Brand Storytelling is a narrative to communicate a message to the potential customers and existing consumers. Human brains are rooted to respond to stories thanks to their psychological nature. The brand storytelling goal is to tempt the customers’ desire and inspire them to connect with a brand to make an action, to buy a product or service. Brand Storytelling helps customers understand why they should care about a brand, product, individual, or company. Personalized brand storytelling allows the brand to change customers’ lives because it solves their problems and it customizes its products or services to fulfill customer demands, wishes, and dreams and provide a better user experience.
For example, Apple recently released robust new privacy protections in the iOS operating system which help users better control and manage access to their data. These features represent the latest innovations in Apple’s legacy of privacy leadership. 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. It is also one of its core values. Customers’ devices are essential to many parts of people’s life. What users share from those experiences and whom they share it with should be up to them. Apple designs products to protect users’ privacy and give them control over their information. 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 and artificial intelligence advanced technology without users’ knowledge and approval.
What is Brand Personalization?
In 2012 New York Times article called, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets.” It was written mainly as a follow-up to what became a public incident: An angry father marched into a Minnesota Target store, 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 subsequently personalize the promotions she received, thanks to a ton of -completely legal- 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.
Personalized stories keep context more relevant and meaningful for life, work, relationships, and community norms. It grabs customers’ attention because it is easier to consume and engage, makes them think, and inspires them to act. Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman said that 95% of purchase decision-making occurs in consumers’ subconscious minds. Personalization increases engagement and strengthens bonds. Personalization provides consumers with personalized experiences that keep them engaged, and it's crucial for businesses to stay competitive in a crowded and increasingly sophisticated market. As a result, people now prefer businesses that make them feel like they are heard, understood, and care about their individual desires and requirements. It is a means for companies to contextualize the messages, offers, and experiences they send based on each customer's unique profile. The digital age has leveraged consumer expectations for relevant, contextual, and convenient experiences to extraordinary levels. 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 recent poll (Accenture 2018), 91 % of customers prefer to purchase with companies that identify, remember, and give them relevant offers and suggestions. 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 a one-size-fits-all that has no
consideration for customer preferences. Preference for personalized experiences helps
customers to reduce their overload consumption for information. Further, it
allows brands to tailor their products, ads, offers, services to suit consumers’
preferences. If brands want to break through the noise to reach their consumers and
keep them emotionally connected clutter, they shall infuse personalization into
their storytelling. The role of storytelling is to support the brands.
No one does personalization quite like streaming giant Netflix, and it all comes down to being 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 well-known fact that no two Netflix homepages look the same, owing to the tracking and algorithms used by the service. “Netflix is streaming in over 30 languages and 190 countries because marvelous stories can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere”.
Brand Storytelling isn't only for movies; it can also be communicated in photos, vocally or in writing, and across all platforms, from social media to billboards. As a consequence, in a noisy, distracting marketplace, storytelling may help marketers achieve cut-through and minimize ad expenditures by creating advertising that connects with consumers and remains with them. A successful brand story is characterized by a dynamic escalation of conflict-driven events that result in a significant change in the protagonist's life. Brand Storytelling is both an emotional and identification trip as well as entertaining. It offers the past and presents a feeling of purpose, identity, and continuity. Storytelling compels self-reflection by doing more than just transmitting a message; it is a container for innermost longings, desires, and anxieties.
Brand Storytelling Triangular Relationship
Brand 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. It helps the consumers see inside a situation—the world of the story—and the insider of the characters’ feelings and struggles. Storytelling includes characters, setting, conflict, rising action, climax, and denouement, 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 a victim, while the brand is the guide during the journey. Assume a brand wants to be a hero in its ad story. In that case, it must tell the audience a story about its entrepreneurial journey from rags to rich in inspiring others who face similar struggles and conflicts and want to succeed not to quit till they reach their desired goals.
“Brand Purpose” is about values – values about who brands are, what they stand for, what they do for others, and the causes they serve. An obvious purpose gives consumers a way to connect with a brand and its values and products or services that add real value to people’s lives beyond just selling things to 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 is why big brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, and Adidas are turning to purpose to better connect and engage with their consumers. But, of course, purpose cannot be activated and reinforced without storytelling.
As a marketer, you need to connect 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. Splendid brand storytelling must be authentic and genuine. Finding that story may require a profound reflection on values and sharing personal experiences and moments with consumers.
The three influential ways storytellers end a story is by allowing the hero to
1. Winsome sort of power or position2. Be unified with somebody or something
3. Experience a self-fulfillment
These are the three most employed story endings because they are dominant psychological desires shared by most human beings. Well-told brand storytelling maintains the audience's attention, keeps them guessing, and rewards them with a memorable emotional experience. Emotional because the protagonist's acts provide internal insights into human nature; It is significant because the hero's journey provides internal insights into human nature.
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