What is a story really worth?

Top line: Most execs dismiss storytelling as fluff. But the Significant Object experiment proves otherwise: attaching a story to worthless items raised their value by over 6100%. This article unpacks how emotion, narrative, and meaning fuel buying behaviour—and why story may be your brand’s most underused profit lever.

Many business execs write off storytelling as fluffy stuff. Creative waffle. Not the hardnosed matter that really drives a solid profit.

But the findings of a Significant Object experiment show how silly it might be to discount the strategic strength of the ordinary narrative – particularly in an intensely competitive modern marketplace. Turns out, a good story drives big revenue and margin gains for any business. Even a junk one.

Journalists Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn already knew the commercial value of a good tale. But they wanted hard evidence to prove that good storytelling offered business a powerful way to get a mindshare edge over rivals.

So, the two set up a now well-known behavioural science experiment to test the theory that a standout story not only sets an enterprise solution well apart from the competition – but ramps up the bottom line. Hugely.

To build the case, Walker and Glenn randomly sourced and bought a hundred worthless objects to auction on eBay. The items cost a little over $1 each. Their final collection of useless gimmicks included a snow globe, a paperweight, a tin badge, a key ring, birthday candles, and a home-made ceramic horse head. Nothing anyone would ever really choose to buy online for good money.

Then they co-opted a hundred published authors to each write a story about one of the valueless objects; stories that ran alongside each object on the auction site.

The hundred stories about the items were mostly short. The ceramic horse head featured in a chronicle about two people meeting up at university. A poker game story revolved around the tacky saltshaker item. And a small pink plastic horse played the lead role in a tale of human tragedy.

The auction results had a very happy ending. All the low-value tokens sold quickly. And for an enormous profit. The portfolio of rubbish bought for a total of $129 fetched over $8000. A whopping gain of 6101%. The ceramic horse head that cost Walker and Glenn just 99 cents sold for $62.95! A ridiculously large ROI. (Of course, other biases and elements were at play in the experiment. But you get the big idea.)

The Significant Object experiment successfully proved that the human mind is strongly influenced by emotional context. And that the human brain irrationally attaches disproportionate value to things when emotions get stirred.

The story study also proved a high correlation between emotion and value; the more emotional the story, the higher the price the customers paid.

Each story gave the customer an emotional frame of reference for objects that they otherwise had no connection to. Each buyer bought the meaning that gave the object the value paid. Each story established a relational link with the buyer. Each object was remembered for a considerably long time. And isn’t that what every brand is trying to do?

If a well-crafted narrative can drive up the demand, value, margins and memorability for any old junk, perhaps it’s time to explore what a good story can do for a quality brand like yours?

Bottom line
The right brand story doesn’t just connect—it converts. If memorable stories can ramp up the value of junk hugely, it will certainly  boost anyones sales and margins. Dismissing story as soft is likely costing your business hard cash.