For 18 years, Park Howell has been the owner and chief storyteller of Park&Co, an advertising agency in Phoenix, AZ that exists to build movements that matter.
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30 years of mankind’s impact on the planet caught on tape by NASA and Google
Gary Larson, the biologist-meets-comic cartoonist who created The Far Side, caught fire with the public because of his unique juxtaposition of the universe versus our little lives. This cartoon of a smoldering fire lookout has always been one of my favorites. No words. Just visual irony. I saw a lot of these forest service towers growing up the in the Pacific Northwest. Can you imagine having the place burn down on your watch as you vigilantly survey the miles of evergreens ...
The shortest path to the hero’s journey
Have you ever struggled to get an important concept across to your peers? We've all been there. The powerpoint that sucked. The big idea that didn't penetrate smaller minds. The blown story. The unfocused presentation. There is a foolproof way to bring meaning to every pitch. It is the universal story pattern discovered by American mythologist Joseph Campbell called the monomyth, or the hero's journey. This is the best animation I've seen that quickly takes you by the hand through the ...
The botched Xmas pageant that launched my speaking career
The microphone greeted me like an angry goose craning its head from atop the wood podium. Beyond it, stark silhouettes of parents in a dark and sweaty St. Brendan’s gymnasium peered up at me. I sensed they were eager to watch their particular student play their part in the annual Christmas pageant, and that I was just another speed bump in the production. It was a tad overwhelming for this fourth grader. Poised on the stage behind me were the popular ...
A double shot of brand storytelling at Creative Mornings in Scottsdale
I recently spoke at our local Creative Mornings, the monthly breakfast lecture series hosted in cities around the nation. The theme was "Reuse in Creativity." No, it wasn't a celebration of plagiarism. Rather, I presented a workshop on how to create more powerful stories for sustainability initiatives and green marketing, which are already replete with plagiarism (Leafs on logos, globes in hands, sprigs growing out of lumps of coal). I led with my "Got Green? and 10 Other Brand Curdling Clichés of Green ...
How a fragile velociraptor devoured the Jurassic Park myth
We judge everything in milliseconds. We can't help ourselves. And if you're responsible for telling the story about a brand, than you had better sweat the details. It is in these tiny story morsels where our customers make snap judgements about our offering, and they don't even realize they are doing it. I finally got around to reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, and from it I realized that our stories are often told in a blink of an eye: that all-important ...