You often hear people these days talk about storytelling as it relates to advertising. It seems, in fact, that the art of storytelling has become a cottage industry in the 21st century, as if it’s a new concept. But it’s not. Great storytelling has a mainstay of communications since people first invented verbal language. In fact, this is how most knowledge was shared until the invention of the printing press.

Some great storytellers were famous and some weren’t. Take for example, my dad.

By the end of Saturday, March 26, 1966, my parents had received two life-altering things: a package containing the deed to a farm in the North Carolina foothills and bouncing baby boy they named Mark. Honestly, I’m not sure which excited my dad more. The farm, you see, was a neglected, overgrown piece of land where Dad used to go rabbit-hunting as a teenager, and he had set his sights on purchasing it for years. He finally scraped up the money to do it.

(I, on the other hand, was the third of three Johnson kids, so no big deal.)

The purchase of the farm may have been the single most important move in all of our lives. The property, you see, was said by the locals to be haunted. Like, seriously haunted. Legend had it that a 19th-century family lived in a cabin on the place, and one Christmas Eve, they disappeared without a trace as a strange snowfall fell across their tiny valley only. Neighboring valleys were weirdly unaffected. “Pa Walker,” people said, was a bad fellow — a thief and “heathen.” The devil, they claimed, came to get him in under the cover of that Christmas Eve snow, and the rest of the family was collateral damage.

Yikes.

But this wasn’t the only creepy thing about the farm. A Cherokee Indian graveyard was located near the peak of the small mountain that overlooked the valley. Supposedly, 28 individuals who died during a smallpox epidemic were buried there, and on certain nights, these unhappy souls would drift down from the graveyard to create mischief in the valley below. For these reasons, the locals dubbed the peak “Booger Mountain.” (In those days, Appalachian folk referred to ghosts as “haints,” “spooks,” and “boogers.”)

Well, my dad was not to be deterred by a bunch of ghosts. To the contrary, I think he rather enjoyed them. After purchasing the farm, Dad decided to grow white pine Christmas trees and sell them on a small lot in our hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. Ever the marketing genius, he named his little company “Booger Mountain Christmas Trees” knowing full well that the name would confuse but, ultimately, attract potential customers.

At the time, Dad was also the editor of Progressive Farmer magazine, and he was a skilled writer. In a moment of clarity, he landed on the idea to incorporate storytelling into his Christmas tree business and wrote an account of the Walker family as told to him by the “old, bald-headed barber” who used to take teenaged Dad rabbit hunting on the farm.

The story was short — probably around 1,000 words — and fit on the inside of a letter-size sheet of paper folded in half. On the outside, my artistic mother drew a picture of a friendly ghost and wrote the words, “The Legend of Booger Mountain.” Dad had several hundred of these pamphlets printed up and would give a copy away with the sale of each Christmas tree.

It worked.

Before long, demand for his trees required Dad to open more and more lots, and, over time, “Booger Mountain” became a household name in the Raleigh area. Throughout the ’70s, Dad was routinely profiled in local newspapers, interviewed on television and radio, always telling the story of the Walkers. In 1982 and ’83, he was named “Grand Champion Grower” by the National Christmas Tree Growers Association, and we ended up at the White House, presenting the Blue Room tree to President Ronald Reagan. Back home, people lined up for our trees on opening day each Christmas season. (It helped that we produced a quality of tree that was rarely seen in those days.)

This December of 2021 will mark the 53rd year that Booger Mountain Christmas Trees are sold to happy customers in North Carolina. Although I’m no longer involved in the business, I’m told that longtime and loyal patrons still single out “The Legend of Booger Mountain,” as one of the elements they remember most. Year after year, they would make sure they received their little photocopied version of the story. It didn’t matter that they already knew it by heart.

The simple truth is, storytelling works. It cuts through the dry, predictable elements of business to make a personal connection. Never underestimate the power of storytelling in your own communications.

Footnote: Booger Mountain was, indeed, haunted. My family spent many summers and weekends on the farm, and yes, strange things occurred. Listen to the Doofus Dad Podcast below as I describe my favorite Booger Mountain moment.