This one is tricky. It’s exactly the kind of narrative professional salespeople use all the time, and they might easily refer to it as a story. But let’s look at the criteria.
There are time references to February and Christmas, but most of the text doesn’t involve those times. There is no place mentioned. It’s confusing who the main character is. Sometimes it appears to be “you” (the retailer) and sometimes it appears to be the shopper. It goes back and forth. The obstacle appears to be the current merchandising practices, and the goal is clearly to sell more toothbrushes.
But the events are a hodgepodge of things the shopper does, things the buyer did, and things the buyer and seller did together. This one meets two of the six criteria well, and it’s muddled at best on the other four.
This narrative is best described as a persuasive sales pitch, and it’s a pretty good one at that. But it’s really not a story.
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Source: Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale
