Motive, Means and Opportunity

Motive, Means and Opportunity

The beginning, middle and end of brand storytelling

Nicholine Hayward

May 2009

WWW.NICHOLINE.COM

Introduction Using stories to sell isn’t new. All history is story-telling on behalf of the victorious or dominant ‘brand’ and even the earliest Greek fables and Biblical parables were written with an agenda in mind. The archetypes and narrative templates we use today have existed for millennia, in myths and legends, poetry and plays. From the beginning, brands have told stories through their advertising with varying degrees of subtlety, finesse and resonance:

Consumers have always been a part of this story-telling process and encouraged to pass on the narrative. I expect smokers lit up on learning that Camel cigarettes improve athletic performance and enjoyed sharing the good news with their friends and families. The very fact that these ads were made implies that story-telling as a means to brand advocacy was vital to increase both penetration and frequency. Today, there are plenty of brands with wonderful stories of innovation and entrepreneurship, provenance and quality. The story of the Dyson vacuum cleaner and James Dyson’s tenacity in developing his new suction technology in the face of overwhelming competition provides an instant shortcut to the product benefits today. The stories of the students who founded companies such as Apple and Google are charming case studies in creative thinking that like-minded people want to be a part of. Even the story of Hugo Boss as designer to the Nazis accords well with the sleek and self-assured charisma of the Boss brand today. These, and other successful brand stories have entered the realms of myth and legend, not just because they are credible, concrete and emotionally resonant, but because they can be simplified and optimised for retransmission and tribalised as a badge of belonging amongst their consumers. They can be boiled down to a single point of fulfilment which becomes a...