When was the lat time you heard a really good story… from a brand?
It’s part of the way we’re wired that we relate to stories with a level of engagement and emotion that is simply not attainable for functional messaging. And whilst all brands need to be able to talk about their functional differentiating characteristics, that conversation should only happen once their customer is fully engaged.
Interestingly, most brands spend their time, energy and head-space in functional messaging, often more focused on following what the market leaders in their category are doing, rather than blazing their own trails. As Simon Sinek put’s forward in this TED Talk, brands need to start with understanding their ‘why’. Our view is this forms not only the foundation for the brand, but also the starting place for their brand story telling. Once the ‘why’ has been established, brands should only then move their conversation onto their more functional ‘how’ and ‘what’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE
When we talk about brands who are excellent at story-telling I think of Harley Davidson, Apple, Innocent Drinks from the UK and Dollar Shave Club from the US. At a more local level, King Island Dairy and Bounce (started local – now global) are a couple of brands we’ve worked on who are highly skilled at leveraging their brand stories to build connection. The thing these brands and their story-telling peers have in common is a disproportionately high level of emotional engagement with consumers, brand loyalty and a flow-through to premium pricing. Brand story telling isn’t reserved for just the crazy brands, each of these have their own personality and distinctly different story to tell.
Dave Ansett
David is the founder of Truly Deeply, a brand agency with 25 years experience working with brands to position them for growth. His deep expertise is in the creation of high engagement brands that attract the attention of their audience and stand out from their competitors. David has extensive experience working with corporate, retail, food & beverage and entrepreneurial clients. Find out more at…
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