What is a Brand Story?

My first post referenced brand stories obliquely—“Madison Avenue’s attempts to brand everything they would have us cherish.”  To be clear, brands are not stories because they do not retell a chain of events or a step-by-step narrative, but successful brands connect with their customer audience in a compelling or memorable way.  An effective brand practitioner will manage their brands in a disciplined fashion --through advertising, promotions and publicity or sponsorship events of all sorts—all of which become part of the unfolding brand story.

With almost $280 billion spent on all types of advertising in 2007, in the United States alone, it can be assumed that a great deal of art and skill has been applied towards creating brand stories, and that the techniques employed by the artists, copywriters, producers and marketers are sophisticated enough to confound and confuse the unaware consumer.  The level of proficiency required to get the most out of a brand story and to understand its relevance to our needs may be much higher than our attention spans will support.

On the other hand, with so many branded messages bombarding an individual on a daily basis, only

A cornucopia of branded messages...

the most shrill, clever or well-placed actually get through.  Even then, the advertisement may be effective at compelling us to buy or try a product, but it may not contribute to the overall brand story in a meaningful way.  A talented marketer (storyteller) understands that the brand’s narrative builds suspense —first this happened, and then that happened which caused this to happen…  If the suspense (the buying experience, the logo, the merchant, the site… ) is enough of a hook to keep the customer loyal, it will be that much easier to establish the brand’s relevance.  A vibrant, trusted brand has more success with brand loyalty and trial of new products and services.

So to simplify, a good brand story must have a narrative and must connect the story to its audience in some way.  As with other types of stories, the consumer must grasp how the layers or brand touch points are relevant to their needs, their lives.

A simple example: 

FDX, a relatively modest corporation accelerated its upward spiral by purchasing Caliber System Inc. which also had freight forwarding and logistics subsidiaries. In 2002, they changed their name to FedEx Corporation, not Federal Express, to cater to the fast-paced business environment where it took too long to utter the extra syllables. 

Find the white arrow...

The logo itself addresses speed with the almost hidden arrow embedded in the negative space between the “E” and “x”.  Every arm of the company is rebranded FedEx no matter what service they deliver and acquisitions are always designed for speed of use; Kinko’s became FedEx Kinko’s, and is now simply FedEx Office.

The FedEx narrative is all about advances in delivering speed to businesses worldwide as their tagline proudly proclaimed in 2002, “Don’t worry, there’s a FedEx for that.”

Poison and Storytelling

Kavala, Greece where it was believed Zeus controlled lightning

Humans shared stories before they understood what caused lightning, earthquakes and floods—even before the advent of Democrats and Republicans or Madison Avenue’s attempts to brand everything they would have us cherish.  In other words, there are many purposes to telling a story.  The more altruistic style of storytelling hands down a people’s history, an understanding of their world and how to live in it; then there are stories intended to sell something like a particular flavor of politics or of toothpaste.

There is an art to storytelling, and there is a level of proficiency required to get the most out of a story.  First we must understand the fundamental elements of a story and then we must identify the story’s relevance to us.  That is not to say, however, that the listener’s proficiency is at fault.  More often than not, the storyteller has failed.

A talented storyteller understands that a narrative builds suspense through chronology—first this happened, and then that happened which caused this to happen…  Often the suspense is enough of a hook to keep the audience enthralled, but if they also understand the tale’s relevance to their own lives, they are compelled to take the story to heart, to retell it themselves, to attach a higher meaning or moral to the telling.

So to simplify, a good story must have a narrative and must connect the story to its audience in some way.  As listeners, our task is to grasp the events, steps or layers in the chronology and to seek the answer to the question, “So what?  What does that have to do with me?”

A simple example: 

There was a guy in a bar, holding his head and staring at his drink for a long time.  A tough looking dude strolls over and, in a mischievous instant, snatches the glass and drains it.  The man at the bar begins to cry.  The tough says, “Come on man, I was just fooling with you.  I’ll buy you another drink.  Just stop crying.”

“No, it’s not that,” laments the man.  “This is the worst day in my life.  First, I ran over my cat on the way to work.  That made me late and my boss fired me.  While I was inside the office, my car was stolen so I called a cab where I left my wallet.  At home I found my wife in bed with our dentist and ran out of the house to this bar.  And just when I had screwed up the courage to put an end to my life, you show up and drink all my poison.”

Here we have an example of a story, really a popular bar joke, but a story nevertheless—with a narrative and events that could befall any of us plus the power of humor to connect the storyteller to the audience.

I hope you enjoy this blog as it unfolds.  I intend to explore storytelling in all its glory-- the good, bad and ugly.  I would like to understand how stories help us and how to avoid the hurt they can inflict. With any luck, I’ll learn to tell good stories.