If American Idol wasn’t enough to prove that we all love a great story, check out The Voice coming to NBC this week.  It is the latest music-reality starmaker program. And come September, North America will see Simon Cowell’s X Factor for the first time. Music is a great foundation to tell a dramatic story.

Since human beings came to exist, we’ve loved stories. We carved them on cave walls. Then we sang them and told them as fables and legends. We turned them into songs. As technology advanced we created books, magazines, TV shows, and movies. Stories, all of them.

Great brands have compelling stories with engaging lead characters and dramatic twists and turns. Mark Zuckerberg’s first twenty years became dramatized in The Social Network last year. In that case, reality was equally as enticing as the fiction it inspired.

Great stories exist in business, and smart brands tell them.  Chrysler’s recent “Imported From Detroit” commercials wonderfully tell the story of hard times and a rise from the ashes.  Dos Equis brilliantly tells the ongoing story of “The Most Interesting Man In The World”.

Are you telling a story, or just selling your stuff? The secret is that if we buy into your story, there’s a good chance we’ll buy whatever you are selling as well.

By the way, you can follow my story on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/rockstarbrands.  I never tweet about what I had for breakfast, but I do zealously tweet about branding, marketing, advertising, and building better businesses.

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Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga have put “The Law of Publicity” to good use.

“The Law of Publicity” is one of the laws covered in the book “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” by Al and Laura Ries.  It essentially states that publicity, not marketing, will launch new brands.  Brands that generate favorable publicity in the media will be the ones that survive long term.  The Ries’ cite The Body Shop, a company that grew into a global brand and the world’s second largest cosmetics company with very little advertising, but plenty of positive publicity.  Meanwhile, Miller spent $50 million to launch “Miller Regular” and despite all of that advertising, the brand when nowhere because it generated no publicity.

Adam Lambert was the runner up on the 8th season of American Idol.  Quick… who was the winner?  I’ll bet far more people know Lambert’s name compared to the eventual winner, Kris Allen.

Lambert released his debut album in November, and on the American Music Awards that month he capped off a sexually-charged performance with an open mouthed kiss with a male keyboardist.  The kiss became the talk of the media for several days, and ABC quickly removed him from his planned spot on Good Morning America.  Sensing opportunity, CBS invited Lambert to perform on The Early Show instead.

Would Lambert’s name have been plastered all over the press if he hadn’t kissed his keyboard player?  Not a chance.  Lambert pushed the envelope just enough to make himself the #1 entertainment story, until Tiger Woods met up with a fire hydrant in his Escalade.

Lady Gaga is talented, no doubt.  She could play piano by ear at age 4 and was accepted at Julliard at 11, and at age 17 gained early admission to NYU’s Tische School of Arts.  But talent alone seldom wins.  So Lady Gaga began to incorporate burlesque elements into her live gigs, turning her shows into a sort of performance art.  As she began to become more famous, her costumes became more elaborate, including bubble-wrap dresses and many nearly-nude outfits.

Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert have used their sexuality, outrageousness, and uniqueness to create publicity to launch their careers and gain attention.  They can now use their talent to cement the bond with their new fans.

Publicity is a party invitation… it makes you aware and asks you to come in and give it a try.  Talent is the party… the music, food, drinks, atmosphere, and friends.  Publicity makes you want to go, talent makes you want to stay.

Of course, people are always leaving the party, so the need for publicity never really goes away.

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