This article is all about brand stories – what they are, what you can benefit from one, backed by examples that can help you inspire to create one for your brand.
Branding influences people’s desire to purchase, share and recommend. What is it so?
The power of branding lies in its influential behavior. The companies have brands to build their reputations. A brand with a good reputation is most likely to sell more, attract shares and donations, etc.
Look at these brands – Apple. Uber. Nike.
Every other client that we work with has always demanded references from similar companies. It is no surprise that these brands with some similar brands are leaders. Their bold and enduring designs have earned them fans who don’t even purchase their products. Brands with this kind of reputation transcend well with their products being sold.
Their logo, taglines, and colors have assigned reputation, values, and certain images in people’s minds. Subconsciously, people imagine the brand with their value system, guiding their next action.
The power of branding resonates with a trigger in the deep, subconscious part of our brain that has been developed ages ago. It is creating a likelihood and connection with a brand over a while.
One thing that most of the celebrated brands have in common is a compelling brand story.
What Makes a Brand Story and What Doesn’t
To simply state, a brand story is a continuous and creative narrative built around a brand. The story can either help you to boost internal purpose or external purpose. A company’s brand story can either be inspired by your core messages or the customers’ history, emotions, and inspirations.
Brand stories have a different perspective, coverage, messaging, and tone. Usually, these narratives come from intuition and not just thinking about how they can help you sell more.
While a story is a definite way for your brand system to induce sales, it is not the prime objective. The concept works from the inside out. Sales are not directly attributed to investment in the brand story. But then why do you need it in the first place?
When your story is aligned to a specific purpose, emotion or behavior, it becomes a touchpoint or a medium that has the power to influence and guide through every expression of your organization – from content to graphics.
Similarly, stories have the power to resonate and build connections with the people who end up being long-time allies of the company.
For instance, renowned brand Apple has a tagline – Think different, which inherently resonates with the brand’s work culture, purpose, design, and communication. Even today, their brand story resonates with their purpose!
Brands Interact and Occupy a Slot in Customers’ Mind
We see several brands and messages daily. 90% of the marketing efforts will have zero impact. So what are the chances of your brand getting noticed or ignored? – Individual value system.
If your brand successfully proves the value it lives by and aligns with your values, they will automatically notice your message.
Do you want your brand to be noticeable? Consider value hacking
Value Hacking – Breaking Through a Person’s Value Structure
Consumer’s brain constantly filters out the brands they don’t like, that doesn’t mean new brands aren’t getting noticed. Once a brand breaks into the value system, they experience exponential success. But how does that happen?
Few suggested ways – Removing a barrier in people’s value system, aligning brand values with it, and framing the message to fill that void.
1. Solve the unsolved
Most of the brands have found success from commercializing on a specific issue – a nagging problem among the people. Explosive growth is experienced when a company solves a novel problem.
2. Aligning the values with underserved group
The group of people is the one who has a shared opinion and values. These groups often rally around and speak for the brand as it serves their values and is identified by the group. You can attract valuable “brand ambassadors” if you align and create a brand story, valuing the specific group of audience.
3. Multi-dimensional value system
People never have a static set of values. Multiple values drive a specific group of people. Try to combine more than two values, combining them in a way that compliments it.
4. Target values they already resonate with
If you don’t want to risk with “early value adoption”, try creating a brand story that people can notice based on the current pondering problem. Brand strategy agencies like Vowels are genius at helping you frame your message in something that people are already valuing.
Is The Brand Story Perfect for You?
The effect of branding is powerful and can help you influence and build long-term relations with the brand’s stakeholders and build equity that can never be affected by market forces.
The effects of branding are powerful because it originates from the subconscious. Humans are known to have the ability to gather reputations.
So How do You Create a Unique Brand Story for Your Company?
Vowels recommend a brand story as it gives a genuine opportunity to know what’s intended to be done – with vision, team motivation, and inspiring your brand system.
Check if your company needs a brand story –
- You want to rebrand and give a new life to your company
- You want to rename and relaunch your products
- Current brand writeups leave you uninspired
- Your company serves a prompting issue
These signs are not restricted but point out the requirement for a deeper conversation that your team needs culture value and purpose. Vowels is a GCC, UAE-based brand strategy and product packaging agency, that can help you create a unique brand story that resonates with your brand purpose and creates a sense of connection to build a reputation worldwide. Schedule a call with us!
