If you want to understand how story shapes behavior, here’s a riddle:
People are hiking into the woods to find five-ton trolls built from scrap wood. Entire families driving hours to see them. Locals signing up to help build them for free.
No one is persuading them. They’re volunteering.
Why?
That’s what we’re uncovering today.
Issue #004
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Saturday morning. It was bright and Carolina blue.
My husband and I had a mission.
Not brunch.
Not errands.
Not “let’s swing by the park.”
We were going troll hunting.
We knew the park. We knew there were five of Thomas Dambo’s trolls here.
We had absolutely no idea where they were.
Families stood at trailheads studying maps like they were planning a minor expedition. Kids scanned the trees like something might blink back at them.
Technically, yes, this was public art.
But no one was saying, “Let’s go look at the sculpture.”
They were saying, “Let’s go find him.”
And that verb changes everything.
You don’t view something you’re meant to find. You search. You solve. You discover. You join in.
And then we saw him.
Massive. Gentle. Surprisingly childlike, holding a tail that wound deeper into the forest. (The tail of his mother.) A wooden giant tucked into the trees like he’d always lived there.
He didn’t feel installed.
He felt discovered.
Kids peeked around him. Held his wooden hand. Followed the curve of the tail into the trees. Where did it go?
Parents crouched beside the poem, reading it out loud like it was part of the hunt. One family debated the clues to the “Grandmother Tree” clues, as if the answer was just beyond the next trail marker.
No one was doing the polite nod-and-walk-away you see at public art.
They were inside the story.
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🔎 Under the Magnifying Glass
Thomas Dambo didn’t set out to create a viral art installation.
He built a mythology.
Long before Raleigh, before North Carolina, before the global troll map, there was a kid in Denmark listening to a cassette tape about a little troll girl who protected the forest.
He grew up building toys from discarded materials. Later, in Denmark’s underground hip-hop scene, he built stage sets from scrap. When he studied interaction design, he scaled those builds into large installations.
The trolls weren’t a clever campaign idea.
They’re the continuation of a belief he’s carried his whole life:
There should be no such thing as trash.
Five of his trolls are here in Raleigh. Seven across North Carolina. More than 160 of them exist across the world, each built from roughly five tons of reclaimed wood.
In each city, local volunteers helped build them. This isn’t an artist installing sculptures. It’s a world constructed piece by piece by the very people who will later step into it.
And in that world, the decisions aren’t decorative.
The trolls protect forests, so they live in forests.
They’re hidden (and shy), so you have to go looking for them.
They have names.
Poems.
backstories.
A global map connects them.
You can say there should be no such thing as trash.
Or your can build a 20-foot troll out of it.
That isn’t explaining belief. Or positioning it.
You’re making it visible.
And when belief is visible, people don’t stand at a distance.
They step closer, they search. They volunteer.
They become Troll Hunters.
🏛️ The Rules That Hold the World Together
Every decision in Dambo’s world reinforces the same underlying belief.
These rules aren’t about art. They’re about behavior.
Rule #1: You Have to Earn the Behavior
No one is entitled to someone else’s Saturday. Or hours in a car, or a volunteer signup sheet. Or your child tugging your hand to run and find the next troll.
That behavior has to be earned.
And when you’re building brands people weave into their own identity, there are stages to build, in order, to get there.
Dambo didn’t tell them how to act. He built toward it.
First, a story rooted in belief.
Then he made it tangible.
Then he gave people a role: Troll Hunter.
Then he invited them to find.
By the time families are hiking into Dix Park, the behavior isn’t a favor.
It’s part of who they want to be.
Rule #2: If You Want It to Stick, Name the Identity and Make It Real
Who doesn’t want to be a Troll Hunter? It’s playful. Specific. Just different enough to feel like something you’d claim.
And the name is just the beginning.
There is a global troll map to track them. Poems that read like chapters in an ongoing story. Secrets tied to locations. Clues that require searching.
The identity isn’t vague. It has structure.
Now, imagine the typical business version:
“Come experience sustainable art.”
Sorry, I’m not giving up my Saturday for that.
But, “There are 5 trolls hiding in the park. They’re shy. You have to find them.”
Now I’m in my car with my reusable water bottle, ready to go.
People don’t drive for hours because they agree with a message. They drive because the role feels real enough to step into.
🧠 Why Your Brain Calls This Magic
Humans don’t act from information. We act from identity.
There’s decades of behavioral research around something called identity-based motivation. The core idea is simple: people take action when the behavior feels aligned with who they believe they are — or who they’re becoming.
If an action fits your identity, it feels natural.
If it clashes, it feels forced.
Dambo doesn’t persuade you to care about sustainability.
He builds a world where caring fits the identity you’ve stepped into.
Once you’re a Troll Hunter, searching makes sense. Protecting makes sense. Bringing your kids back makes sense.
In that world, objects and environments become part of how define ourselves (also called extended-self theory). The maps, poems, the physical troll — these anchor the identity. You can point to them. Stand beside them.
When identity has physical anchors, it strengthens.
Narrative psychology explains why stepping into a world with rules and characters feels lived, not marketed. That’s why this doesn’t feel like persuasion or marketing.
It feels like participation.
And participation reshapes identity faster than persuasion ever could.
What this changed for me
The first time I heard about Thomas Dambo, it wasn’t about the trolls.
It was the call for volunteers.
Volunteers? To build an art exhibit?
That curiosity led me to study his brand while I was sketching out what would become the Storyteller Brand Framework.
It wasn’t just the wonder.
It was the order.
Story built meaning.
Meaning created belonging.
Belonging led to behavior change.
Story → Meaning → Belonging → Change
And they have to happen in that order.
Once I saw that, I began to spot the patterns everywhere. I started spotting where brands tried to jump ahead — pushing community before defining a role, asking for action before building a world.
So much buyer psychology focuses on the purchase moment.
But true change isn’t about where someone clicks once.
It’s about how humans adapt.
If you want someone to shift who they are (not just what they buy), persuasion isn’t enough.
You have to ask:
What identity am I inviting them into?
And what in my world makes that identity real enough to live in?
That’s a very different question than, “What should I post today?”
(I did a full breakdown of Thomas Dambo through the Storyteller Brand Framework here.)
👀 Where To Look Now
These artifacts of belonging are everywhere.
Swifties don’t just sing songs. They trade friendship bracelets. They decode Easter eggs.
McDonald’s moms don’t just use the drive-through. They order Happy Meals. They spend time in the play area. Their kids carry the toy home.
Look at the brands you love.
What are the objects, rituals, maps, phrases or shared signals that make belonging tangible? If you can’t point to something physical or repeatable, it’s probably just messaging.
🙈 Why Brands (and Stories) Stall Here
Many brands try to inspire belonging without building anything that holds it.
They’ll say “community”. “Movement.” Or “we’re different.”
But there’s no role to step into.
No artifact.
No ritual.
No shared language.
So the behavior never forms.
Not because people don’t care.
Because there’s nothing structured enough to become part of their identity.
🧡 One Thing To Do Differently This Week
If someone stepped into your world (or the world of your book), what would they call themselves?
Write that down.
Now list three things that would make that identity real.
A phrase they’d use.
An object they’d hold.
A ritual they’d repeat.
If you can’t build those, you’re not building belonging yet.
You’re building content.
🐘 The One to Remember
You don’t create change
by persuading people.
You create it by building a world
where the behavior fits who they want to be.
Until next time,
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This was Monday morning at our house… the dogs were literally staging a protest so I wouldn’t move to my desk and go to work. (They almost had me convinced.)
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