“How do you use the ABT to simplify visuals and get them to tell a story?” I was asked this morning during a storytelling training session with Walmart Canada leaders.

“Whoa,” great question, I responded.

Ernest is a leader who deals with a lot of data. He wants to simplify his communication with more engaging visuals.

But my answer was, “It depends.”

It depends on the messaging you’re sending in your visual communications. Is it supposed to be funny, serious, surprising, novel, etc.?

It depends on what channels you are using.

It depends on the makeup of your audience and how they like to receive their information.

I know, not as specific of an answer as you or Ernest are looking for, but it’s honest.

An hour after our training, I came across a mention of the iconic LEGO® campaign that uses only visual storytelling without any copy (gasp) and a pint-sized logo (“inconceivable,” for your Princess Bride fans).

Plant, Pivot, Payoff

To me, the brilliance of this visual storytelling campaign can be pieced together using the And, But, Therefore narrative template.

Let’s examine the plane ad.

You see the familiar colorful LEGO snapped together to make a rudimentary airplane. We can all agree on that.

But the shadow it casts of an actual airplane reveals a surprise, communicating the imagination at play.

The “Therefore,” or consequence of this visual play, is the LEGO brand. It answers the question posed by the contrasting images: “What makes this visual metaphor?”

Agreement, contradiction and consequence are the three forces of story. They are the foundation of the And, But, Therefore (ABT) narrative framework.

Our primal pattern-seeking, puzzle-solving, buying limbic brain loves to digest information in this order.

Another way of thinking of these forces are Plant, Pivot, and Payoff.

You plant the familiar to set the stage for what we all know as the status quo (agreement).

Then you make a novel pivot to introduce a relevant competing idea (contradiction). You want to build as much contrast between Plant and Pivot as possible to energize your story.

The Payoff answers the contradiction created by the visual metaphor (consequence).

Stand-up comics follow the same format when writing their jokes: Set up, twist, punchline.

It’s simply the ubiquitous ABT framework in different forms.

The LEGO campaign is an inspired application of the three forces of story. They work because these forces play beautifully in the theater of your mind inviting you into the story to solve the puzzle.

The Atlantic’s Derick Thompson and I discuss the importance of your brand storytelling being familiar but novel on The Business of Story podcast.

Use the ABT framework to structure all of your visual, written and oral storytelling and I promise your ship will come in.

Story on!