CorpComms Magazine

Once upon a time, there was a brand. It was a very big brand that lived in an enormous castle where lots of servants rushed around servicing its needs. But the brand was very sad, because outside the castle nobody paid it any attention. People would pass by the brand on a supermarket shelf with barely a glance, and it was sent back to the castle.

But one day a handsome prince from a consultancy arrived in a sports car and told the brand, 'Don't worry. I can make you popular again.' And the brand was very happy. The end.

Okay, so as a work of fiction it's not really a page-turner - but companies are starting to recognise the value of narrative to create a backstory for their brands. ' I think we have become incredibly media-saturated with branding and advertising, but stories stand out,' explains Bhanita Mistry-Russell, brand director at consultancy What If.

'If they are passed on from a trusted source, you are more likely to pay attention and pass them on to another source. Stories are a great social currency, and brands that tell great stories live on in conversations indefinitely. Just think of the bible; those stories have lived on for over 2,000 years.

'Customers become involved with the stories, and it provokes them to play with the company. It is increasingly necessary when there aren't many things that surprise people any more.'

Telling the tale

Blue-chip companies, such as BBC, Emap and Lego, have all discovered that storytelling can help marketing, product development and branding, while new companies, such as Innocent Drinks, almost seem to have been founded with a story in place.

Before setting up the company, the prospective owners bought £500 worth of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them from a stall at a music festival. They put up a sign asking, 'Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?' beside two bins, one labelled 'Yes', the other labelled 'No'.

By the end of the weekend, the Yes bin was full - and the future company founders resigned their management consultancy jobs the following day.

Today, every smoothie flavour has an individual story attached to it from the 'sweet tasting swig of the tropics' that is 'oranges, bananas and pineapples' to the colour of 'blackberries and blueberries' that 'screams decadence, luxury and plush velvet curtains'.

Preethi Nair, a former management consultant who runs Kiss The Frog, a training consultancy, believes Innocent Drinks is the best example of storytelling. 'There is a consistent message throughout the company, whether sourcing the product or funding ecology projects, which is 100 percent committed,' she says. 'And through that, it arrived at a brand message.'

America's Southwest Airlines, which serves 63 cities in 32 states, created a brand around the story of politely outrageous service. 'It creates stories people will pass on,' explains Mistry-Russell.

On one trip, the pilot apologised for a bumpy landing, claiming he had forgotten his glasses and had been forced to borrow those of his co-pilot. The passengers were concerned by this admission, until minutes later he emerged from the cockpit wearing huge spectacles.

Selling the tale

Paul Wilson, founder of Make Believe UK, a brand consultancy that specialises in business storytelling, explains: 'Brands exist in the heart, not in the head. We work with internal brand and marketing teams to tell a compelling story that will engage a customer.'

The process, which involves novelists and scriptwriters, starts with a series of workshops within a company to find out what the brand means to different employees and key individuals. But, as everybody knows, there are two sides to any story, so it is also necessary to assess the viewpoint of the customers.

Not surprisingly, the two brand stories are often diametrically opposed and it can take six months to develop the appropriate one. 'Companies are very good at telling what they want the story to be, but it is a bitter pill to learn that this is not what customers feel,' warns Wilson. 'You can only craft a story about a brand where it is today.'

Nair agrees. 'The reality of storytelling is that companies can discover how they are perceived is very different from what they thought,' she says. In storytelling, she argues, authors create a theme and use it as a basis for characters and plots. 'If a particular character doesn't fit the theme, an author will get rid of him or her,' she explains. 'If a setting is not relevant, it won't be used. I have to apply that process and translate it into a business world.'

Mistry-Russell believes most brands have a story. 'The challenge for a brand is to find a story that it likes to tell,' she points out. 'We get into a branding process using scriptwriters and novelists. They find the story about the brand; they find the real truth.'

Favourite stories

Denby, the pottery firm established in 1809, has developed a story around its brand. 'Some consumers thought the brand was brown and heavy and dated, the sort of thing their mothers had in their cupboards; it was seen as very 'northern', whereas Denby was really proud of its heritage,' says Wilson.

But staff and some consumers remembered a love story. They recalled special meals being served on Denby plates, and associated it with a love of food. 'We rewrote the story going forward that stressed Denby was about love of food,' says Wilson. 'But the story has to be true to the backstory so the tagline became: 'Love food, love Denby.'

The rebranding has had some unexpected results. Garry Biggs, managing director of Denby, now only hires staff members who love food, and a kitchen has been installed in the design studio. 'Everything should build and engage the story,' says Wilson.

A successful story has a central character who undertakes a journey (whether physical or emotional) and, along the way, realises something about himself or herself that he or she didn't know before. An event happens that changes the course of a story, and this could be the hook to engage the customer with the brand.

When major consumer companies launch add-on brands, such as another type of soap powder, they often just send the product out to the stores with, perhaps, different colour packaging. Soap opera scriptwriters would never be so unimaginative.

'A new character wouldn't be introduced as, Hi, I'm Tony, I'm your cousin,' points out Wilson. 'He would be walking past an alley, spot someone being attacked and go in to help. His character is immediately viewed as a good man. Brands are just so clumsy.'

Nair first recognised the value of creativity while working as a management consultant. 'The difficulty is you can't put a price on it,' she says. 'I can't say, I'll do this and it will increase sales by X percent, even though it will. Innovation is a huge buzzword, but creativity is the prerequisite for innovation. If you are creative, it will give you a huge competitive advantage.'

In many respects, however, building a brand through storytelling is not new. Disney pioneered the movement when it built its global franchise with a tale about magic, while motorcycle group Harley-Davidson sold a story about open roads. 'There are people who actually get the Harley-Davidson logo tattooed on their bodies,' says Wilson. 'That's one powerful story.'

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