Brand storytelling: What is it? Why is it important? and, How to write one?
Brand Storytelling is a very powerful tool in any brands arsenal.
I’ve written a previous article posted on this site called ‘Neuroscience and Storytelling’ on how our brains are wired and why stories are such an effective communication tool, so this piece will not cover the same ground. I will assume you have or will read that article if you are interested. This article will therefore concentrate on how to go about defining and using brand storytelling techniques to build your business.
Why should your company care about developing a brand story?
Put simply, it works. It’s one of the things most successful companies have in common – and do really well. They have a clearly defined and expressed brand story. They tell engaging stories. Powerful stories. Funny stories. Compelling stories. But all the stories they tell sit within an overarching and considered framework of the larger brand story and are designed to help forge a connection with their audience.
Over time, and well-managed, that connection becomes a relationship and establishing an emotional relationship between brand and audience is one of the key things the brand and marketing execs at any company are trying to achieve through their brand and marketing activities.
Recently, in conversation with a recently graduated designer who I have been mentoring, I asked him to do some work to define the brand story. His response clearly exposed a lack of training and understanding of what a brand story really is and why he, as a designer, would be involved in its telling.
To my mentee, the brand story was merely the inception or origin story of the company. (we’ll return to the origin story later). As such he considered it to be something a copywriter might be involved in expressing but thought it was nothing to do with design.
I will concede that brand storytelling does include the inception story and the company’s history, but it is also just as importantly, about the purpose, mission, and values – the why of the brand. Expressing those aspects throughout the entirety of a brand’s customer touchpoints will inevitably include a designer’s unique input.
In this article, I will try to explain what makes an effective brand story, why your business needs one, and what steps you can take to start expressing your own.
What Is Brand Storytelling?
Brand storytelling plots a series of key points that help build an emotional connection between a brand and its target audience. It encompasses a summary of your company’s history, mission, purpose, and values, within a narrative structure that expresses them in a way that brings them tangibly to life for the target audience. (That tangibility is often where the designer gets involved by the way.)
Storytelling tools and techniques can be used to create branded content that expresses the values and vision of your company and, in doing so, generates an emotional response.
The copywriters will know how to use language to do one portion of this task – but as some of the strongest triggers for emotional connection are visual any graphic designer worthy of the title should be able to apply colour theory, the personality and character of typefaces, the choice and style of imagery, the nuance of layout and the other skills of their trade to help craft the story to be told and present it in the most effective way possible.
Why Does it matter?
Psychologist Jerome Bruner found that details communicated in stories are 22 times more memorable than when they are communicated as basic facts and numbers.
Additionally, the Harvard Business Review found that emotional connections are significant drivers of brand loyalty and that emotional connection represents one of the best indicators of future customer value.
When brand loyalty is significantly driven by emotional connection, which is primarily achieved by brands and customers having shared values, then the power of brand storytelling is self-evident.
Brand storytelling also works as a complementary factor to SEO strategies. Getting content noticed and read by the audience and therefore favourably ranked by the algorithms.
How is brand storytelling different to content marketing?
Content marketing can include brand stories, but not all content marketing is brand storytelling.
Content marketers will create educational and promotional items that attract new customers, engage current customers and also increase brand loyalty. Content marketing is therefore just one of the channels available to tell your brand story.
What makes a good story?
We all know what movies and books we like. One of the key factors to keeping our brains engaged is that the best stories surprise us. There are plot twists. They make us think and feel. We are hard-wired to respond to stories. Stories get stuck in our minds and that helps us remember information, ideas and concepts.
Powerful Brand Storytelling is simply powerful storytelling
The elements that make a brand story compelling are the same that make any story compelling:
Empathy: If your audience can see themselves in the story – perhaps even place themselves into the shoes of a protagonist then the story has captured them.
Attention-grabbing: What grabs our attention can be different at different times, when we are in differing moods it may alter. For a brand, it’s most advisable to define and establish a distinct tone of voice and express a distinct personality. If this is done consistently then your audience will be able to identify your content quickly. (We’ll expand on this later).
Authentic: People like honesty. Even self-deprecating honesty has its place. Anyone who knows anything about writing knows about the ‘hero’s journey’. The hero has to learn lessons along the way, they have to face their fears and themselves. Often the biggest test is accepting they are flawed and dealing with that. When brands are honest their target audience generally responds positively. Be honest about your values. Talk about your company’s unique features but also be up-front about the challenges you face and mistakes you’ve made (assuming you’ve done something to rectify those and ensure they don’t happen again).
Relatable: Show you understand who your customers are and what challenges they face. Speak to them in simple language, drop the hype and the jargon. Avoid using industry-specific terms or overly technical language if possible. Plain and simple usually wins the day.
Consistency: Consistency should not mean boring. Your audience should know what to expect from you (ie. is this in character for the brand) but should still look forward to seeing what you have for them next.
Aligned: Your brand story should always be aligned with your business goals. Brands that integrate the brand story and values into all areas of business life – including marketing, sales, and all internal and external communications, and who are mindful of how they express the brand at every customer interaction, see more growth in the long run.
Provoke action: Find a suitable place within your own brand story to place your call to action. Nudging your audience to become your customers is why we bother to build any brand presence after all.
How to go about creating Your Brand Story?
Setting out your brand story gives you the foundations for your future marketing strategy. It can be used as a road map for content, communications, and marketing campaigns. So, how do we create an effective Brand Story?
1: Establish your origin story
We mentioned the inception or “origin story” earlier. This is simply the story of where you and your company come from and the events that brought you to the present day.
But in brand story terms it’s more than simply presenting the facts. The origin story is an important part of your brand storytelling and should introduce your personal goals, your values and your challenges.
Including your goals, values and mission and honestly presenting challenges make the story much more relatable and ‘human”.
In the origin story of your company consider:
- Why was it created?
- Who founded it?
- How was it founded?
- What is the company’s vision?
- What successes have you had?
- What challenges have you faced?
How did you overcome them?
2: Build your hero’s journey
The Hero’s Journey is probably the most popular storytelling templates that you can use for building your brand story. Some writers even claim that every story ever told sits within the framework of the Hero’s story.
This framework plots an emotional arc which we connect to and that resonates strongly with the audience.
The hero in brand terms is your audience of prospective customers.
The hero faces a challenge, but your brand has the answer. Your brand becomes the trusted, companion, adviser etc – and you get to show how your solution solved your customers’ problem, and rejoice with them in the final result.
You start writing your hero’s journey by answering the following questions:
- Who is your hero (customer)?
- What are their needs and wants?
- What is the problem they face, and how are they trying to solve it at present?
- How can your brand step in to help them?
- How would they encounter you?
- What is the solution are you offering?
- What does the resulting transformation and brighter future look like?
3: Think about your brand personality
Once we have the framework we need to think about the way the brand is expressed within the story. This is commonly referred to as the brand personality and tone of voice.
To be effective a brand personality attributes human characteristics to your brand. The established model is drawn from the work of Carl Jung and the 12 personality types he identified. A well-defined brand personality can help connect your brand with your customers on a much deeper level.
You can quickly find the Brand Archetypes wheel or framework with a quick Google search to help establish your brand personality. I would however suggest this is best done in conjunction with a brand development professional as this model is not as straightforward to use properly as it may first appear.
The brand archetypes tool can also be used to help identify key personality traits found among your target market but this does require some proper research and insights to be done effectively and I would suggest speaking to an experienced branding professional to do so.
Each archetype has been carefully defined and has an associated set of emotions and motivators. Businesses can pick which archetype most closely matches their company personality and can then. align your brand archetype to the personality embodied by your ideal customers.
Once the archetype is established you can adopt the ‘personality’ and characteristics within your communications. Knowing your personality and that of the target audience defines the style and language of your messaging. This is commonly called your ‘tone of voice’.
4. Brand Purpose
A brand purpose is usually expressed as one sentence that communicates the value you create in the lives of your customers. It should emanate from your brand story.
Here are a couple of well-known examples:
- Patagonia: To build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to protect nature.
- Dove: To help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them realize their full potential.
It can be tricky to pair things back to one sentence of intent but a brand purpose can be a guiding star for future company decisions. Many a company has been kept from scuppering their ship on the rocks in rough seas by following their purpose statement relentlessly to safe harbour.
5. Brand Values
Identify three or four brand values that matter to your company, and specify why they are important. Try to keep them clear and concise.
For example: Adidas: Performance, Passion, Integrity, Diversity
After many years working with brands I now usually ask my clients to take the creation of brand values a step further. Brand values expressed purely as words like the above could be applied to almost any business. In fact they are often simply expressions of doing good business. How many times have you heard people say their values are Honesty, Integrity and Passion?
The same words crop up time and time again. I generally ask my clients to think how that word is evident in how they operate. How could they actively prove that a key value is diversity? What does that diversity look like in their business, in their actions and in their decision-making? How can you demonstrate any stated value in the form of an action that affects how you do what you do?
This simple request takes values from being abstract words that could appear on the reception wall of countless companies to being much more concrete, action-based differentiators of the brand.
It’s a simple request that has often stumped C-suite executives for a while. But in properly considering how their values impact on their business actions they become real values that stand for something.
6: Define your brand story and its purpose
Define your brand story and the messages you want it to convey. This can include the company story and brand narrative you want to build for your audience and what you want it to inspire that audience to do.
Potential goals to build your story around include revenue growth, organic traffic, increasing followers, or building more awareness of your brand.
Building a story does not mean manipulating it but it can mean some aspects of your story are emphasised more than others.
A technique some use to help here is to make a two-column list. Column one should be your goals and column two should contain the existing resources you have available to achieve them. Those resources will not be exclusively financial. A popular product that can be leveraged, or a large social-media following that can be mobilised, are resources that can further your brand storytelling goals.
7: Write down your brand story
Now it’s time to write your brand story. With the wealth of information you’ve gathered, you are now ready to write your brand story.
Try to keep it short, between 200 and 300 words. Ensure your brand story answers key questions about your customer’s challenges and needs, why your brand exists, and your brand’s mission.
Here are a few quick points to consider:
- What is the wider context that your customer operates in?
- What are their key challenges and needs?
- Why does the brand exist?
- What is its core mission – how do you deliver transformation in your hero’s life/story?
- What is the future you envision for your brand?
- What unique thing can your company deliver?
As you consider these questions, it’s also helpful to dedicate time to establish your brand’s tone of voice. If you can write your brand story in your brand tone of voice you’ll generally find other messaging starts to flow a lot more freely.
If you are working with a brand professional they may well include all of the above in a brand style guidelines and writing style guidelines document/s. In my experience, such documents can be invaluable to communicate the overall brand to new employees, partner organisations, creative and marketing suppliers – and as a “touchstone” to keep the brand on track.
8: Share and Develop Your Brand Story
Once you have it, share your brand story throughout your entire organisation. The brand story should serve as the narrative for everything your company does and everything it portrays to the world.
The brand story should inform all marketing and public relations campaigns but it should also inform the way you run human resources and manage your teams. The brand storytelling should have an impact both internally and externally. It is a narrative that the brand has to live up to and deliver upon.
You should share your brand story with employees during onboarding, to properly communicate the essence of your brand. Many companies use introduction videos or simple ‘white-board animation’ to do this.
Your brand story should also provide the foundation for your content marketing strategy. Use it as a starting point when creating content plans, producing content, and when you are bringing new writers, designers and content creators into your company or your supply chain for creative services.
A brand story that is not used in these ways is a waste of time. Your Make brand story needs to be a bedrock for the company and it should to be a “living document” that evolves and develops with your company. No business is ever static. Your business marketplace will alter with new players entering the fray and new technology likely to disrupt things. So it’s best to review the brand story regularly to see if it needs to adapt and to ensure it reflects feedback from your customers. (Collecting effective and insightful customer feedback is a whole other article waiting to be written but I can’t get into that here!)
Final thoughts
Research has proven that most consumers align themselves with brands. They view their purchases and by inference the brands they support, as an extension of their own identities and values. Brands come to represent their ‘tribe’. They want to be part of a community that shares particular ideas and ideals. If they can enter into the narrative of the brand story they quickly feel this connection and affiliation.
Defining your brand story and reinforcing it via brand story marketing presents your ideal customer with an open door through which they can easily enter and become a member of ‘the tribe’.
Your brand will be front and centre of your audience’s mind – and holding that mental real estate is a powerful place to be. Your brand will be first in their consideration – before your competition.
Your brand story should run throughout your content marketing and messaging to market. Whether traditional advertising, information on your website, a blog, or your social media post, consistency to that brand story, presented via your considered tone of voice, is how you will see results.
Brand storytelling is a primary way to differentiate your brand. It helps you stand out in the market. It establishes an emotional connection with your target audience, and it helps build a solid base of loyal customers.
It’s time to get your brand story working for you.