join, build, re-design, co-develop or shape what’s next. Authenticity is your emotional fingerprint the audience will remember. Use feedback as prove or need-to-adapt and supporting KPIs and metrics for this. And adjust! 😉
Supporting methods: A/B testing, feedback loops, content audits.
Example: A SaaS company revises its onboarding story based on user feedback, enhancing clarity and engagement.
PROMINENT BRANDS USING IT
Nike: Marketing campaigns often focus on personal stories of perseverance and triumph, aligning with Pixar’s emphasis on character-driven narratives. (You) just do it!
Coca-Cola: Utilizing storytelling to evoke emotions and create memorable brand experiences, reflecting Pixar’s rule of making audiences care about the characters and their journeys. And, just en-pasant, creating a need for cold beverages in winter months by dedicatedly setting up a Santa Claus as messenger.
Apple: Product launches and advertisements often tell stories that highlight innovation, instead of really being one, and user empowerment, resonating with Pixar’s storytelling techniques.
Airbnb: Shares user stories to build trust and community, embodying Pixar’s principle of making the audience root for the characters. And even applying it techniques to their commercials in their unique Look&Feel.
Google: Their “Year in Search” videos compile global events into cohesive narratives, demonstrating the application of Pixar’s storytelling rules in summarizing complex information emotionally.
ORIGINAL: 22 STEPS FOR A PERFECT STORY
- You admire a character for trying more than for their success.
Show struggle and growth, not just triumph. Audiences fall for effort. - You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to the audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer.
Empathy first, ego second. Write for hearts, not just your hard drive. - Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about until you’re at the end. Now rewrite.
Start messy, end meaningful. The real theme emerges after the journey. - Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
The Pixar spine. A 5-sentence structure that gives your story momentum and cause-effect logic. - Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
Kill your darlings. Less fat, more flavor. - What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Tension is transformation. Growth happens when comfort dies. - Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
Write backwards. Clarity of destination sharpens every step. - Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
Perfection is the enemy of published. Growth comes through done. - When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
Think inside the “no.” Boundaries force creativity. - Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
Reverse-engineer your inspiration. Mine your taste. - Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it.
An idea in your head is schrödinger’s story. Writing reveals if it lives. - Discount the first thing that comes to mind. And the second, third, fourth, fifth – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Dig past cliché. Buried treasure lies beneath the first five drafts. - Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
Flat = forgettable. Characters need bite to be memorable. - Why must you tell this story? What’s the belief burning in your gut? That’s the heart of it.
If it doesn’t matter to you, it won’t matter to anyone else. - If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
Truth sells the fantasy. Emotions are universal currency. - What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds.
Risk sharpens interest. No tension, no story. - No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
Everything feeds the compost pile. Even “waste” becomes growth. - You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not polishing.
Don’t polish the apple before it’s grown. Draft, then dazzle. - Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Bad luck: allowed. Miracles: banned. Earn your resolutions. - Exercise: Take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How would you rearrange them into something you do like?
Remix mastery. Even broken stories have good bones. - You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make you act that way?
Cool without cause = cold. Relatable beats remarkable. - What’s the essence of your story? The most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build from there.
A story’s soul fits on a napkin. Get to the core.
