What Is Brand Storytelling? [Example]

What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're going to learn what brand storytelling is so you can leverage the most effective communication strategy known to man techniques to grow your business well then click on that subscribe button and the notification bell and you'll be well on your way so what is brand storytelling well let's start with what it's not it's not about John the founder and where he's come from who his siblings are what his dog or his cat's name are 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 is 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 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's how 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 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 each and 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 really 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 the you know overcoming and adversity well then we're going to be attracted to that so that's the goal of storytelling we're really 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 now if you want to learn more about brand storytelling then Nike is a great brand to look towards because they do leverage storytelling really effectively and 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 in 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 and 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 in order 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 and in 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 your own brand or a brand for a client 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 and if you're able to weave the brand throughout that story they'll be able to associate that brand with the journey to success but I'd love to hand it over to you now what is your experience when it comes to brand storytelling do you have any examples that you can share with us in the comments do you have any challenges are you struggling to put together a story for your brand or do you have a process in place that you use in

the brands that you build I'd love to hear from you in the comments below if you like this video please give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and the notification bell as well it'll let you know when we've got new videos coming out if you want more brand strategy tips and techniques like this if you want to learn how to build brand strategies from scratch well then head on over to BrandMasterAcademy.com and get yourself signed up for the list it is free and I do keep some exclusive tips for that list and there's

plenty of resources on there as well but again I'd love to hear from you let me know in the comments below what your experiences are what your challenges are I'll do my best to answer all of those until next time brand like a master and I will see you in the next video!