Over the past couple of years, we’re seeing a significant shift away from brands seeking out journalists to publish their business updates. Instead, brands are taking the narrative into their own hands. Traditionally when companies write about themselves, we wind up consuming dry, self-promotional and hollow content – but today, sharing emotive brand stories has become a popular marketing strategy.
By sharing unique brand stories, you attract your ideal customers: individuals who not only love engaging with your stories, but also have potential to become your brand ambassadors. Join Wordsmith as we explore how to create compelling brand stories.
It Gives You More Agency
When it comes to publishing a press release, your content team does not always have the final say as to what gets published. You may be able to write the press release in-house and distribute it, but ultimately the journalist will have the final say over what content they choose to use. Increasingly, brands are looking to control their own narrative and have more agency on what content they disseminate through engaging brand stories.
Numerous studies over the years have proven that, as humans, our brains are hardwired to be more receptive and engaged by storytelling than cold, statistical facts. Some of the world’s great brand stories have had the power to enhance audience’s recall, heighten brand awareness, increase sales and build customer loyalty, even long after the campaign has launched. Joe Teo, Chief Executive Officer at software company Hey Orca explains, “Storytelling, when done right, will pull a consumer into the world of a brand to see a different perspective, showing them the bigger picture. The story is an invitation for someone to participate in something bigger than themselves, something they believe in.” And no one knows how to do this quite like Guinness.
Back in 2019, before the Rugby World Cup in Japan, Guinness broke new ground with their extended five-minute documentary: “Liberty Fields”. A compelling continuation of their “Made of More” campaign, Liberty Fields tells the inspiring tale of a group of women who stood together and defied social conventions in Tokyo in the 1980s by forming an indomitable rugby team. Facing harsh ridicule and hostility from all angles, the team soon became one of the strongest in the country, with many members going on to represent Japan in the Women’s World Cup.
With no coach, no doctors and very little financial support, most of the women balanced training with second jobs to support their families in the hopes of changing the image of women in sport in Japan. Ms Kishida, a member of the Liberty Fields team, commented, “It was back in the day when getting harassed…was a given. Men expected women to be young, pretty and willing to quit their jobs for marriage. At the time, the women’s team weren’t recognised as official. So, we founded our own organisation.” She continued, “We lose if women can’t play rugby. The reason why we’ve kept on going is because we don’t want to lose. I wanted society to accept that women can love this kind of sport too, not just men.”
As the proud partner of the Women’s Six Nations, Guinness has worked to enhance the experience for both fans and players by championing balance in sport. And this means going beyond press releases to communicate key messages through creative storytelling. Head of Guinness Stout Europe, Niall McKee, commented, “We firmly believe at Guinness that when we stand together, we can take on the world. In a year where rugby takes centre stage thanks to the men’s team, we are using this pedestal to celebrate women in sport by showcasing the story of Ms Kishida and her Liberty Fields teammates – a team who are truly made of more. Our campaign around the story of Liberty Fields will see us talk more about inclusivity and diversity and celebrate women as pioneers.”
The TVC’s creative impact scores and results showed that the storytelling campaign was a resounding success. The film performed significantly higher than the norm for all forms of engagement when it came to heightening brand distinctiveness and brand recall.
For 3 secrets from other successful brand storytellers, click here.
It Allows You to Form An Emotional Connection With Your Audience
Press releases don’t allow readers to form positive emotional associations with your brand – but compelling stories do. Even if your press release gets published there is no guarantee that it will reach your intended audience – but with the right brand story communicated effectively across your social media channels, you’re bound to pull on the heartstrings of the readers you want to attract. At its best, brand storytelling is the cohesive narrative that weaves together the facts and emotions that your brand evokes. When we read, watch or listen to a story that resonates with us, the feel-good hormone “oxytocin” in our brain is released, which helps us emotionally connect with a brand.
Audiences may not always remember the logical arguments about why they should interact with your brand, but they will always remember how they felt when interacting with your content. While we might use logic initially when doing preliminary research on a product or service, the final decision to engage or purchase is often largely based on our emotions. So, using storytelling to foster emotional connections is essential to improving brand awareness and conversions. Seth Godin, the founder of altMBA, reiterates this by explaining, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”
The emotions you evoke with your brand stories go a long way in defining how audiences perceive your company. And when you create consistency with your brand stories, you create a stronger connection in your audience’s mind between you and the problem your brand solves for them.
For leading sports brand Nike, its consistent “Just Do It” mantra has been a motivational call for athletes around the world, across all levels of sport for the past three decades. And building on this rich diversity, Nike launched “Dream Crazy”, the second film in the “Just Do It” series, which focused on a collection of touching stories from famous athletes to inspiring individuals who all leverage the power of sport to move the world forward.
Including clips of LeBron James, Serena Williams, Odell Beckham Jr., Eliud Kipchoge, you’ll also see incredible athletes in the general public that break the mould – including 29-year-old basketball and wheelchair athlete Megan Blunk, who won gold in Rio in 2016, and Charlie Jabaley – who lost 120 pounds, reversed the growth of his life-long brain tumour and went on to become an ironman!
Within the first week of Nike’s “Dream Crazy” emotive storytelling campaign, the videos received over 21,135,487 views on YouTube, an 1,300% increase in mentions on Twitter and an impressive 31% growth in online sales. The film, starring American civil rights activist and a former quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, also won the award for “outstanding commercial” at the Creative Arts Emmys. To see how other brands are using empathetic storytelling to win the hearts and minds of consumers, click here.
It Gives You Opportunities to Personalise Your Content
Perhaps one of the most important storytelling tactics is to adapt your brand story to the interests and needs of your target audience. With every brand story you tell — be it in a blog, compelling video or social media post — you must keep your specific target audience in mind. And if it’s multiple audiences, that’s okay. Some of the best brand storytellers in the business are already finding unique ways to adapt their story and personalise it to meet the needs of their audiences – which simply isn’t possible with a press release.
Christmas 2021 has come and gone, but to shake off the January blues, we thought we’d reminisce about one of our favourite Christmas storytelling campaigns and show you how the brand personalised its storytelling content through the use of big data.
To appeal to millennials and generation Z audiences, Beverage giant, Coca Cola, launched their “Real Magic”Christmas campaign with a new short film which was supported by a partnership with the fan connection app, Cameo, in North America. By visiting one of Coca Cola’s special holiday hubs, audiences could request a personalised video message from Santa that would be sent out at random throughout the festive season and can be shared online via social media or text message. Along with the personalised video play, Santa also made a virtual event premiering the "Chimney" spot, which also included pop-ins from other celebrity guests.
Coca Cola Chief Creative Officer, Simon Lloyd, said: "Magic is all around us, but most of the time we don’t even notice. This story is set in an apartment block in the USA, but it could be anywhere. For most people in the world, living stacked up on top of one another is a reality; so close yet still strangers. But then the global pandemic also brought neighbours together like never before. With Christmas cancelled for many last year, this humble holiday story focuses on what matters: community and generosity that connects us in an imperfect world.”
And this touching story paid off. Unruly, a global video and Connected TV (CTV) programmatic advertising platform, revealed that Coca Cola’s was one of the most emotionally engaging Christmas ads of 2021, which generated an emotional response in 35.2% of people. To discover how more big brands are incorporating big data into their storytelling, click here.
It comes as no surprise that the power of narrative in business is here to stay. As we move forward into our “new normal” the role of authentic and emotive storytelling will take precedence. Storytelling not only opens up a new world of creativity for content marketers but it enables brands to communicate powerful messages that go far beyond the realms of a press release in order to captivate, inspire and connect with audiences the world over.