Well, let’s start with, what Brand Storytelling is not? it’s not about Mr. Patel, the founder and where he’s come from? Who his siblings are? What his dog or his cat’s name is or what his teacher said to him that put him on the road to success back in 1978? It’s not any of those things. It’s not about the founder, and I can’t tell you how many brand stories I’ve come across, or how many business owners or entrepreneurs come to me with the idea, that a brand story is about them.
Too many business owners and entrepreneurs believe that the limelight should be shining on them, and that is not where the limelight should be shining. Now when it comes to branding and brand strategy. You have some elements that aren’t so sexy and other elements that are really sexy. So your brand purpose statement, your mission statement, your competitive analysis, not really sexy don’t really get anybody excited. Brand storytelling on the other hand really sexy and will get those stakeholders excited, and those business leaders excited, so it’s something that you can really leverage in your communication.
So if the limelight is not shining on the founders then it makes it pretty obvious, where the limelight is shining and that is the audience? Everything in business everything in branding comes back to the audience. Who that audience is? Where they’re going? What journey are they on? What trials and tribulations they’re going through? What challenges they’re going through? and that’s what brand storytelling is all about.
It’s all about understanding that audience. Understanding that journey and bringing that journey to life. So what makes brand storytelling so effective? Well, it relates to how we’re hardwired as humans and you’re going to be able to relate to this. So let me give you an example here, let’s say your friend calls you, and they talk to you all excited and tell you, that they have a story to tell you and it’s something really interesting and you have to hear this and just as they tell you that your phone dies or they get cut off and they don’t get to tell you the story the anticipation that you will feel to hear what that story is tangible, because that is how we’re hardwired as humans.
We want to know what the story is about. We want to hear the story and we’re attracted to stories because for millions and millions of years that has been how we have learned it ‘show humans have transferred knowledge from one generation to the next long before computers and videos. we’ve been telling stories from one generation and passing on our experiences from one generation to the next. So over millions and millions of years, our brains have been hardwired to be attracted to story. So that is why storytelling is so effective.
Now no doubt, you already know that storytelling is effective but that just puts it into context. Why it’s so effective on, why we are attracted to it but when it comes to brand storytelling what is the goal that you’re trying to achieve with that well essentially with a brand story or brand storytelling. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to illuminate the journey of our audience. We’re trying to paint a picture so that we can draw our audience in, and essentially what we’re trying to do is, resonate with them. We’re trying to shine a light on a story that would be very familiar to them, and that will make them feel like they want to know more they want to hear what this story is all about because they see themselves in that story.
If we’re able to paint a picture of a journey that they can resonate with and they relate to every step of that journey, well then they are going to be attracted to that story and that’s the goal of storytelling.
We’re trying to resonate with, who our audience is? We’re sick and tired of push advertising. Today how many ads do you scroll through in your feed or ads you ignore on the TV or the radio on billboards? We’re just sick of push advertising and if we come across a story that a brand is telling and we see ourselves in that story, we can hear the challenges that are related to our lives the fears, the emotions that you know overcoming and adversity, well then we’re going to be attracted to that so that’s the goal of storytelling. We’re trying to resonate with who our audience is and the journey that they’re on.
So how do you leverage storytelling for your brand? Well, again the trick here is, to understand who that audience is and the journey that they’re on. What challenges they go through and where it is they’re going. What is that goal, that they’re trying to achieve, and if you can do that, if you can tell a story of a person a fictional person or maybe it’s an actual client that’s overcome adversities or gone on to achieve success or maybe it’s a group of people with a shared challenge.
If you can weave your brand throughout that journey on the road to success, then you’re going to be able to align your brand with the idea in your audience’s mind, that you are the way to get to that success. So that is how you leverage storytelling by telling a story of the journey that your audience can relate to and weaving your brand throughout.
If you want to learn more about brand storytelling then Nike is a great brand to look towards because they do leverage storytelling effectively. In one of their recent campaigns the equality campaign, they shine a light on inequality. Now this doesn’t represent every single person within their audience and it doesn’t tell every single journey what it does is, it focuses on a small part of a small segment of their journey and tells that story and what they do is, they point to the adversity and the overcoming of that adversity. That is a shared characteristic throughout all of their audience every one of their audience can share that characteristic and that feeling of overcoming adversity they all want to achieve they all want to succeed and to succeed they have to overcome adversity. So this is Nike pulling out a small segment and a small part of the journey of that segment and telling that story.
By doing that they’re able to engage their audience. They’re able to point to that part of the journey and it helps everybody to resonate with who Nike is as a brand. They’re about more than just selling shoes they’re about more than just the products that they sell. They are a brand that talks to who their audience is their brand that looks at the journey, that their audience is on what challenges they’re overcoming. What adversities they’re facing and they tell stories about those adversities.
So if you’re developing a brand and you want to help that brand to better resonate with who the audience is. Well, then really understand the journey that they’re on and pull out small stories of that journey. So that they can resonate with that story and they can see themselves in it. If you’re able to weave the brand throughout that story, they’ll be able to associate that brand with the journey to success.