One of the best modern examples of the power of metastory – a story told through action – is Hummer. During an arc that went from birth to high-volume success to death in less than 20 years, the product experience itself, from a strictly engineering standpoint, improved steadily. The fate of the Hummer brand and business had nothing to do with product functionality; its fate was determined by its metastory.
Like Jeep before it, Hummer was born as a military vehicle – the Humvee – manufactured for the Department of Defense by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) starting in 1977. A civilian version of the vehicle, long contemplated by AMC, was finally produced in large part due to intense personal lobbying by former world-champion bodybuilder and then Hollywood action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger laid eyes on his first military Humvee when a column of them drove past a movie set he was on in Oregon. He decided on the spot he had to own one and personally lobbied AMC management for several years until the company finally capitulated and went into production with a civilian version
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