The hero's journey typically features a hero pursuing a goal. The hero looks like Robin Hood, fighting for justice and freedom in England. However, the hero’s journey 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 are Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, who must be eliminated for justice to prevail.
A traditional story is divided into three parts: the beginning, the middle, and the 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 interact with the characters similar to readers, listeners, or viewers, especially when they see a little bit of themselves in the characters in the story, identifying the character’s problem and goal. For a successful story, the audience must engage with both the hero and the story’s dilemma.
Steve Jobs - Hero's Journey
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, the time. Apple was in trouble, and its innovation driving force had 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.
Some businesses make the deadly error of placing themselves as heroes in the brand story rather than the guide, which is a catastrophic mistake made by extremely immature brands that think they need to prove themselves. Unless there is a clear goal, a brand that positions itself as the hero will lose.
The Hero's Journey -Domino’s Pizza
Domino’s Pizza, a brand once afflicted 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 commemorate 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 nature of a customer-focused brand, the battle with customer dissatisfaction, and the end of conflict struggle by delivering sincere dedication to excellence in quality and achieving customer satisfaction. The story’s purpose is to show that a 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 them.
The Heros’ Journey
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 to make a customer the hero of the brand's stories, stories about issues customers have encountered, stories about customers who look like customers, and stories that customers can imagine themselves in.
A brand storytelling 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. The 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 a supporting and guiding role, which helps the customer find 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.
Connect with our Social Media