The Art of Business Brand Storytelling

Do brands have stories like the ones we see in the movies? So how do we tell a brand story? Many people think that branding is just a logo, colors, and a tagline. However, a brand is not just a visual identity or a product or what is written in a mission statement. Can a brand be emotional like human feelings? Yes of course because human brains are shaped to respond to stories therefore Brands can use this advantage to connect with their consumers. In today's marketplace, marketers are facing a big dilemma in delivering brand messages to consumers due to the huge number of ads that are all over the place. The big question that many ask is “How to hook a customer and penetrate through the noisy distracted markets?

Brand Storytelling is not about what brands sell but they are stories that clarify what brands do for their customers in solving their problems and provide better-personalized user experiences that make consumers more comfortable and satisfied. Marketers shall utilize the power of storytelling in making the audience and the consumers part of the brand's story. The earliest humans gathered around the campfire and believed that effective storytelling was the best way to communicate the information that was vital for survival. Humans figured out that connecting with their communities in an emotional manner was a matter of life and death. Storytelling is not just entertainment; it is an emotional and identification journey. It gives a sense of purpose, identity.

Brand Storytelling is a narrative to communicate a message to the potential customers and existing consumers. The goal is to attract the customers' desire and inspire them to connect with a brand to make an action, to buy a product or service. A personalized story allows the brand to change customers' lives because it solves their problems and customizes its products or services to fulfill customer demands, wishes, and dreams and provide a better user experience.

Apple recently released new privacy protections in its iOS operating system, which help users better control and manage access to their data.

So why is privacy so important to Apple? And how can this be linked to personalized customer user experience in brand storytelling? According to apple, privacy is a fundamental human right, and it is also one of its core values. Customers' devices are essential to many parts of people's live. What users share from those experiences and whom they share it with should be up to them. In Apple's personalized privacy story, the company decided to fight against adversaries who were using IOS operating systems to track users over the internet and influence their purchasing behaviors by bombarded tailored ads without users' knowledge and approval.

In New York Times 2012 article "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" is a story about an angry father who marched into a Minnesota Target store. He demanded to know why his teenage daughter received coupons for baby products, only to find out later that she was pregnant. The retailer could predict her pregnancy and personalized the promotions she received, thanks to a ton of data collection and analysis. Some may argue that this is not ethical, whereas others see it as just ok. The bottom line is that personalization aims to help consumers and make them more comfortable not to invade their privacy. Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman said that 95% of purchase decision-making occurs in consumers' subconscious minds.

Not a long time ago, consumers did not get personalized recommendations based on their past purchases. Nor did they receive personalized offers for new music, movies, or TV shows based on what they had already listened to and watched. Yet, personalization offers customers tailored experiences that keep them engaged, which is essential to remaining competitive in a crowded and increasingly savvy marketplace. As a result, consumers have become habituated to getting what they want, and they are leaning toward the brands that recognize them as individuals at every step of their journey.

According to a survey, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations. Emotions are personal to humans, and that personal connection is something that savvy brands are leveraging via contextual marketing. In contrast, non-personalization is like one-size-fits-all. Preference for personalized experiences helps customers to reduce their overload consumption for information.

No one does personalization quite like streaming giant Netflix, and all because it is entirely data-driven. It is an approach that is paying off as Netflix is now the top choice for video streaming in all the global regions. It has become a fact that no two Netflix homepages look the same because of the tracking with algorithms.

Storytelling is not limited to films; stories can be told in pictures, verbally or written, or exposed across all channels, from social media to billboards. As a result, stories can help marketers achieve cut-through and reduce their ad expenditures in a noisy, distracting marketplace and create advertising that resonates with people and sticks with them. A successful story is a dynamic escalation of conflict-driven events that cause meaningful change in the main character's life. Storytelling is not just entertainment; it is an emotional and identification journey. It gives a sense of purpose, identity, and continuity between the past and the present. It is doing more than just conveying a message; the story is a container for deepest longings, hopes, and fears and forces self-reflection and articulation.

Storytelling involves a three-way relationship involving the storyteller, the story, and the audience, who is in our narrative is the customer. Storytelling is about connections, sharing values and emotions with consumers. It is not to dictate conclusions to the consumers. Instead, it helps the consumers see inside a situation—The story World — and the insider of the characters' feelings and struggles. Storytelling includes characters, setting, conflict, rising action, climax, and finally resolving a happy ending. Creating these pillars allows consumers to follow a story easily—and remember it. The main character in storytelling is not a brand or company; it is the customer. The customer must be the hero or the victim, while the brand is the guide during the journey. Let us assume a brand wants to be a hero. In that case, it must tell the audience a story about its entrepreneurial journey from rags to rich, to inspire others who face similar struggles and conflicts and want to be successful without quitting till they reach their desired goals.

"Purpose" is about values–values about who brands are, what they stand for, what they do for others, and the causes they serve. A clear purpose gives consumers a way to connect with a brand and its values, products, or services that add real value to people's lives beyond just selling things for making profits. For example, Nike stands for "Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world," not for sports equipment. Disney stands for family happiness, not theme parks or movies. Brands that can successfully target consumers based on these shared values are the ones who will ultimately win their attention and purchasing power. That's why big brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, Adidas, and many others, are turning to purpose to perfectly connect and engage with their consumers. But, of course, purpose cannot be activated and reinforced without storytelling. As a marketer, you need to link customers with brand values, drive them to the brand's purpose, and communicate that story to the audience. This type of narrative is necessary for consumers to accept the brand message and be inspired to join the brand's purpose and tribe.

If you would like to publish an article in storytelling marketing and branding or if you want to create a story for your brand and want to publish it for awareness and feedback, you are kindly requested to send me a private message with your email address to send you an invitation to write for my blog https://brandmarketinghub.blogspot.com. This blog is dedicated only to topics related to brand storytelling. All guest writers have their own publishing rights and their credentials and contact details will be associated with their articles.

Consumers are exposed to thousands of commercial messages and ads every day! So, with all these huge commercial ads, how consumers can consider a brand and respond to its messages. Many People check their smartphones once every 10 minutes 96 times a day, therefore unless ad campaigns are attractive and clear in its’ purpose and call to action, consumers will skip & ignore them. How many marketing messages get stored in the average consumer’s memory? One or two? Three, if we are optimistic? Three out of several thousand! If this is partially true, there must be many companies out there who waste an awful lot of money on non-effective marketing.

Storytelling lets brands “get inside the heads” of a prospect’s customer. It creates emotions, paint pictures, and channel the desires, hopes, and dreams of a customer. Stories are the best ways to capture customer attention and hold it. people like to repeat, share stories and pass them around because they remember them. To retain customers’ loyalty in today’s aggressive competitive environment, marketers must create a personalized, relevant experience and differentiate a brand from rivals. The physical product itself no longer has influences that drive the bond between a brand and the consumer. Human beings actively seek stories and experiences in pursuit of a meaningful life. Similarly, companies need to communicate their messages based on values and clearly illustrate how they make a difference for ordinary customers seeking solutions to their problems. Companies need to rethink how to influence and build emotional connections with their audience and their employees. Storytelling and purpose branding can make widely impact on consumers if they join together. A strong brand builds upon emotional values and a good story communicates those values in a language easily understood by the audience. The stories that are circulating around the brand paint a picture of the company’s culture and values, heroes and rivals. By sharing these stories, brands define “who They are” and “What they stand for.” As a result, many companies started to open their eyes to consumers’ needs for an emotional dimension in branding.

The memory of powerful emotional images and events is more vital especially for women who are the household family purchasing driver. An investigation of autobiographical memories found that positive memories contained more sensory and contextual details than neutral or negative memories.

• Emotionally charged events are better remembered

• Unpleasant emotions are less remembered than pleasant emotions

• Positive memories contain more contextual details

• Emotional excitement helps memory to recall events

Nielsen studied brand memorability decay over a more extended period for several digital video ads and concluded that memories could persist either via repetition for specific types of memories or via implicit internalization. Emotional brand storytelling help consumers recognize and recall brand messages as their memory decay will last longer. An analysis of data reveals that Ads campaigns with purely emotional content performed better about double comparing with only rational content. Committing to the emotive branding approach requires a deep understanding of consumer motivation.

Subaru’s ads communicate “love” through a series of ads that puts the Autocar brand as a symbol of caring for those consumers love. Whether it is a father caring for his son or daughter, or a parent caring for their beloved pet, the series of ads are more about what the brand represents to the family by communicating the brand through stories, Subaru elevates its brand values and how it fits into customers’ lives.

In a fantastic story about a soap, Dove decided to include men in its great storytelling approach to marketing Dove’s emotional story. For years, Dove focused on real people and their stories, specifically women who are ‘real,’ not supermodels. Dove made its way by telling stories about beauty, whether it is the beauty of a mother and daughter relationship, or the beauty of a face and body generally viewed as an ‘average.

· It builds a more profound and stronger connection with the consumer.

· It adds a human nature to the content and Increases Brand Recognition

· Storytelling goes beyond advertising; it makes brands more trustworthy.

· Stories help share a brand message; compelling stories go viral.

Stories are the most successful asset to create brand loyalty, making people more willing to promote a product or brand by word-of-mouth, which is the best way to popularize a business.

A story that customers can relate to, and they can see themselves in will remain quicker in their memory than the story that starts with stats. A customer who may have a stubborn boss or face the same challenges with legal compliance might empathize with a hero who overcomes the same challenge or struggle. Therefore, marketers should not rely on the customer to interpret abstract information and concepts. Instead, they should tell the story of a similar person so the brain can visualize and experience the information vicariously. Relatability is essential when a customer puts himself in the hero’s journey with any story. Humans are programmed to respond to stories that they can see themselves in by default.

In his journey, the hero must undertake a conflict associated with struggle, risk, and danger to achieve a purpose he cares about to achieve the story’s goal. If a hero has no goal, no need, there is no reason to struggle or face the conflicts and no reason to confront risk and danger. The purpose establishes a hero’s story goal. All elements of the story are dependent upon the hero. The plot derives from hero and struggle. The beginning, the middle, and the end are made to serve the hero’s needs, and the plot is the servant of the hero. The brand has goals that matter to the customers, and sharing these goals encourages them to engage with the brand to achieve and fulfilling the purpose. Passion must be the driving force behind the hero’s pursuit. The company solution must strive to make a difference for the customer, who is the hero of the story facing struggles and obstacles in his buying journey.

A traditional story consists of the beginning, middle, and end. First, the scene is the set. Next, the progression of dynamic change creates conflict events and sets the parameters for the rest of the story. Plots describe the natural progression of escalating events. The conflict escalates but finally resolves, marking the end of the story. A brand storytelling content should include

· The hero who is a standard customer in a life journey facing challenges

· The Relatability of the story. When a customer becomes part of the story, puts himself in the hero’s shoes, then responds to what the hero is confronting.

· The authenticity that generates empathy

· Story setting, where and when

· Curiosity, a reason to care or be curious.

· A message of purpose and goal

· A plot of cascading events

· A Conflict and struggles that reveal emotions or empathy.

· A satisfying resolution ending.

“While traveling in Argentina in 2006, Blake Mycoskie TOMS Founder witnessed the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a new pair of shoes for a child in need. Blake Mycoskie created the company, and its purpose and goal were in a bold, clear message within these three words” One for One”.

The transcending message for a company’s core story shall include a level of conflict within that message. What does the company stand for, and what it fights for to help its customers to thrive? Without a conflict, there is no story, and there is no meaning for that core message. In the context of branding, the conflicts are the obstacles customers want to conquer. Thus, a brand supports its consumers in the pursuit of their aspirations.

It is the conflict that creates the dynamics of a good story. The conflict is the barrier that the hero seeks to overcome to achieve the goal. Through this conflict, A brand can make its stand while expressing its core values simultaneously. Effectively, building contrasts and opposites are just like the battle between positive and negative experiences, sweet and sour, or fun versus dull. However, in business, a conflict is not necessarily a negative thing. Instead, it is the mechanism for creating a distinctive brand.

American movies over the years often used the good and evil conflict plot for entertainment purposes. It is difficult to imagine a great film like Jaws without a hungry white shark, Superman without kryptonite, or the tale of Little Red Riding Hood without a fierce wolf. The teens would have had a wonderful summer at the beach, Superman would not have had a concern about the world, and Little Red Riding Hood would visit her grandmother and then go home. Boring and predictable events would not matter for anyone! No one

would pay to watch a boring movie without conflict, and a fight between the good and the evil forces and goal never accomplished. Conflict is the motivating force of a good story. No conflict, no story. When faced with a problem or a conflict, the audience instinctively seeks to find a solution. Conflict forces people to act. The characters must be challenged to take action because human beings do not make significant life decisions unless something challenges them. In the classical fairytale story template, conflict expresses itself as a battle between good and evil: the hero versus the villain. The struggle between good and evil communicates the narrator’s perspective, communicating their values and message to the audience. In storytelling, conflict is not harmful or a bad thing. On the contrary, it is a fundamental premise that the narrators can express their perception of right and wrong. Once a marketer decided on a possible transcending message for the brand core story, the next step is to assess the level of conflict within that message. How big a difference does a brand cause make, and what is it fighting to accomplish or help customers solve their problems?

Developing a conflict is about defining two opposing forces or even more. For example, determining the opposite of a brand helps explain the brand’s core story. Here are a few examples:

Apple:

It is about Inclusion, diversity, and privacy and its opposite is the Anonymous uniformity

Nike:

The will to win, inspiration, and innovation and its opposite is Losing

LEGO:

is about Creativity, imagination, and learning whereas its opposite is the Passive entertainment

Virgin:

Is about Insatiable curiosity and its counterpart is business as usual

IKEA:

Is about Cost-​consciousness whereas its opposite Design luxury for the few elite

Harley Davidson:

Is about the excitement of freedom whereas its opposite is boring daily routines

Without conflict, it is challenging to build and maintain a strong core story. If what a brand story is fighting for constitutes customer needs that have already been met, there is no solid adversary to drive the story forward. The world might say we would not need Nike if we were all born athletes winners. Marketers need to reassess purpose and where their brand is heading.

Dreams make a good motivator in a core story. Harley-Davidson is selling a dream; Harley-Davidson’s concept of freedom contrasts with the norms that society places on people and the obligations that follow. The Harley-Davidson conflict lies in Life on the open road versus the straightjacket of “normal” life. The conflict lies between freedom and routine daily activities, which appeals to much a symbol of Americana as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, all who believe in the American Dream. Harley-Davidson is like McDonald’s, and burger king in being part of the culture of society.

Stories happen to characters, but they are about the problems and flowing events that story characters must face. Problems and struggles between the opposing forces are the elements that create conflict. When conflict becomes dangerous, it generates more suspense in its nature. Conflict implies adversaries. These opponents may be external or internal. They may be living beings or forces of nature. The risk and danger associated with the problems and flaws are what the audience cares about and wants to know. Characters must have an interest in the outcome of their struggles. They must have something at risk for which they struggle. There must be some danger to characters. This danger is not physical, but it is a threat to their motions, their reputation, or their self-image. Suppose characters risk nothing, face no danger, and have nothing to lose. In that case, the audience will never feel compelled to stick around to see how the story comes out.

Struggles are the actions a character takes to overcome conflict. No action internal or external means no story. Struggles require a hero and conflict to have meaning for the consumer. If the consumers put themselves in the hero’s shoes, they become part of the story, and they will engage and connect emotionally with story outcomes.

A story typically features a hero pursuing a goal. The hero looks like a Robin Hood fighting for justice and freedom in England. However, the hero’s path to achieving his goal is not problem-free. The adversary tries to fight against the hero, thereby forming the conflict. In the viral Robin Hood story, the adversaries were Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, who must be eliminated for justice to prevail.

A traditional story emerges into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. The events’ progression and escalation create conflict and set the boundaries for the rest of the story. When the conflict escalates to the tipping point, it is finally resolved, marking the end of the story. A successful conflict requires a hero and a villain with opposing goals. In the hero’s journey, the adversary stands in opposition to the hero’s pursuit. By fighting against the adversary, the hero struggles toward his personal development and resolves the story’s conflict. To get customers involved in a story, marketers must identify the character’s problem and goal. For a successful story, the audience must engage with both the hero and the story’s dilemma.

One of the big modern-day corporate conflict stories is Steve Jobs returning to Apple after being terminated from his established company. It is a “Voyage and Return” plot story. What makes Steve Jobs return so compelling is the setting time. Apple was in trouble, and its innovation driving force has stopped. Returning to his visionary roots, his time away from Apple in Pixar movies contributed to the turnaround. Steve learned at Pixar the strength of story visualization and how that impacts the audience. He applied storytelling visualization in announcing to the world Apple’s first smartphone. Steve Jobs was motivated to make a change, and he successfully and brilliantly did a profound shift that affected the whole world by Apple’s innovative product, the smartphone.

The fatal mistake some brands make, incredibly immature new brands who believe they need to prove themselves, are positioning themselves as heroes in the story instead of the guide. A brand that sets itself as the hero is to lose unless there is a clear purpose and goal.

Domino’s Pizza, a brand once suffered by poor customer opinions of its quality. In a series of ad campaigns, the company explicitly acknowledged these complaints and announced efforts to improve. Dominos had to revive the brand. Dominos launched an ad campaign that has become legendary for its courage, sharing comments in social media from focus groups about what people thought of the product: “worst pizza I ever had”; “the sauce tastes like ketchup”; “the crust tastes like cardboard.” They even created a “Pizza Turnaround” documentary to document the process. Since then, their sales have grown substantially. Domino’s Pizza announced the first quarter of 2021 financial results showing a global growth of 14% despite the pandemic Covid 2019. In this successful brand storytelling effort, Domino’s leveraged all three elements in its favor: The character of a brand invested in customer satisfaction, the conflict with consumer disappointment, and the conclusion of making good on a renewed commitment to quality. The story’s purpose is that brand is caring and courageous about earning the satisfaction of its customers. The critical point is to focus on the customers, offering them a heroic role in a meaningful remembered story. Customers need to be heard, understood with the essence of empathy. Genuine empathy means letting customers know that brands see them and sympathize with themw

A hero character is the central organizing element of all stories. Stories occur to characters who are the driving force of a story, but not all stories are worth telling unless they have meaning and purpose. Sometimes, a brand may serve as a character hero, but there should be a valid reason to explain a goal or purpose around the character facing a problem. For example, it is better off to make a customer the hero of the brand story, telling stories about issues customers have met, and stories that customers can imagine themselves in.

A brand story is a narrative that illustrates its origins, exposes why a brand exists, and the problem it solves for its customers in their struggle to find a solution to their problems. It resonates with the customer and attracts them towards brand values and core messages, even if they are not explicitly stated in the story. The hero takes the actions, experiences the conflicts, and undertakes the struggles of a story. Hero is at the core of every story element and event. No other element has meaning and relevance without a hero seeking a meaningful goal taking risks and overcoming conflicts and struggles. When a customer is a hero in the story, the product or service plays the supporting and guiding role, which helps the customer finds a solution or accomplish a goal. The hero character adds flesh and blood to the brand’s role in the story world. On the other hand, it also sheds light on the conflict and the passion that motivates the brand to advance.

The plot is an essential part of any story as it escalates the events in a hero’s journey in a logical order. It defines what the story is all about, what the hero will experience, and what it will achieve. It sets up the motivations, challenges, the goal, and the road hero takes to fulfill it. Story flowing events are vital to the audience’s experience. It must have a coherent composition to propel it forward and maintain audience interest. Once the conflict escalates to no return point, the hero decides, influencing the outcome result. The escalation of the conflict and the hero’s character progress development drives the story forward, building up to a climax, where the hero finally confronts the villain. The seven basic plots: Why We Tell Stories is a 2004 book by Christopher Booker, contained an influenced analysis of story plots and their psychological meaning. The seven plots are as follows: -

1) Overcoming the monster

It was featured in James Bond, Jaws, and many other movies. This plot is about a hero and an evil force. In a real-world example, this could be overcoming an addiction, fighting off a lousy boss, debt, beating an illness, or anything else that requires something to be defeated for the hero (customer) to win.

2) Rags to riches

Like Cinderella and Aladdin, the success and crisis apply to anyone with an undeniably incredible talent who wants to break through and be successful in the real world, like Photographers, musicians, artists, authors like Harry Potter J. K. Rowling.

3) The Quest

Lord of the Rings, seeking and finding. This is indeed the story of every beginning entrepreneurial journey where a product or service to be a long-lasting tool that can last along the way.

4) Voyage and return

The Time Machine exploring. Alice in wonderland. A brand assists the customer at their arrival destination. It could be language learning software, cultural etiquette training, photo guides, maps, and tours.

5) Comedy

Bridget Jones’s Diary. From confusion to enlightenment. The comedy plot involves confusion that must be resolved before the hero and heroine can be united in love.

In the real world, customers cannot seem to get out of their way. They are constantly finding themselves in one misadventure after another and could use a little assistance (the brand) to be led on the right path.

6) Tragedy

Romeo and Juliet, the price of fatal flaws.

Plots about divorce lawyers, grief counselors, self-help books, and anyone who helps their customer get through a tough time. Because this is so self-evident, it is not difficult to identify when a customer is going through a tragedy.

7) Rebirth

They are finding the personal light. But, unfortunately, in the real world, just like in “A Christmas Carol,” customers may not even know a problem exists until a brand shows them just how bad they were doing.

In most Hollywood films, screenwriters used these seven plot templates to build up their stories which often end positively, restoring harmony. Most plots revolve around a hero fighting evil, encountering a challenge, profound transformation in the hero’s character due to unpleasant or sudden shocking events, or a hero pursuing a dream comes true.

The company fights for justice. A brand is not afraid to battle against the dominating forces in the market: forces that have created a monopoly, which does not benefit the consumer. 70 % of consumers want brands to stand on social and political issues according to a survey. Following in the footprints of Nike and Patagonia, the list of brands holding social and political stands has grown to reach over every industry. Consumers’ social media feeds have recently become saturated with brands joining social justice conversations. However, consumers reported that brands do not always seem genuine, even before the Black Lives Matter movement. 53 % of consumers believe brands shall take a stand for public relations and marketing purposes and 35 % perceive brands speaking out as “jumping on the bandwagon.” Brands should not be scared to take a stance, but they will need to sustain their credibility.

According to a consumer’s survey, a brand’s stand is most believable when it is about an issue that impacts its customers and is relevant to the business. And it does not end there, a company will also need to be clear about what it is doing to back its messaging by action. When consumers agree with a brand’s stance, 37% will recommend that company to their friends and family, and 36% will buy more from that brand. If brands genuinely consider making a difference by taking a social and political stand, understanding, and aligning with consumers’ best interests is vital for creating a successful campaign and powerful results.

Mastercard launched a similarly out-of-touch campaign as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The brand proposed to donate 10,000 meals to starving children in developing countries for every goal scored by Messi or Neymar in the international tournament. It caused an immediate social protest, indicating that the multi-billion-dollar company donated the meals regardless of which players scored. Eventually, Mastercard admitted and agreed that it would donate the meals, yet was left red-faced, proof that specific topics, such as starving children, should be tackled very properly in marketing campaigns to avoid backfire

After President Trump temporarily blocked America’s borders to refugees, Airbnb aired a Super Bowl ad to criticize the order, called “We Accept.” Airbnb also promised to provide short-term housing for 100,000 displaced people and donate $4 million to the International Rescue Committee. Their campaign “Acceptance starts with all of us #weaccept” was a well-received campaign by the audience, marking a significant impact.

In the wake of the travel ban, many people shared their sentiments on social media, sparking some emotional debates. To steer the conversation toward the topic of acceptance, Airbnb showed support for immigrants and refugees and achieved its goal of starting a conversation by sharing their message during the most-watched TV event of the year, using powerful imagery, and creating a hashtag.

All companies have the authentic raw material for telling their own stories. Marketers shall build a corporate brand on the real-life stories told by the employees, customers, and working partners. Stories anchored in the corporate culture create a solid and authentic brand for a company. Clothing brands like Patagonia and The North Face have consistently supported causes that work to protect the environment. Patagonia’s campaigns have always helped the brand’s environmental vows; all the profits made over 2016’s Black Friday sale were donated entirely to local environmental NGOs. Moreover, Patagonia’s subversive ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign helped raise awareness over the dangers of fast fashion and the importance of recycling clothing.

What Patagonia has recognized is that doing good is good for its business. “The real message of ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ is don’t buy this jacket if you don’t need it. if you do need a jacket, make sure you buy something that is built to be repaired, has a clear purpose. So, it’s not about encouraging people to not own things; it’s about changing people’s relationship with stuff and being not just thoughtful consumers but thoughtful and careful owners of stuff.”

Every great hero needs a great villain. Villains are the opposing force of a story that challenges the hero and drives the action. A good villain is a complex evil character whom readers and viewers simultaneously love and hate. Unless marketers define the brand’s villains, the hero will not stand out brightly. Stories with heroes and villains might inspire the customers to change. The Audience empathizes and mimics heroes’ behavior and suppresses the behaviors embodied by villains. A good villain makes a story a lot more entertaining and exciting for the viewers as it keeps the suspense growing across the progression of story events. Villains and adversaries give context to the story plot in a way that no other character can do because they make the audience see the level of evil or opposition through the Villain’s eyes. Villains in the content marketing perspective often are not people or objects. Customer frustration, overpricing, confusing processes, terrible customer support, slow service, and the complicated purchasing process could be the adversary forces of antagonism that a heroic brand shall conquer. According to research, 66% of respondents felt it is essential for brands to take a public stance on leading social and political issues like immigration, human rights, and race relations. Marketers can use these causes to invent an adversary force in brand storytelling.

Southwest Airlines builds its pricing model around the villain of competitors’ hidden fees. The Carrier celebrated customers and underscored core values such as low fares. While other low-cost airlines charge for seat choices, checked bags, and even water, Southwest does not. In 2015, Southwest Airlines launched the “Transfarency” campaign focused on the carrier’s low-fare message and newly refreshed livery and interior. The 2017 campaign -Behind Every Story is the Reason for Transfarency, built on Transfarency through the emotional telling of customer stories and their reasons for flying. They reminded customers that they were at the core of the carrier’s purpose: connect passengers to what is essential in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. They made up a unique trust for their no-hidden-fees pricing strategy: “Transfarency,” which is a philosophy of treating customers honestly and fairly, and low fares stay low—no unexpected bag fees, change fees, or hidden fees. Southwest Airlines created this villain in their marketing all the time, and people like it and engage with it.

At the corporate level, a brand core story revolves around values connects with an audience with similar values and beliefs, which invites them to become brand loyal tribes. A purpose message surrounding a brand helps shape a company’s identity if it uses storytelling narrative techniques that enable an emotional response from the audience and make meaningful connections. The message should not be confused with a slogan or logo. A tagline is a short, catchy expression that incorporates the story message used in company advertising.

Brand storytelling is a tool for telling stories, not for its sake. Instead, marketers used stories to deliver messages positively to the company brand.

But what is a well-defined message? Without a strategic purpose, there is no reason to tell stories. For example, “Just Do It” is Nike’s slogan; however, their message is that every game is about winning. With effort and determination, everyone can be a winner. Nike is fighting to help the customers be more confident about themselves, overcome restraints, and “Just Do It” to win. Nike is fighting a lack of self-confidence and hesitation. According to Nike, if anyone wants to win, quitting is not an option, and reaching a goal might require sacrifice.

In a Nike controversial commercial in 2018, Colin Kaepernick focused on sacrificing moto initiated a vast debate in social media between the audience who split between disagreed and agreed on that message: Although Nike lost a slice of its angry customers, Nike successfully received a large scale of brand recognition created all over the news and in harsh debates between potential consumers. The controversial Ad won the award for outstanding commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys. According to Business Insider, the ad was successful, despite its high risk. It was trending on Twitter for millions; Nike received more than $43 million USD worth of media exposure.

Nike fully invested in the cause and the heroism that Kaepernick portrayed. That heroism role was the essential part of Robin Hood storytelling ad confronting the adversary forces of disagreed Trump supporters during the escalation of conflict events. Nike saw an opportunity of polarization throughout divided America then used it as a marketing tool. Despite the backfire from some Americans, the campaign was a successful hit. Nike Stocks rose by 5% in the weeks following the ad’s release.

The possibility for animal testing is still a massive risk worldwide. No laws against testing in cosmetics in over 80% of countries. Cruelty-Free International estimates that approximately 500,000 animals are still used in cosmetics testing every year. Anita Roddick established the Body Shop beauty brand in 1976. The founder wanted her company to stand for important values associated with brand identity. An important message accompanied the brand, launched by an alliance with internal employees and customers in 1989. The Body Shop, which has over 3,000 stores in more than 60 countries, was the first international cosmetic brand to campaign against animal testing in cosmetics in 1989, opening the way to a U.K. ban in 1998 and European Union-wide ban on animal testing in 2013. The Body Shop continues its efforts to fight passionately against animal testing on products and ingredients, which is cruel and unnecessary. The Body Shop implemented a Robin hood storytelling plot fighting for animals against the adversary forces of greedy unworried competitors. The brand usefully delivered its message and won in some ethical battles.

Since the beginning, Volvo started as a car brand associated with safety as a purpose-based company. Volvo is always proud of its invention, the 3-point safety belt, and the millions of lives it saved over the years. Volvo waived its patent rights to allow other car manufacturers to use this technology.

In 2021 Volvo changed its direction towards electric cars and green energy as a sustainable strategy towards the future. Volvo’s ambition is to become a fully electric car company by 2030 and climate neutral by 2040.” Sustainability is now as vital as safety to us, and climate change is the ultimate safety test.” The CEO of Volvo cars announced this direction of the company in a YouTube video, “Volvo Cars Moment Recharge “with the hashtag #ForEveryonesSafety​. The company posted a catchy ad, “The Ultimate Safety Test,” to emphasize to its customers and the world that the biggest threat to safety now comes from climate change. In the new ad, a spokesperson takes viewers on a tour of Volvo’s safety tests over the years and then moves up north to the arctic pole, where he asked whether a 100-foot drop is suitable as the ultimate safety test. A collapsing glacier delivered the shocking answer, interrupting the ad with a bold reminder that the biggest threat to safety is not on the road. According to Volvo, today, climate change is the ultimate safety test. Volvo currently cares about climate change as a brand purpose alongside safety.

Since the beginning, Volvo started as a car brand associated with safety as a purpose-based company. Volvo is always proud of its invention, the 3-point safety belt, and the millions of lives it saved over the years. Volvo waived its patent rights to allow other car manufacturers to use this technology.

In 2021 Volvo changed its direction towards electric cars and green energy as a sustainable strategy towards the future. Volvo’s ambition is to become a fully electric car company by 2030 and climate neutral by 2040.” Sustainability is now as vital as safety to us, and climate change is the ultimate safety test.” The CEO of Volvo cars announced this direction of the company in a YouTube video, “Volvo Cars Moment Recharge “with the hashtag #ForEveryonesSafety​. The company posted a catchy ad, “The Ultimate Safety Test,” to emphasize to its customers and the world that the biggest threat to safety now comes from climate change. In the new ad, a spokesperson takes viewers on a tour of Volvo’s safety tests over the years and then moves up north to the arctic pole, where he asked whether a 100-foot drop is suitable as the ultimate safety test. A collapsing glacier delivered the shocking answer, interrupting the ad with a bold reminder that the biggest threat to safety is not on the road. According to Volvo, today, climate change is the ultimate safety test. Volvo currently cares about climate change as a brand purpose alongside safety.

At Danish shipping company Maersk Group, the central message has always been that trust, connection, people, discipline, punctuality, disciplined execution, and constant care. Every time the company is paying attention to details, doing it right for the first time is the foundation of a reliable business. In return, their customers can be safe knowing that things are always on track. The passed away founder of the company used to express his message in two words “constant care,” a term that, to this day, is firmly rooted at the heart of the company and its core story. “Imagine if a restaurant was like shipping” is an ad by Maersk featuring a story clip inside a restaurant. A couple was rolled out of the restaurant on a rainy night due to complex overbooking. The customers are the heroes and the victims, simultaneously facing a conflict of overbooking, price rise, and uncertainty of their orders. The company emphasized its solution to the problem by introducing Maersk spot, loading guarantee, easy online booking, and fixed price. The company continues to deliver more core messages around its brand core values.

Here are some more inspirational examples of other brand’s core stories:

Harley-Davidson is about independence and power, freedom to travel, living a life without rules.

Apple is about innovation and shaping technology to benefit human needs and recently added privacy.

Greenpeace is battling for the global environment.

Virgin is about being playful, modern, and energetic.

LEGO is about kids’ imagination, creativity, fun, learning, caring, quality, people promise and play.

Adidas builds on a passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle.

Pepsi is about “Excitement of Now.”

Coca-Cola is about to “refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, and inspire moments of optimism; to create value and make a difference.”

BMW is about sophistication.

Ford is about to make people’s lives better by making mobility accessible and affordable

Uber is beyond simple.

Redbull is about energy, boldness, adrenaline, actions, and adventures.

Ikea is about to offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will afford them.

United airlines write on its website: “We are committed to providing a level of service to our customers that makes us a leader in the airline industry. We understand that we need to have a proud product and employees who like coming to work every day. Our goal is to make every flight a positive experience for our customers”.

When a company contradicts its values and commitment towards its customers, it is a severe problem. United airlines faced two major public relations disasters. The first one,” united breaks the guitar,” in 2009. The second one was more brutal in 2017 when a passenger violently dragged off the plane to free up seats for dead-heading employees. The core message of these two stories is that a brand did not learn from its past mistakes and continued to mistreat its customers taking benefits from a non-availability of enough competition in the U.S. airline industry. When a brand feels some monopoly over its market, it does not care anymore.

Musician Dave Carroll filed a complaint about his guitar, mishandled and broken while in United Airline’s custody in 2008. The company refused to compensate or take any responsibility, which eventually led Carrol to publish a song on YouTube in 2009 about his horrible experience traveling with united airlines. The video went viral and passed 150,000 views within one day, prompting United to contact Carroll to say it hoped to correct the matter. The video had 5 million views by August 2009, 10 million by February 2011, and 15 million by August 2015. It has roughly 20.7 million views and 212,000 likes as of July 2021. Within four weeks of the video being posted online, United Airlines’ stock price fell 10%, costing stockholders about $180 million USD in value.

The second biggest Public relations crisis occurred in 2017. Dr. David Dao, a Vietnamese American passenger, was injured while being forcibly removed from a fully boarded, sold-out flight to Louisville International Airport. The incident Video went viral, and United Airlines stock plummeted. The company mishandled the incident, and the CEO issued two apology letters as the first one was bad. As a result, United’s consumer perception dropped to a 10-year low. A consistent lousy reputation is difficult to recover despite aggressive marketing, brand building, and corporate storytelling messages.

A company without respecting and fulfilling its purpose core values and actions will not positively affect the business environment. A corporate core story must be strengthened and anchored throughout the company and integrated across all departments and sections to enhance brand identity internally and externally. Without a consistently excellent customer service experience, a brand loses its credibility and trustworthiness.

There is a big difference between a case study and a story. Case studies are rough, rational raw materials that need to be formed into a story shape to make an emotional impact. Case studies are made of logic, facts, and numbers. These facts and figures cannot bond with an audience without a story, especially on the emotional level. Marketers and advertisers are highly aware of the power of applying emotional storytelling to make a sufficient impact on customers to encourage or influence them to make an action or change their purchasing decisions behaviors.

Facts and logical information messages do not affect the customers who are bombarded daily with thousands of similar messages, so case studies’ analytical information is quickly forgotten. Emotion messages and stories can capture customers’ attention much longer than case studies and are more attached to the memories. When emotion is activated, the brain stores as many details as possible about the related event and prepares for quick recall of the information. Backed by solid emotion, memory can often pop up instantly, even years or decades after the event. Recalling these events can bring to mind the full spectrum of human emotion, from joy to fear, anger, or grief. The concept of emotional memory helps clarify why some memories can stay fresh in human minds for years while other memories become blurry and eventually fade. Emotion is the anchor that holds memories in humans’ minds. Memorable events in someone’s life often become anchored in the brain in “event clusters” like episodes of a story. Brands shall build their core stories to induce positive feelings in their consumer's subconscious, thus keeping them connected and attached to brands’ messages even years after released advertising messages.

Most companies have the raw material for telling stories, such as customer testimonials, real-life stories told by the employees, customers, and working partners. These raw materials can be easily shaped into stories to feed the corporate culture and core values. These corporate culture anchored stories create a solid and authentic brand foundation.

According to statistics, only 4% of women feel good about themselves worldwide. Dove did something that would move the other 96%. Dove investigated these figures and thought about an idea to prove that majority of women are wrong about their self-image. Dove shaped this idea into a storytelling ad in YouTube video made over 69.5 million views and thousands of comments and engagement. In 2013, Dove, the soap brand company, posted ads featuring women who were the subjects of an FBI-trained forensic artist. Without seeing these women, the artist drew every woman individually based on her description. Soon After, the artist drew the same woman based on a stranger’s description. The result was astonishing. The sketches drawn from the stranger’s description were always more beautiful than those in which the women depicted themselves. Many women do not realize how beautiful they are. The ad attempted to help women accept themselves and find greater happiness in their intrinsic beauty. Whether by fulfilling some purpose or accepting themselves as they are, the story resolves the internal conflict in human minds: the desire for self-acceptance.

Many ads do not carry emotional stories; it markets a particular product or service benefit starring the brand as a superhero. These ads are a waste of effort and money. Brands like Nike, Adidas, Red Bull, Rolex, Under Armour, Tiger Woods, Unilever, Coca Cola, and Porsche developed athletic and intellectual accomplishments and a sense of self-actualization. Brands realize how much sports fans love their sports heroes and will put up much money to get their brands in front of those cheering and passionate fans. If athletes who worked for their entire lives to achieve valuable objectives and meanings can achieve something, this purpose can be associated with the core aspect of a brand promise then transferred to the fans.

When marketers want to create a brand’s story, they need to set up the purpose, objectives, problems, and conflicts, assign heroes and villains, convey the plot climax, and then close with a satisfying ending to a narrative tailored to customer perception. A mere frustration is a recognizable villain of evil in the consumer’s mind. The story problem starts from faulty products to cold coffee to melted ice cream to lousy customer service or a lengthy purchasing process or unjustified higher prices.

All the story characters need a name, identity, and recognition. The victim and the hero are the customers whose brand must resolve their problems and make them satisfied and comfortable. When telling a story, customers’ difficulties are apparent, and the escalation events will end with a brands’ solution. Let “villains” come from the audience’s perspective, so they recognize themselves as heroes.

A brand product or service would act as the hero’s guide in the consumer struggle journey for a satisfying happy ending solution that ends up their problems and frustration.

A story must be remarkable, emotional, and authentic to inspire the customers to push them to consider buying a brand and keep them as loyal fans. A brand must help them step further towards their dream and feel they are not alone because they both fight for the same values and cause.

For example, in the software industry, the villains are unreliable programs; slow processing; lack of security. The heroes are the consumers who are frustrated or hacked. A brand solution shall be a technology that works quicker, safely with more robust security and affordable price.

In another example of college education, the villains are high tuition degrees that don’t lead to helpful employment. The heroes are students who graduate with a stack of debt and no job prospects. A brand solution shall be providing affordable education with marketable skills and higher employment opportunities.

In 2015, during the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, Allstate, the Insurance company, and the advertising agency Leo Burnett launched a campaign highlighting the risks of over-sharing location sign-in posts on social media. The story aimed to make people aware that sharing their whereabouts on social media might tip off criminals when burglarizing their homes. Allstate found a real couple to announce the project and led them to believe they had won a prize.

First, they visited the couple in their home, secretly taking pictures of their household items and duplicating their belongings. Next, they invited the couple to attend the Sugar Bowl and were given their private box. Then, Mayhemsale.com began auctioning off the couple’s belongings on national television during the game. People were directed to Mayhemsale.com for bargain-basement prices on everything the couple used. As the couple watched their possessions being sold on the big screens at the game, they panicked. Hidden cameras caught their reactions and broadcast them on live television. Of course, the couple’s actual possessions were safe. The campaign agitated a fear in many Americans. U.S. News outlets, including ABC News, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, covered the story. Suddenly, the threat of criminals walking into homes as people announce distant whereabouts on social media became a U.S. national fear.

The happy ending of a story was that Mayhemsale.com received 6,000 to 10,000 hits per second immediately following each commercial. The site received over 18 million hits during the game. Also, Mayhemsale trended in the top ten hashtags during the game, and immediately after the commercials aired, surged to number one worldwide. Mayhemsales’ Twitter followers increased by 24,000 during the game, and the first commercial of the campaign resulted in over 20 million impressions on Facebook and almost 70,000 likes. Allstate had foreshadowed a potential failure for their customers during one football game. It sold insurance, protecting customers, opening a story loop, and offering to close it in a single campaign.

To apply brand storytelling concepts, marketers can create stories around the customer using the brand. A story about why a brand was created and for what purpose, or a story about how a brand helped customers to change their lives for the better.

Marketers can create a story about how a brand is disrupting the business environment for better consumer advantage. A brand is fighting the monopoly of other competitors who would not change their direction. Brands can tell the stories of staff and employees to emphasize a corporate culture and values. A story about dedicated employees, their motivation, and their passion for working for the brand.

On their website, Ace hardware states that they believe everyone has a story to tell. If you go through their website and social media accounts, you will be amazed at how many stories they tell around their brand, loyal consumers, and employees. They ask everyone interested to submit a story using the hashtag #HeartwareStories.

One of the remarkable stories they posted about their longest working employee, Wally, from Miner’s Ace in California. Wally has been working at the company since 1958. The ninety-year-old Wally appeared in a YouTube video to discuss why he comes back to work each day for over 60 years. The story gives a sentiment of high emotions and dedication of a loyal employee who has a passion for both his job and employer, which is exceedingly rare in our current days.

A core story outlines the strategic direction and the purpose of the entire corporate brand. It acts as a compass directing all company communication, internally with its employees, investors, vendors, and externally, with its customers and the business environment. The more authentic and genuine stories promoted about the company values and purpose, the more the company will sustain its core story and identity. A corporate core storytelling goal is to anchor the company’s values, visions, and culture. The next step is to explain these core values, deliver them through emotional stories, and communicate them to both internal and external audiences. Defiantly, the more impact will be through passionate storytelling.

Nike is a corporate core brand that exists independently of individual products. Nike Air is a subsidiary brand that supports the overall Nike corporate brand, emphasizing the soul of Nike and its core message. Procter & Gamble multi-brands like Pampers and Tide have solid self-stand product brands, and each individual has its own identity. At the same time, corporate Procter & Gamble stays silently in the background. The biggest challenge of the multi-brand corporation is to create individual brand identities and core stories that do not contradict each other and connect with the corporate core brand.

The most effective storytelling tool as a branding tool is to adopt a holistic approach to build the central brand message. First, the core brand story communicates with the customers why a brand exists, what it stands for, who the buyers’ persona is, why a brand is needed, and how customers can connect. Second, a corporate core story represents the heart and soul of a company. It builds the bridge for the company’s internal and external communication. In the business world, the adversary can act in any form. It could be the competitors or the companies themselves who do not innovate for a reason or do not have reliable customer service. Using storytelling elements helps a company create a sort of exciting internal challenge, or an “adversary,” that employees should overcome through teamwork by applying a developed unique solution, skills, or some “heroism.”

A customer is a hero seeking to achieve a goal. The personalization of a hero character adds heart and soul to the company’s role in the story world. It sheds light on the conflict and the passion that runs the brand forward. A brand must have a driving passion force for making a customer’s life more positive. The supporting role is the product or service that helps the customers accomplish their dream. Thus, the customers are beneficiaries of the company’s efforts to achieve its goal. A challenge is a villain that helps to unite the internal and external team players to confront it. It reinforces brands’ spirit and culture while sending a coherent and bold message of their cultures and values to their broader surroundings. The core story aims to assemble a consistent structure of a company brand both internally and externally. If a company or brand does not stand for something other than making money, it will not make remarkable experiences for employees or customers or have a remembered emotional impact. The challenge is to summarize the brands’ core story in one sentence and deliver it to the world.

3M is committed to sustainability and improving every life. For over 70 years, 3M’s unique 15% culture has encouraged employees to set aside a portion of their work time to develop and engage in innovative ideas that motivate them proactively. The 3M 15% culture gives employees the license to innovate. It empowers every employee to develop visions, allowing all employees to spend 15% of their time on personal experiments and projects. In 3M, storytelling is an integrated part of the culture. Stories help employees understand what the company stands for through stories and ideas that encourage a culture of innovation. One unique idea may bring an invention to the world, like sandpapers or sticky notes. The story behind the invention of 3M’s classic post-it note is written in several management books as an example of how a company thrives through a culture of innovation. 3M’s core story is about purpose, according to Mike Roman, 3M CEO. The company believes that “innovation isn’t innovation without sustainability.” For example, 3M innovates to reduce plastic use, improve environmental footprint. In addition, 3M commits to achieving carbon neutrality, minimizing water use, and enhancing water quality. The adversaries in these stories are all the things that stand in the way of ecosystems thrive, innovative thinking for purpose, diversified communities, and sustainability. “How can we make sponges greener?” is a 3M story told by curious kids about solutions to global challenges.

CEOs’ Stories are essential in the branding process. The CEO is a symbolic figure for any company besides his managerial and leadership duties. The CEOs must be more cautious and aware of their role in enlightening their company’s brand and core values. CEOs’ actions and speeches direct the path that the company is following. A CEO can destroy a company or brand by a very tiny mistake or be the icon of its success.

General Electric’s former CEO, Jack Welch, who passed away in 2020, is famous for his candid, talent-centric management style and has long talked that companies are only as strong as those who keep them running. Welch estimated he devoted about 60% of his time to human resources. This entire game of business revolves around one thing, he said at New York’s World Business Forum. You build the best team; you win. You want your employees to feel like they are part of the company, tell them a story that makes them want to choose you. Many considered Jack Welch as the most outstanding leader of his era. As CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, he transformed it from a company known for appliances and lightbulbs to a multinational corporation that stretched into financial services, media, and industrial products. Under his leadership, G.E.’s company value soared by 4000%. When he retired from G.E., he received a severance payment of 417 million USD, the largest such payment in business history.CEOs’ Stories are essential in the branding process. The CEO is a symbolic figure for any company besides his managerial and leadership duties. The CEOs must be more cautious and aware of their role in enlightening their company’s brand and core values. CEOs’ actions and speeches direct the path that the company is following. A CEO can destroy a company or brand by a very tiny mistake or be the icon of its success.

General Electric’s former CEO, Jack Welch, who passed away in 2020, is famous for his candid, talent-centric management style and has long talked that companies are only as strong as those who keep them running. Welch estimated he devoted about 60% of his time to human resources. This entire game of business revolves around one thing, he said at New York’s World Business Forum. You build the best team; you win. You want your employees to feel like they are part of the company, tell them a story that makes them want to choose you. Many considered Jack Welch as the most outstanding leader of his era. As CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, he transformed it from a company known for appliances and lightbulbs to a multinational corporation that stretched into financial services, media, and industrial products. Under his leadership, G.E.’s company value soared by 4000%. When he retired from G.E., he received a severance payment of 417 million USD, the largest such payment in business history.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, is famous for innovative products and solutions. Musk, a South African-born American entrepreneur, and businessman founded X.com in 1999 which later became PayPal, SpaceX in 2002, and co-founder of Tesla motors in 2004. Musk made headlines in May 2012, when SpaceX launched a rocket to send the first commercial vehicle to the international space station. Musk is working to transform transportation on both Earth and space. Musk becomes a brand himself and an icon for innovation and recently becomes a source for pushing cryptocurrency and the stock market. For example, musk was behind GameStop’s epic surge in Jan. 2021, tweeted out a link to the Reddit board that is largely hyped the stock. Shares of GameStop were up over 60% following Musk’s tweet. He has an enormous influence over his 59 million followers on Twitter, using his charming influence to promote many ideas and theories.

The CEO performs the lead role in stories, both internally and externally, in many successful brands. They become the Story Driver of the company’s core story. It occurs in companies where visionary and charismatic founders manage themselves. All company’s and CEOs’ stories must aim in the same direction to enhance the company’s one core story. It is a prerequisite for creating a consistent brand that can penetrate a highly competitive and crowded market.

Gerald Ratner was the CEO of his family’s jewelry business, Ratner Group. The company was struggling upon his arrival when he inherited it from his father in 1984. He transformed the company into a phase of prosperity and rapid expansion through his rebranding and cost-cutting. The company was a low-price competitor, owned more than a thousand stores throughout Europe and the United States, 50% of the U.K. market. The road to ruin began in April 1991. Ratner was invited to speak at the Institute of Directors’ meeting. It was a prestigious event attended by thousands of the U.K.’s most influential investors and covered by media and journalists. He made a joke about one of his company products in his speech, “People say, how can you sell this for such a low price? I say Because it’s total crap.” Then he also said, “We sold a pair of earrings for under a pound, which is cheaper than a shrimp sandwich from Marks and Spencer, but probably wouldn’t last as long”.

The newspaper and TV outlets took Ratner’s words literally, which degraded his company brand. After the speech, the value of the Ratner group plummeted by around £500 million pounds, which nearly resulted in the firm’s collapse. Ratner has said in his defense that his remarks were not meant to be taken seriously, but the jokes backfired and destroyed the company. Today, Ratner’s speech is still famous in the corporate world as an example of the value of branding and image over quality.

For developing a corporate core story that brands can revolve around in harmony, it is essential to know the nature of a likely gap between brand and corporate identity, image, and purpose. Some companies may experience a customer perception gap for several reasons. It could be a sort of definition or a communication problem. Without a proper explanation of brands’ identity, image, and purpose, gaps will insufficiently influence and degrade marketing messages. Therefore, marketers shall define the gaps elements to fill

them with non-contradicted and integrated storytelling messages. Sequentially, these consistent stories shall be

communicated to the audience adequately to explain what it stands for.

Brand Identity A promise a company makes to a customer, involves a brand’s name, colors, and logo to reflect the brand’s vision and message. The brand fully controls the brand identity.

Brand Personality is about attitudes, emotions & characteristics. It builds personal relationships with consumers, sets of personal characteristics that are assigned to a brand.

Brand Image is about customer perception of a brand, a result of awareness & attractiveness for a brand. It builds upon customer interactions with a brand. The brand has less control over the brand image.

Brand Purpose is about product-led initiatives which strive to achieve business and society benefit simultaneously, why a brand exists? Brand’s reason for being beyond making money.

The Edelman 2017 study found that 50% of consumers worldwide consider themselves belief-driven buyers, and 67% bought a brand for the first time because they agreed with its position on a controversial topic. The result concludes that a powerful brand purpose can set a company apart from the crowd. The Edelman trust barometer special report revealed that 74% of a brand’s impact on society is why brand trust has become more important; 64% said that trust is second to price, making brands’ trust the make or break difference. The dynamics of a powerful brand exist precisely because the brand is constantly fighting to overcome challenges and adversaries to achieve its goal. A purpose does not necessarily mean that the brand must pursue an ideological quest. However, it means that brands need to position and differentiate themselves in the business and support societies and communities with a worthwhile cause. For instance, Black Lives Matter created a social reason for brands to talk about and interact with audiences to gain trust. Consumers are looking to brands to act and advocate for change in a systemic racism environment.

A marvelous story shows the brand’s personality, solution, and social commitment. Warby Parker is a lifestyle brand eyewear company that offers designer eyewear at a revolutionary price. Brands’ story “to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for social businesses.” The company wants to fight market monopoly and satisfy the customers with unique designs, higher quality, and affordable prices.

Brand’s purpose is a commitment to benefit society. Its website story, “One billion people worldwide lack access to glasses.” Warby Parker partners with non-profits like Vision Spring to make sure that for every pair of glasses sold, a pair is delivered to someone in need.” The brand existed because one of its founders lost a pair of glasses on a backpacking trip and waited an entire semester of graduate school to replace them because of the prohibitive cost. This bad personal experience was the driving force behind the brand. The brand sympathizes with customers who have eyewear issues. Warby Parker is not just some startup with its eye on disruption; it is a company designed to serve a segment of the population that is being ignored. The company’s compelling brand storytelling has paid off by a series of videos, social media posts, and by making a documentary showing the entire process of making Warby Parker glasses, from the initial design to cutting the lenses. They send a personalization message to the customer “When you order, a new pair is made just for you". The brand is valued at $3 billion USD in 2021.

Ace Metrix measures the performance and strength of emotional connection in storytelling advertising. The released report 2019’s Best Storytelling Ads revealed that outstanding storytelling alone does not make an effective ad.

With over 8,400 video ads analyzed in 2019 and over 3 million viewer comments, the top 10 ads distinguished themselves by telling real life stories, historical tales, and inspirational acts. While they differ in their delivery, they all cause a magnitude of emotions in viewers. The top ten ads in 2019 Best Storytelling Ads are emotions that fire.

Mercedes’s “Bertha Benz” ranked the top storytelling ad with the highest emotional connection, powerful messaging, inspiring, and heartfelt feelings. The respondent comments phrases like love the storyline, dramatic story, powerful history, all measured and analyzed by natural language machine learning.

Telling Powerful Storytelling ads create long lasting emotional bonds with customers, which help the brands remain attached to customers’ subconscious memory. In addition, a story is necessary to become the driving force behind its brand values, differentiating them in very crowded, noisy media outlets. Therefore, companies need to re-evaluate and analyze the performance of their ads to understand brands’ reception and consumers’ behaviors.

A consistent strategy is crucial for ads to reflect core stories, values, and promises to avoid contradictory messages. Consistency will help the customers understand brands’ identity, personality, image, and purpose. Brands shall encourage engagement which involves two way communication. Ads shall be tailored and personalized according to the buyer persona, not based on an irrelevant audience. Consistency enhances brand confidence and trust, an essential trigger for customer purchasing decisions second to price.

Stories should be enjoyable and engaging with their niche customer audience, reflecting their real life stories, concerns, struggles, conflicts, and challenges. The customers shall play the hero or the victim role in the conflict’s story plot of escalating events pursuing their ambitious goals.

A brand shall play a supporting and guiding role in the hero’s journey. The emotional meaning of the story is a prominent part of a successful ad encouraging the customers to connect, respond and interact with the brand message.

Travelers is an insurance company in the United States. The company used storytelling techniques ads to promote their services. They interviewed some relatives of accident victims to talk about their beloved real life ones who are lost in an accident. Travelers continued to tell an unfinished story about an accident victim, which triggers emotional connections and empathy among the viewers. They presented the victim as the hero of the story while the company solutions sit in the backseat.

This ad is about Howard’s who was a self taught grandfather carpenter. A distracted driver killed him while he pulled over to the side of the road. Travelers wanted the audience to be aware of car accidents caused by distracted drivers that can be avoided. In the video description, each day, nine people are killed by distracted driving, leaving their stories unfinished. We honored Howard by bringing his unfinished story to life by imagining what could have been”. Travelers transformed this valuable awareness message into emotional storytelling to promote their service cleverly and indirectly.

In 1987, Nestle launched its campaign for NESCAFE Gold Blend in the U.K. The series of ads were about a suspense romantic love story. The ads told the story of Tony and Sharon, two opposites who slowly attract, thanks to their shared love of Gold Blend coffee. The campaign ran in the U.K. from 1987 to 1993.

The Nescafe brand was not the hero in the story, but it was why the two lovers meet each other for the first time simply because they love drinking coffee, and it was a Nescafe brand. Usually, humans love to interact with other humans who share the same taste, traditions, values, culture, religion, or language. It was the core story of Nescafe that lasted for several years. It was a story about good taste and passion, an entertaining story that got viewers’ attention: the focus was on the characters and their actions while NESCAFE took a supporting role in the back seat.

However, it still managed to play an essential role in developing the story. More importantly, since 1987, NESCAFE Gold Blend has increased its sales by 60%. When the Gold Blend campaign was running, there used to be newspaper ads that advertised when the next installment would be on TV.

The campaign did a great job of building anticipation. Marketers could do similar stories with the power of social media, inviting the audience to develop brand storytelling and use social media hashtags to build excitement for each episode. This kind of ad campaign would undoubtedly prompt many conversations around a brand and extend its exposure.

As a working adult, it’s normal to feel like you’re too busy to earn your degree. It is an ad story about a mother struggling to raise her kid. She wants a better future, a more secure and paying job; therefore, when she saw an ad for a part time business degree by the University of Phoenix, she dreamed of flying into a better future.

The university commercial is sending a message to busy people with the ambition that it will help them reach their potential goal. It’s time to see how far your wings can take you. The emotional narrative built a strong connection with viewers, especially with people who may have the same living conditions as the heroes’ story.

The comments and the viewers’ interactions are also emotional; the audience sympathizes with the struggling mother. One more time, the brand did not take a lead hero role in the story and remained in the back seat to support the hero in her journey pursuing her goal.

Consumer skepticism has always been a problem for brands; therefore, brands need to be trusted, authentic, and effective in communication. The Edelman 2019 trust barometer special report showed that 81% of consumers across markets, ages, incomes, and gender say that brand trust is essential to buying. Brand communication is a direct interaction between a brand and its internal and external stakeholders. It is a combination of TV or radio or online advertising, social media, reviews, emails, online or paper newsletters, and billboards used to communicate internally and externally. Consistency is crucial between all channels, which requires using unified and noncontradiction messages. Brand visuals such as colors, logos, tags, symbols all must be consistent. McKinsey & Company 2017 revealed that only 13% of customers remained loyal to a brand. 87% considered other brands while 58% switched to a new one.

The switch off from one brand to another is evidence of poor communication in some respects. There might be other reasons related to the brand itself for not adding value or solving customer problems. For instance, the evolution of mobile shopping apps that showcase options, simplify pricing, compare product specifications, and facilitate peer reviews make it possible to size up brands effortlessly. In addition, social media lets consumers know what their friends are buying and what they like and dislike about those purchases. All this encourages consumers to shop around and change patterns that marketers have counted on for years. In contrast, the primary goal of marketing communication is to reach a clearly defined audience and influence its purchasing behavior by building awareness and stimulating customer trials. On the other hand, brand communication is successful if it creates the desired response in that audience. The goal is to keep consumers connected with the brand and enhance customer loyalty. Brands need to improve products and services and make them more valuable for the consumers. Apple has outgrown competitors by offering differentiated product innovation and a better consumer experience. During the recession that occurred in 2008, Hyundai did not follow the usual car industry playbook by stopping the bleeding with short term sales incentives. Instead, the company used an innovative marketing campaign to build consideration. It promised to take back cars from customers who had lost their jobs or incomes to drive up consideration among consumers financially unsettled by the recession. Further, Hyundai was one of the very few auto companies to grow when the industry was widely losing ground at that time.

Here are several examples of brand communication routes:

1) Leadership Communication

The decision makers at the top of the pyramid need to be at the heart of the branding process. The leaders will be ultimately responsible for crafting the messaging proposition, defining the brand direction, and cascading this message to their teams. For example, in a recent video cars moment recharge, Chief Executive volvo cars, announced Volvo’s new strategy “Sustainability is now as important as safety to us.” The purpose is to influence the necessary change to motivate stakeholders and create a buy into a strategy.

2) Change Communication

In a business life cycle, companies may face several difficulties. For example, there might be structural changes or mergers and acquisitions or simply economic drawdown periods or disruptive technologies, pandemic such as covid 2019 where jobs must be eliminated and staff to be laid off. Communicating these changes in emotional storytelling to the stakeholders can help to increase the trust and the transparency of the brand.

3) Sharing The Company’s Mission, Vision, And Culture

Lego had created an animated video to celebrate its 80th anniversary. Through the art of storytelling, Lego beautifully communicated how it started its business, combating struggles and ups and downs and how its culture and values were shaped over the years

4) Learning And Development

Storytelling techniques can share personal experiences, technical frameworks, technologies, and models to help learners understand the practical application of knowledge.

5) Coaching And Learning

Coaching techniques are better delivered to the audience through a life story. Coaches take the learners through their journey, ups and downs, and turning points. It helps the learners connect with their coach, and it also keeps the coaching authentic and not a hypothetical journey.

6) Customers’ Testimonials

With a visual story context, customers’ testimonials are more exciting and far more memorable and impactful. Customer testimonials stories demonstrate a customer’s need, show how the company or brand fills that need, and improve the customer’s life by using brands’ services or products. Tesla successfully did this by posting a series of customer stories, a mix of video testimonials and stories spoken by the Teslas’ customers themselves. These stories show real Tesla customers interacting with their cars and how being a Tesla owner has improved the customer’s life positively.

7) Employees’ Testimonials

Employees are a fundamental element that shapes the company’s core values and culture. Marketers can use storytelling to showcase employees’ achievements and assign them ambassadors for the brand. The types of people the company employs, and the things they are passionate about, communicate massively about the company’s values and culture. Employees’ stories help communicate that culture to audiences who will connect with employee stories on an emotional & personal level. The environmentally friendly clothing company Reformation showcases employee story videos on Instagram and YouTube. The videos feature Reformation employees are working in the factory where the clothes are produced. The video series showing the factory employees telling their life stories and daily routines is a solid storytelling approach.

According to Takumi 2020 research, the covid 2019 has led their clients to lean more heavily into influencers. From a cultural perspective, with social media consumption up significantly, influencers are more influential than ever. Data from the MuseFind 2018 report showed that 92% of consumers trusted an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement. Another study in 2017 found that 33% said influencers were trusted sources when making shopping decisions, while only 17% trusted friends and family for shopping recommendations. Influencers provided insight into their personal lives and interacted with their followers. By responding to messages, giving their opinions, influencers are more impactful to followers than their celebrity counterparts.

Takumi 2020 research revealed that people most trusted YouTube content creators. Influencer marketing is estimated to be worth $15 billion by 2022, almost double its value in 2019. 27% of 16-44 year olds were influenced to buy a service or product by YouTube influencers during the past six months of collecting the data. In contrast, 24% were influenced by Instagram creators and 15% by TikTok creators. Furthermore, younger consumers are more likely to buy a product or service due to TikTok influencers as 30% in the United Kingdom and 40% in Germany were influenced to purchase a product or service by TikTok influencers. In comparison, 37% of 33-44 year olds were most influenced by TikTok influencers in the United States.

The Takumi research showed that consumers trusted influencers more than they trust the information coming from a brand. Now more than ever, a brand message is competing with traditional media, word of mouth, online reviews, blogs, and more. Brands that can educate and entertain their audiences via influencers will capture consumers’ hearts and wallets compared to traditional media. However, marketers’ trust in different channels differs, with Instagram being ranked on top, followed by YouTube and TikTok. One of the top three concerns for marketers included a ‘lack of familiarity with TikTok, while 96% of marketers felt familiar with Google’s YouTube. With that being said, the ability of creators to demonstrate return on investment could enhance the trust of marketers. The report also stated that customers recognized Instagram as more aspirational, informational, and easy to use than TikTok. In contrast, consumers consider TikTok more engaging and creative than Instagram.

To leverage influencers for brand storytelling content for maximum impact, brands must learn how to:

• Discover the right influencers and sign them up.

• Measure the success of influencers.

• Brand storytelling needs a storyteller. Some of the most compelling storytellers are influencers. The best ones already love the brand; they can be found through social listening or agencies. The high quality content creators that already used brand hashtags and talked about the products on social media are the best choice to leverage communication and emotional reactions.

The ultimate reason for every company is the purpose for its existence. Brand purpose is the reason that business exists beyond making money. Of course, not every company has a solid basis for its existence beyond making profits. Nowadays, many companies and big brands try to show their purpose to become more recognized in the noisy, crowded marketplace. Big brands such as Dove, the Bodyshop, Unilever Apple, Ikea, Ted, and many others created social media campaigns to deliver their purpose messages in the shape of storytelling. Unilever stated that its purpose led brands grow 69% faster than the rest of their business. It is a clear signal that brands with sustainability at their core are beneficial to both people and the planet. Here are some examples of brand purpose inspirations: -

TED “Ideas Worth Spreading”

Dove “Help women everywhere develop a positive relationship with the way they look, helping them realize their full potential”

TESLA” To Accelerate the world transition to sustainable energy”

PATAGONIA “We’re in business to save our home planet”

When the purpose is identified, communicating brands’ identity becomes more straightforward and incredibly powerful. It provides customers, partners, vendors, and employees possibilities to feel like they are a part of a brands’ tribe. A brand’s purpose provides a sense of belonging and togetherness, initiating a movement to build up around its purpose. The purpose should be the core, the soul, of a business. Every action of that business should authentically convey its purpose and meaning. If employees can recognize the company’s core story, they will proudly share it. A strong brand always starts internally to enhance its purpose message with its employees to have a long term effect externally. If Nike’s employees could not identify and advocate their belief in “the will to win,” sooner before later, the prestigious brand commercials will seem silly and forgettable. Employees are the single key ambassadors of a company brand.

Consumers respond to authenticity. Storytelling allows to bring personality and authenticity to brand marketing messages, and it is a powerful tool for delivering what consumers desire. Brand communication requires consistency across multiple mediums and social media channels. Consistency is a crucial deliverable because a brand promotes its offering by including storytelling in their brand communication strategies. Brands can also provide platforms for spreading stories about their consumers and building brand loyalty. In addition, well told and communicated stories prompt ongoing conversations and generate followings and patronage.

As an example of communicating the purpose and the company’s culture core message, in 2007, Burger King carried out a social experiment to remind the Americans’ love of the Whopper visible. First, they declared a random Burger King restaurant a “Whopper free zone.” Then, they temporarily took the Whopper off the menu to measure consumers’ reactions. Naturally, the consumers were unhappy, and many were annoyed and complained about the unavailable beloved burger.

The campaign affected Burger King restaurants’ sales, with Whopper quarterly sales increase up by double digits.

The ad campaign was awarded a Gold Effie in the restaurant’s category, the top award given to acknowledge effectiveness for the campaign’s “boldness and creativity across multiple media platforms.” Moreover, fewer customers visited the competing burger restaurants. Burger King proved the Whopper is much more than just a burger; it is a part of American culture.

In 2011, Michael Dubin met a friend’s father-in-law at a party who had a warehouse filled with razor blades he wanted to sell. The concept for Dollar Shave Club is about building a passionate tribe around a feasible demand. The idea behind the business is to compete against those dominant brands such as Gillet, which offers high prices for its several blades razor packages. While Dollar shave club provides low prices, it builds up a community movement around itself. Establishing a social movement community would make it more appealing for customers who want to fight big dominant brands. The rise of social media apps helped spread the newborn brand.

Michael Dubin had a brilliant idea about a promotion video that stars Michael himself walking through a warehouse while talking about the company’s purpose. The video generated over 12,000 orders on that day and has since been viewed over 27 million times. But, while one viral video makes for a splendid start, Dollar Shave Club knew it could not stop there. If the company was genuinely going to improve the customer experience in purchasing razors, Michael knew it needed to do more than sell. So, inspired by the notion of a member’s club, Michael branded himself the “Club Pro,” a confidently trusted mentor who would answer all the weird and wonderful questions his customers could dream up. The company then decided to lead the conversation with helpful, humorous, socialized engaging content.

Dollar Shave Club’s core belief and purpose have not changed since its inception. Even though business strategies change and grow, the core purpose stays consistent. For example, Ford’s purpose is to “open the highways to all mankind”, Southwest Airline’s purpose of providing affordable transportation to the common person; Walt Disney’s purpose is to bring joy to children everywhere, and Coca-Cola’s purpose is to inspire happiness. Serving its purpose, Dollar Shave Club went from a one-person operation to a mega brand. Unilever eventually acquired it for $1 billion USD. Dollar Shave Club’s website or social media channels today still at the same spirit and purpose in everything that it does. A company’s purpose will shape its brand’s values, as well as its personality and voice.

People believe brands and social media can empower connections. 91% of people believe in social’s power to connect people despite feelings of division. Further, 78% of consumers wanted brands to use social to help people connect. When customers feel connected to brands, more than half of consumers, 57%, will increase their spending with that brand, and 76% will buy from them over a competitor. Consumers wanted to learn more about the people behind their beloved brands. For instance, 70% of consumers feel more connected when a brand’s CEO is active on social media. 72% of consumers report feeling connected when employees share information about a brand online. According to sprout social research, 65% of consumers feel more connected to brands with a robust social presence. That means brands must focus on their content’s consistency and quality.

Notably, consumers want material that humanizes an otherwise faceless brand, and they wanted the people behind the brands doing the posting. The social behavior from highly engaged brands with customers enhances sales engagement. Answering a customer’s question on social prompts sales. According to sprouts’ (2017), 48% of customers purchase from a responsive brand on social media. Companies shall monitor mentions and conversations about brands’ products, hashtags, employees, competitors, and customers. Social listening helps track, analyze, and respond to discussions across the internet. Brands need to use hashtags to centralize conversation on social media so that their customers can find it and engage with it.

Imagine that an Australian yogurt brand wants to tackle a social issue about mothers to shine among its competitors as a genuine value brand. Yoplait aspired to send this message to its female customer mothers, “The first rule of motherhood, someone’s always judging. So, to all the moms out there, we see you and say, Mom On!” Yoplait tapped into a shared public debate: mum-shaming. It relates to the often preachy or patronizing information given to mothers about being a good parent and shaming those who do not follow it. In Its 2018 campaign, ‘Mom On’ depicted mothers addressing common criticisms they face, such as a judgment over breastfeeding, going back to work. While the ad did not focus on a current event or overly controversial subject, it presented the brand stance bold on a specific issue, with the clear potential to offend those who might disagree. The social stance made the campaign hugely memorable, standing out amid a sea of similar and formulaic ads from competitor brands.

Catherine was an Airbnb guest in May 2012. She traveled to Berlin with her father, Jörg, a Berlin Wall guard at the Cold War. Catherine told Airbnb about an incident that made the trip a powerful story. She wanted to show her father the vibrant city of Berlin how it changed, but coincidence happened that it was the man they met at their rented Airbnb apartment that changed everything for Jörg. As a result, Airbnb connected two Berlin wall border guards back together. Airbnb felt that telling an inspirational story is the best way to connect and belong to each other, making them feel emotional and associated with the brand. The intelligent, fantastic, and cool animation, “Wall and Chain” tied immediately into the international ‘be anywhere’ feel the company has worked hard to create.

The story at the heat of the animation is about a genuine and authentic story to let the customer buy in the core message and believe in it. Anyone who watches the animation will be impacted by the simplicity of the ideas at its heart. It is about connection, family, and being a global citizen. What made the captivating story more compelling is that it is delivered with such simple animation. The animation was told in an intense and instantly memorable story, as the emotions that pour out of it are phenomenal.

David decided it was time to sell his beloved 1999 Barina car with 188,000+ kilometers on the odometer, only three hubcaps, and its share of dents and scratches. David, who worked for a video production company, had a brilliant idea with the help of his colleagues to let bring Barina to life in the most epic used car sales video ever. They came up with the clever tagline, “Don’t just make history—drive it” He received valid offers of $1,000 and $2,000 (double the asking price). Finally, Australia’s NRMA Insurance made David an offer he could not refuse. NRMA Insurance, a company that offers a range of automotive and home insurance solutions, wanted to buy the car. David accepted and donated the money to Cancer Council Australia.

The company wanted to use Barina’s fame to tell a story about the work the NRMA Insurance research center carries out with physical testing, data analysis, consumer advisory on car safety, and comprehensive car insurance reduction.

It was a brilliant move for NRMA Insurance to jump onto the board of Barina’s story. NRMA Insurance took Barina’s success story and leveraged it to showcase the work it does in its R&D lab. When a brand industry is more formal, like an insurance company, telling a story in a fun, creative way differentiates it from its counterpart competitors.

The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation wanted to make a bold ad that emotionally affects the people passing a subway train to help donate for children combating cancer diseases. So, just as the passenger arrives, a static billboard of a young woman with long hair comes to life, and her hair starts to blow around. It is as if the wind generated by the train’s arrival is propelling the movement of her hair in real-time.

However, as the train slows down, the wind blowing the woman’s hair exposes her bald head. A shocked expression likely replaces the passenger’s surprise and smile. They are stunned, trying to figure out what just happened. The billboard’s animation ends with the message “Every day a child is diagnosed with cancer” and invites you to text a specific number to donate to the foundation.

A video released by the nonprofit captured the powerful reactions to the billboard from people on the train platform, expressing their shock and sadness. The Sooner the video was shared across social networks and news media, the passionately it responded in Sweden and worldwide. The foundation’s pioneering use of innovative technology in its visual storytelling successfully raised awareness and funds for childhood cancer. The right visuals appeal to human emotions and make a story memorable. Stories communicate values. But they also communicate knowledge. By exchanging stories, brands share knowledge. Stories information packaged in a meaningful context is more accessible for the audience to understand its depth and relevance.

Since 2008, Häagen-Dazs has used its platform to talk about waning honeybee populations, telling stories to persuade their audience to action. It has been done through its Honeybees initiative. Honeybees pollinate one third of the foods we eat, including many of the ingredients Häagen-Dazs used to make their pure ice creams, sorbets, frozen yogurts, and bars. Unfortunately, honeybee populations are disappearing at an alarming rate. So Häagen-Dazs ice cream has teamed up with leading research facilities to donate more than $1,000,000 to honeybee research. One of their most results methods of highlighting the honeybee’s plight is the modern virtual reality methods.

The educational VR video invites the viewer to fly along with a bee named Alex as he shows them the threats facing his species. Häagen-Dazs hopes that this award-winning video will help bring the plight of the bees the attention it deserves

The psychology of color relates to persuasion aspects of marketing & branding. It helps to understand perception and consumer behaviors. Further, color helps humans memorize certain information by increasing their attentional level. The secretariat of the Seoul international color expo researched in 2004 revealed the following relationships between color and marketing:

92.6% said they put the most importance on visual factors when purchasing products. Only 5.6% said that the physical feel via the sense of touch was most important. Hearing and smell each drew 0.9%. 84.7% of the total respondents thought that color accounts for more than half of the various factors essential for choosing products. The University of Loyola, Maryland, performed a study that revealed that color increases brand recognition by 80%. The Midwestern U.S. insurance company used color to highlight essential information on their invoices. Consequently, they began receiving customer payments an average of 14 days earlier. Customers remember documents and presentations better when color is used.

Heinz introduced EZ Squirt ketchup for children in the early 2000s. The company introduced artificially colored ketchup that featured a nozzle like a glue bottle and allowed the user to squirt the colorful mixture on foods. The first color rolled out was green, followed by blue, purple, and a mystery color that kids love, which could be orange, teal, or purple. From 2000 to 2003, the company sold over 25 million bottles of the condiment. However, like so many colorful fads, this one wore off as well, and the product was discontinued in 2006. As time went on, consumers have become more health-conscious, limiting, or banning artificial food dyes in some areas. While this may not have directly affected EZ Squirt, it was likely a factor in its waning popularity.

Colors express different emotions and personalities. Here are some popular colors and what they symbolize:

Yellow: optimism, clarity, warmth

Orange: friendly, cheerful, confident

Red: excitement, bold, youthful

Purple: creative, wise, imaginative

Blue: trust, strength, dependable

Green: peaceful, growth, health

Gray: balance, neutral, calm

Many brands whose products deal with the environment utilize green. John Deere, Animal Planet, and the Girl Scouts all use this color. Green’s value goes beyond nature-focused companies. Food manufacturers take advantage of the fact that people associate green with health.

Gray plays an essential role in the logo world, especially when it is shined to a silver finish. Car companies like Mercedes-Benz and Honda use logos that feature silver. Some companies that are partial to red include Target, Coca-Cola, and Netflix. In contrast, iconic technology brands such as Dell, IBM, Intel, and G.E. leverage blue’s robust and trustworthy persona to represent their brands. Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Girl Scouts use green to showcase a peaceful, healthful brand identity.