Even the phrase “brand story” implies one thing. A single artefact. But the story of a brand comes together in more than just one piece of text. Telling your whole brand story is cumulative: a series of stories, told in different ways, to different audiences. In point of fact, the best brand stories are an ecosystem. Clusters of stories that revolve around a brand. In this article, we look at how you can make that happen.
You need a long arc
Let’s start at the top. Your highest level story may focus on your history or your projected journey. It may be the story of your founder, or the impossible circumstances in which your brand took shape. It may be the story of something you are known for, or something you’d like to be known for – a chance to cast what you are in a new light.
The story itself must be fundamentally interesting, and all the more powerful for including the brand. Our cardinal rule: start by finding a headline story that only your brand could tell.
- Take them back to the start
- Talk about how you came to stand for something wonderful
- Invite the world to change
- Stand for a spirit or a passion
- Own *this changes everything*
- Tell a story people think they already know – with a branded twist
- Establish a storytelling tradition
- Do something outrageous (for a reason)
This is your over-arching narrative. The longest form of your story. It should focus on who and why.
Centred on your brand
Who are you as a brand, what makes you special and how do you incorporate that specialness into a story that endorses why the brand deserves memory?
So many brand stories miss that last bit. They tell a story – sometimes a good story – and then look to tack a logo on the end. The story is generic in that any number of brands could have put their name to the narrative. Or they write a story that’s so narrow, it simply restates the strategy and leaves little room for expansion.
In themselves, *who* and *why* are fundamental definers but probably not enough dimensions with which to tell a rounded story. You need to look more broadly to make the most of your storytelling.
The power of signals
Gaping Void explain this in a post on Dorito’s decision to send their chips into space. The brand made a special gravity-free treat for astronauts and then livestreamed them eating the chips. Stories, they explain, are signals that enable people to read attributes into the brand.
“They’re not just selling ubiquitous, cheap, processed corn chips. They’re signaling to everyone – customers, employees, partners – that they’re a brand worth paying attention to … Every great leader, every successful organization, every lasting relationship is built on the same foundation – the ability to send the right signals at the right time. Our ability to show not tell … Every choice, every action, every word is a signal.”
Treat every story you tell as a signal
So where and how should your brand harness these signals to tell your story? Finding the stories that become signals is about extracting storytelling value from whatever makes you the brand you are.
Here are seven further ways you can market a brand by telling your whole story.
1. Turn every product into a storyline
A product brand is an opportunity to tell a specific offering-related story. Fashion brands do this a lot, building out product-related brands within their brand architecture, and then treating them as entities in their own right. New releases, added features, extensions and options then all become opportunities for storytelling within each product. Each product story should reflect back to the master narrative in some way, but it can also add new dimensions.
2. Introduce significant dates
If there are specific dates in your chronology, or you want to create events around a date or timeline, that day or days can become a storyline in its own right. The day something was discovered is an example of this, or the day a brand was launched. Timeframes can also be extended by introducing them as eras. These stories focus on what has happened or will happen within a longer timeframe – for example, a brand’s evolution to full circularity or the shift from one era to another and what that has meant or will mean for the brand.
3. Put the brand where it shouldn’t be, or hasn’t been
This is what Dorrito did. They put their brand in a setting that is unexpected and then built a story around that. The story is interesting in itself, but the signal it sends that Dorritos are a snack for everyone, everywhere is intriguing, innovative and newsworthy. Heineken did a similar thing with their “Pick a Destination” story, where travellers could make a spontaneous decision to fly anywhere in the world courtesy of the beer brand. The signal was that Heineken is available everywhere you want to go. These types of stories are usually one-offs. The discipline here is to do something novel that still ties back directly to the brand’s defining DNA.
4. Show what it takes
This is a powerful line of storytelling for brands that want to highlight a technology or component that defines them in some way. Apple does this all the time – introducing branded storylines for its operating system (iOS), new technology (e.g. Apple Intelligence) and channels (Apple Store) that then take on a life and a presence of their own within the wider Apple narrative. This is a particularly powerful story-making approach where a technology or ingredient extends across a range of products, maybe in different formats.
5. Highlight alternatives
It’s often said that brands are powerful because they short-circuit decision-making. Storytelling is an excellent way to put a brand into a context, and then talk through different options (e.g. configurations) and what happens when you choose one option over another, or one brand over another. Because this is storytelling, the focus should be on experiences rather than just features.
6. Add a companion
Partnerships, joint ventures, sponsorships and licensing are all powerful brand storytelling opportunities because they bring an influx of energy and intrigue to a brand people know. Sometimes these arrangements are long-term and seek to enhance and shift the perceptions of all involved. At other times, they can be more tactical and focused on an occasion or opportunity.
7. Set out what’s ahead
You can appeal to buyers’ imagination with a story of intention that projects targets or goals that are smaller than the overall ambition of the brand. These micro-ambitions can quantify contributions to your purpose (e.g. how we’ll become Net Zero) or they can be powerful ideas in their own right that take on a story of their own.
It doesn’t end there
Identifying your stories is one thing – but not everything. Much is made these days of the need for brands to think like media. That’s certainly true in terms of seeing the story in everything. But if you really want to market a brand by telling a story, it’s important to know what you will tell, when, where and why.
Structuring how you tell your whole brand story
It’s important you work through how many stories you want to tell, how your stories interweave, where they’re seen, how long you want the stories to last, the depth and detail of each story and where your stories appear so that they feel effortlessly surprising to buyers. This can vary hugely from brand to brand and from sector to sector.
You need to manage your stories collectively – with some being more valuable long-term and others being more condensed.
We use two frameworks to do this. The first is our Five Levels of Story, which sorts different stories into different categories, ranging from overarching to anecdotal. Our second framework is specific to stories that are intended to help sales (such as product brand stories) where we look to allocate different parts of that story to the sales funnel (Awareness, Motivation, Decision, Relationship).
Of course, each story must have what it takes to be a great brand story in its own right.
Your outputs are not your brand story
It’s tempting to assume that the content, campaigns and collateral your brand produces is telling your story. But if all that work doesn’t report back to a structured view of the story you are looking to tell, it’s easy for the effect to be diffused. Our view echoes that of Gaping Void: every story is a signal, or it should be. In fact, if it’s not planned, created and executed as a signal, then it may be muddying your brand rather than strengthening it.
A simple but important question to be asked of every communication is this: what signal does it send? Ideally, the brief for every story should start by answering why you are doing this – and how it builds on (and relates to) the other signals you are sharing with your audiences.
We can help you find your longest story
Our brand storytelling workshop Long Arc is an effective way to get clarity on the longest form of your story – the overarching narrative that gives your brand its long-term direction. It will enable you to:
- Apply strategic discipline to your storytelling
- Demonstrate value to the rest of the business in the form of a narrative
- Bring marketing into more conversations and
- Hold your contributors and agencies accountable to an enduring narrative.
If you’re interested in seeing where your story could take you, let’s talk about how our brand storytelling workshop could work for you. Please contact us to make a time to chat.
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