Creating a Brand Story People Care About
The biggest mistake brands make when trying to create an emotionally compelling brand story is starting with themselves.
It’s understandable. You live and breathe your brand. You know its history, its purpose, its achievements and all the reasons people should love it. But just because your brand means something to you doesn’t mean it means something to your audience.
And that’s the difference between a brand story that sounds good in a boardroom and one that actually makes people care.
Start With Your Audience, Not Your Brand
When companies want to make their brand story more emotional, they often look at survey results and try to find the perfect combination of “reasons to believe.” Then they cram them all into one story.
The problem? More reasons to believe don’t necessarily create more reasons to care. Often, they dilute the story.
There’s also a fundamental problem with relying too heavily on what people say. Ask me how often I do yoga and I’ll give you an answer that has little in common with my reality. What people tell you in a survey is often what they want to believe about themselves. What they actually do can tell you something much more useful.
That’s why we believe the best brand stories start with the audience’s perspective. Who are these people? What matters to them? What else is happening in their lives besides your product or service? And what would make them stop, pay attention and tell someone else about you?
Get Out of the Marketing Department
When we develop a brand story, we begin by talking to people inside the organization, but not just the marketing team. People in other departments often have extraordinary insight into the organization and its impact. They may have stories, observations and perspectives that marketing has never thought to ask about.
When we lead brainstorming or visioning sessions, we deliberately try to get a breadth of voices into the room. Changing the people and perspectives changes the conversation. It also breaks up the groupthink that can happen when marketers spend too much time looking at data and reports and forget that their audiences are real people.
Sometimes the best brand insight comes from the person who doesn’t have “marketing” in their job title.
Look Further Downstream
One nonprofit we worked with initially thought its brand story was about the money it raised and the organizations it supported. But the more we talked, the further downstream we looked, and that’s where the real story was.
The organization wasn’t simply providing money. It was helping individuals and families in very practical ways. Sometimes a little support went surprisingly far. An organization didn’t necessarily need thousands of dollars. It might simply need to shift their office hours so people could actually reach them after work. That was the emotional story: not the money itself, but the difference that seemingly small interventions could make in someone’s life.
The same principle applied when we worked with a private school. The school had developed messaging for parents, donors and the public, but had overlooked one important audience: the young people who might actually attend the school. When we changed the language and spoke directly to potential students in ways that mattered to them, not simply in the language used to convince their parents, they got excited about attending the school.
The story didn’t change. The perspective did.
Make Your Brand Story Something People Want to Share
A good brand story should differentiate you. But it should also be memorable enough that your customers become your ambassadors and tell it for you.
We saw this with a luxury hotel that was essentially sitting back and waiting for people to book a room. Instead of creating more content about the hotel, we developed a content plan around the unique events and experiences happening in the destination. The hotel became a voice for select events in the area. People began seeking out its perspective on the destination. And by becoming part of a larger conversation, the hotel’s website traffic grew and by extension, its chances of becoming part of someone’s travel plans.
The story expanded beyond the brand. That’s what made it interesting.
Lose Your Job Title
So, if you’re staring at a blank page trying to write your brand story, don’t start by asking, “What do we want to say?” Start with what gets you excited about the brand. Not you as an employee. Not you as a marketer. You as a person.
When you’re talking to friends, what makes you proud of what you do? What makes your brand genuinely different? What makes it stand out? Then take off your work hat.
Think about the brand as a parent. A cyclist. Someone who loves to cook. A traveller. A neighbour. A person with limited time, competing priorities and a life that has very little to do with your marketing plan.
That’s when you start to see your brand from the audience’s perspective rather than the boardroom’s.
And that’s where the stories people actually care about tend to begin.
Let’s talk
We’d be happy to explore your brand story with you. A brief introductory conversation is often enough to uncover how we could help clarify your positioning, strengthen your thought leadership and make your communications more effective.
Reach out to us at [email protected].