Storytelling is one of the best ways imaginable to shift perception and behavior.
You probably don’t think of Netflix as your first choice for hot new shows, but it’s had a couple of major successes now. Netflix’s original content has been riding the crest of popular culture with an additional season of the cult classic Arrested Development and even more dramatically with the company’s incredibly popular original series, Orange Is the New Black.
Orange Is the New Black made a big splash in its first season. Now in its second year, the show’s popularity has extended beyond conversations at water coolers and cocktail hours to create a new fashion trend: those in the know are adopting the bright-orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners on the show as a fashionable outfit to wear when out and about in the big city. The new style might not have hit your corner of the world yet but it’s taken root enough to drive some changes for those in charge of real-life prisons.
In response to the craze for orange jumpsuits, the Saginaw County Jail in Michigan has ordered brand new jumpsuits that are unlikely to be mistaken for the old orange ones now showing up on fashionistas around the country. Apparently the coolest threads of the year are creating confusion between those who are part of the actual prison work crew and those who are simply super-hip.
William Federspiel, Saginaw County Sherriff, felt that since the orange prisoner jumpsuits had become “cool,” his duty was to swap them out for something more distinctive to avoid confusion and serve as a reminder to prisoners that they’re convicted felons, not stars.
“We decided that the black-and-white stripes would be the best way to go because it signifies ‘jail inmate,’ and I don’t see people out there wanting to wear black-and-white stripes,” Federspiel told the Saginaw News. “When the lines get blurred between the culture outside the jail and the culture within the jail I have to do something to redefine those boundaries, because they’ve been blurred far too often in public culture.”
It’s easy to see why prison uniforms have to be recognizable in the interest of public safety, but what’s harder to grasp is the shift that has occurred. The lines between prison culture and public culture in the United States have for centuries been well enough defined to prevent most people from adopting distinctive prison garb as their outfits of choice. What’s different now?
Storytelling has made the critical difference. Orange Is the New Black tells a story compelling enough to inspire regular folks with no particular ties to the prison system to publicly identify with the characters in the show. Everyone in the country is familiar with prison uniforms and has been since childhood, but the garments held no appeal until Piper Kerman and the rest of the Litchfield Prison gang made them relatable objects laden with social and emotional import.
Through the sheer power of storytelling public perception shifted enough to make it cool to wear a bright orange prison jumpsuit. When you tell a compelling story, you can impact perception and behavior in powerful and unexpected ways. Take advantage of storytelling in your efforts to market your accounting firm and you’ll be blown away at the results you get.
