Storytelling as a money printer
…Or how a cracked cup proved the economic value of a good story.
Around 2009, Rob Walker, an American journalist, was staring down at the broken pieces of his favourite coffee cup. Its ”objective” value was probably around 10 bucks (pre-breakage) but to Walker, the ”ugly”, Baltimorean diner-gift shop coffee cup was worth way more.
Now, the concept of increased subjective worth of things we have a personal history with isn’t news to anyone, but Walker, being a writer, was curious if his story about the cracked coffee cup could increase its subjective value for other people as well.
…And so the storytelling experiment of Significant Objects saw the light of day.
Rob Walker teamed up with the journalist Joshua Glenn and together they scavenged thrift stores and flea markets for insignificant objects costing no more than $1,50.
They then gave 100 objects to 100 different writers to make up a story about their given objects and auction them off on Ebay. But the assignment came with a rule: they could not under any circumstance connect their fake stories to famous people, spectacular events or other out-of-the-bag crowd pleasing facts.
The objects’ value increased with 2700%
So what was the result of the experiment? A whooping final mark up of 2700% from the initial $149 invested. Ridiculous. Rob and Joshua also made sure to auction off copies of certain objects sans the stories for a nice little A-B testing to prove that it is indeed the story that makes the sell.
Here are some of the objects that were sold.
Click on the images to read their stories.
