Your story is universal
Your product may be large or small, hard or soft, natural or manmade. Or if your product is a service, it may not physically exist at all. No matter the nature of your product, your story — the story of your product that your audience tells itself and each other — is short and simple. And it shares a structure with every other story out there.
The FURV Curve
Your story has four fundamental elements. And those elements are the same for all products, no matter the type:
| Functionality | Does your product do what it claims to do? Yes ✗? Or no ✓? |
| Usefulness | Does that functionality have an ongoing place in my (the audience’s) life? Yes ✗? Or no ✓? |
| Reliability | Does that functionality show up when I need it to? Yes ✗? Or no ✓? |
| Value | In light of the reliability, is the usefulness worth the cost? Yes ✗? Or no ✓? |
F U R V. That’s it. Really.
Now you may be thinking: Something’s missing from the list:
Advertising. What about that? Doesn’t my advertising tell my story?