Branding Strategy Insider

The Art of the Brand Story

Stories have been around for millennia; probably as long as humans have existed on earth. Some may claim that stories help make the world go around.

Well, stories are no less powerful today than in the past. And with the help of new technologies, stories are hitting the world of brand building in a big way. Viral videos enable rapid transmission of stories that captivate an audience. Ever heard of the ‘Back Dorm Boys’, ‘JuHua Jie Jie’, or ‘Tian Xian Mei Mei’ for example? Each of the four teenagers represented by these names has been viewed by more than one billion consumers. And this exposure was achieved without spending one single dollar. In fact, these self-made web stars, whose escapades they filmed themselves on webcam and published on the net, were not even aware of their fame until Pepsi, Motorola and Sony Ericsson approached each of them with offers of enough money to retire.

These kids communicated their own stories in a way that was irresistible to viewers. Wanting to share the entertainment, the viral links were spread by viewers responding to the characteristic that is shared by the best of those viral videos - an intriguing story.

Now brands have begun to take a page from the story telling tradition themselves, tying their approach into a phenomenon I discuss in my book, BRAND sense: ‘HSP’, the Holistic Selling Proposition, describes a technique which conveys information within a whole context, a technique that enables the world of religion to captivate audiences.

Customer Relations: How Does Your Brand Rate?

If you’re not sure what you should wish for your brand in 2009, I have a suggestion for you to consider.

The Internet and its viral power has turned everyone into a broadcaster. But how is this increasingly affecting brands?

The answer is simple: brands cannot afford to upset the consumer any longer. Chances are that you’re most likely upsetting your customers more than ever. If you don’t believe me, read on.

Ten years ago I wrote the world’s first book on how to build brands online. In the back of Brand Building on the Internet, I listed ten essential rules for brands to follow online. Rule number one was to reply to customers. Very simple, yes, and essential for anyone with a serious online presence. I decided to test the rule by sending out a simple consumer inquiry to the one-hundred largest brands in the world. Using the ‘contact us’ feature on the corporate website of each brand concerned, I asked each company a simple question about their brand. Questions you’d be able to answer in seconds. What do you think the response rate was?

First the good news. Thirty percent of the brands replied back within the first 24 hours. Great, thought I, merrily assuming a similar response rate on day two. The reality was, however, that I had to wait a very long time to get replies back from all the companies I’d written to. In fact, I’m still waiting. More than fifty percent of the companies never replied back at all. Now, I’m not talking about mom-and-pop brands, but brands which are valued in the billions; companies that also talk about customer satisfaction and in most cases even include their professed commitment to consumers in their vision statements.

Brands Feel Web's Growing Influence

In the 90s we all got a bit carried away with the Internet. Marketers wondered when Internet marketing expenditure would exceed traditional forms of communication. One bestselling article in the Harvard Business Review concluded that the Internet would render brands obsolete.

Well beyond a decade later and some marketers have relatively mundane expectations of the Internet. Perhaps because everyone has created a high-information, brand-centric website and many companies now sell their products online. But there is a growing role for the Internet that has far more serious implications for brands. Implications that cannot be ignored even by the most web-phobic of marketers. Consider two highly successful, but hugely divergent, brands.

Moben Kitchens is one of the UK's biggest suppliers and fitters of kitchens.

It has an impressive website which showcases some of the company's attractive kitchen designs and lists more than 200 of its outlets.

Skinny Cow is a low-fat ice-cream bar. Originally launched in the US, the brand was introduced to the UK in January of 2004 by Richmond Foods. Skinny Cow's website,(UK version) shows off its three flavours and makes much of the fact that at less than 2% fat and 90 calories a bar, it is a genuine treat for those trying to lose weight.

Frankly, neither website is stunning. But what is interesting is what happens when you leave the controlled environment of the intended brand page and run a Google search on the two brands.

New Marketing Defined

Get a dictionary and look up the word media. It will contain several different definitions, but this is the meaning that, as a marketer, you will probably be most comfortable with - media, n. : The main means of mass communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively.

This is what marketers mean, and have always meant, by the concept of media. It is the classic agglomeration of channels that they consider, plan, buy and evaluate in order to communicate their messages.

In recent years, many marketers have spoken of the media mix or medianeutrality, implying that they no longer prioritise any one channel over the others in their campaigns. Most marketers have added interactive, too, because that is the modern thing to do. But, generally speaking, their definition of media fits nicely with the one the dictionaries have offered us for the past 100 years.