Handmade By Hipsters
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A compelling back story is now de rigueur when it comes to selling us things, especially in the food industry; whether it's a bar of chocolate or a cup of coffee, provenance is everything. We take a trip round London's trendy Shoreditch area with man about town and marketing expert, Peter York who explains why being 'handmade by hipsters' can justify sky high prices. Down in the depths of the British Library, Polly Russell tells us how the idea of the backstory came about. We take a leisurely stroll across town to London Bridge where Tom Sellers takes time out from service at his restaurant, Story, to wax lyrical about his culinary pièce de résistance - an edible candle. Steve Sutton, a Colombian in New York insists that sourcing beans from dangerous 'red zones' is vital to his coffee business, Devoción. And what do you do if you have a product to sell but no story to tell? Simon Manchipp from Shoreditch design agency SomeOne is here to help.
(Image: Confident Barista, Credit: Getty)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Elizabeth Hotson. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. On today's program, I'll be looking at how stories are used to sell us things. We'll hear true tales of risking life and limb for a cup of coffee. |
| 0:17.5 | A lot of the agriculture zones in Colombia are red zones. For you to get the best |
| 0:22.8 | coffees, you actually have to go in there. Just the way it is. Is it worth it? A hundred percent. |
| 0:28.9 | And I visit a company which elevates the backstory to an art form. A great backstory should |
| 0:34.7 | ideally be able to be made into a feature film. We look at a backstory and say, |
| 0:40.3 | could we make an entertaining, compelling hour and a half out of this? |
| 0:44.8 | That's all in Business Daily from the BBC. You'd be forgiven. |
| 1:05.7 | You'd be forgiven for thinking that the cult of the backstory started with Simon Cowell, |
| 1:12.1 | the media mogul who made cold, hard cash through our supposed need for an emotional connection. |
| 1:19.3 | On one of his most famous shows, The X Factor, you could have a great song and a wonderful voice, |
| 1:24.9 | but without a tale to tell, worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, |
| 1:29.4 | you might as well go home now, because the backstory is key. |
| 1:34.6 | And this trend for storytelling is increasingly important in the global marketplace. |
| 1:39.7 | In a retail environment where chains are king and you can get a big mac and fries anywhere |
| 1:44.8 | from Seoul to Santiago, authenticity, or rather the appearance of authenticity, is everything. |
| 1:52.5 | Tesco, a huge supermarket chain, is currently running a campaign featuring food love stories, |
| 1:58.8 | which uses heartwarming personal tales to sell everyday cooking ingredients. |
| 2:04.8 | And Cadbury, part of food manufacturing conglomerate Mondalese International, |
| 2:09.5 | uses its website to lovingly set out its illustrious history, |
| 2:13.3 | going back to 1824 when John Cadbury personally made drinking chocolate with a pestle and mortar. |
| 2:21.8 | In a world where you can get what you want, when you want it, realness is priceless. |
| 2:28.3 | What people want now is a backstory that's got virtue, artisanness and ideally purity, organickness, good people |
... |
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