1. The Power of Narrative

When you tell a story, it’s like the audience can’t help but inject themselves into what is being described. Think about some really meaningful presentations that you’ve attended or even watched online. The ones that you remember, the ones that stick in your brain most likely told a story. Our brains store information in narratives, which is why if you think back to something you did last week or last month, you will remember the experience, what you did, how you felt, not just one specific detail.

Your life adventures become stories in your mind, which is why you can remember what you were doing, what the weather was like, or other contextual seemingly insignificant details of the day when something important happens. I personally remember every last detail of my day on September 11, 2001 and I also remember what I was doing when I found out that the late Princess Diana was in a car accident. I was younger and living in Canada and I wasn’t quite sure who she was. I remember telling my mum that this person had been in a car accident, and I can still see the expression on her face as she ran into the room and watched the television with me.

What did I just do? In trying to communicate my point and to demonstrate the power of narrative, I just told a story. While you were reading my story, you also went back in your mind and pulled out some stories that you remember vividly from important days in your life.

2. Emotion

In the same way that emotion propels people to share videos that become very popular, storytelling allows companies to reach their audiences emotionally.  I remember reading about some research that had been conducted about storytelling in fundraising. A group of research subjects had been paid £20 pounds each to participate in a research study. There were some questionnaires that the participants filled out, then after they were finished, they were handed a package, and asked to open it before they left.

Each person involved in the study received their £20 payment in pound coins in an envelope, and were given a letter. Half of the participants received a letter from a charity, describing need. They provided facts and statistics to document how great the need was and were asking participants to contribute some of their newly earned participant money to the charity. The other half of the participants received a letter from the charity telling the story of a boy. The story of the boy recounted a brief summary of his life, how he got into the situation and how he would get out of the situation. This letter also asked participants to use an envelope provided to make a donation to the charity with their earnings.

The end result of the experiment was that the test group that had received and read the story of the boy, instead of receiving the letter containing facts that described how urgent the demand for need was, donated 50% more of their newfound earnings to the charity than the group that received facts.

3. Brand Personality

What better way to communicate your brand personality than through a story? You can create the ideal atmosphere, dialogue and tone. One fun and notable example of brand personality in a television commercial includes the Apple vs. PC ads. Apple literally picked a person, as if they represented the entire company and also picked a person to play the opposing character, someone who embodied a stereotype and who could contrast with the main character. The series of these commercials told a story so that eventually, we all knew that there was prior conflict and disagreement, allowing the style and content of the commercials to change as audiences became more familiar.

4. Blogs and Microblogs

Although the most popular blogs today are information driven (such as this one), blogs began as a medium for people to communicate their stories. Blogs communicate people’s daily lives, and now no example is more relevant than microblogging in Twitter and Facebook. People have turned their entire lives into stories, and in turn, these same people love to consume and be entertained by other people’s stories, even if they may be limited to 140 characters at a time.

5. The Storyteller

The storyteller that you choose is both the message and the medium. Are you communicating a story online? Is it a radio ad? The medium is critical to the message as we all know, and using a creative means to communicate the story will have a powerful impact on the message.

6. Experiences

Storytelling becomes especially effective when the audience and their friends or peer group are involved. Shared experiences will be recounted many times and can provide even more life to your idea. Instead of telling an audience a story, it can be even more effective if they experience or live your story. Maybe you have a very specific target audience who have some similar challenges and successes. Involving them and their experiences in the story will further reinforce this.

7. Conviction

If you hear something, you may or may not believe it to be true. If someone tells you a story about it, it’s much more believable. The same works for information received through the moral of a story. For conviction, it is also imperative that the medium doing the storytelling, whether a person’s voice, text or through movements and actions, that it is appropriate for the medium. Mediums used effectively for storytelling will increase the conviction and the authenticity of the message.

8. Testimonials

Why are testimonials used so frequently? People find comfort in stories and look for stories from others in order to create a context for a potential business opportunity or potential purchase. With a testimonial you not only get a seal of approval that reduces your perceived risk, but you also get a story about the company or product. The story, introducing characters and having a setting will increase the value of the testimonial to the audience. The customer will remember the story long after they remember the kudos, and along with the story will remember the message that comes with it, maintaining top of mind awareness.

9. The Story Evolves- The Brand Story

What do we mean by brand story? Your brand story is the story that makes your brand come to life. How you would describe your brand in 60 seconds if you were talking to a potential investor for example. Do you know what you would say? It’s competitive advantage and it’s something that you’ve identified to be unique and relevant to your organisation, product or service. It’s putting into words or images why exactly you are an amazing company and why you have a unique offering. There is no limit to how you tell your brand story, but it’s imperative that you do. If you are unable to tell us the story in 60 seconds, you should take some time to think about it.

Once you have the brand story, it should be communicated and lived throughout your organisation. Every customer, employee and client should know what your brand story is, so that they see you in narrative form, not just as a brick and mortar shop, or as a website. Your brand needs to be friends with your community, and the best and most effective way of doing that is to tell your brand story. As varied, magical and unique as stories can be, so can be the story of your company.

Your brand story should have the personality of your brand, be indescribably convincing and persuasive, and be creative, original and authentic.

10. Lasting Impression

As mentioned in the beginning, one of the most important benefits of using storytelling in your marketing efforts is the lasting impression it leaves with your audience.

The purpose of this entry was to provide some insight on storytelling, and to hopefully spark an idea in your head of a way that you can incorporate storytelling into your marketing efforts. Of course storytelling is not the only way to communicate and depending on the context, it may not be the most effective for the medium or audience. Just a thought! We would love to continue the discussion on Facebook.
Marketing Team Direct

Promote Your Page Too

If your audience participates in one of the popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare, then it is important to be engaged in that online environment.

The easiest and most effective way to gain and keep a social media following is by providing value to your audience. If you can provide value to your audience in these new social environments, they will become loyal followers.

Here are some of our favorite examples of companies using social media to engage their audiences by providing value.

1. Lululemon

Lulumon is little known in Europe, but has taken North America by storm. The luxury-priced high quality yoga and sport apparel is fashionable and has taken over gyms and airport waiting areas. Part of their success can be attributed to how they stealthily became part of every twenty to thirty-something’s lives through social media.

Lululemon has corporate Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts, and then each store also has their own. The value provided by each is different. The corporate brand accounts provide value in uploading pictures of soon to be released products, and by sharing information and special stories about the products, fabrics and about the people who work with Lululemon. Each new employee gets a bio and a warm welcome over the internet to their 175,000 fans on Facebook or their 37,000 followers on Twitter. The corporate pages also have contests where fans or followers submit pictures of themselves and friends doing various challenges in their Lululemon apparel. The best entries are then featured on the main pages, and on the website’s blog.

The Lululemon store pages provide value to customers in a different way. Any time you enter a Lululemon store, you could find 10 or even 30 people stretched out on mats all over the store participating in a free yoga class. The stores also offer free yoga classes outdoors all through the year, which provides a great deal of valuable information for followers. New products in store, new employees and answering local yoga and sport questions allows each Lululemon store’s social media presence to be successful.

Some examples

As you can see, there is a team dedicated to ensuring that each reference of @Lululemon and Lululemon in Twitter receives a reply. Lululemon’s Facebook page is as equally successful.

As you can tell, there is a great deal of discussion on the main page, which is every companies dream. This subculture has such a devoted following that although the page is moderated and you can expect an answer from the company within an hour during working hours, fans will stick up for the brand and will ensure that any negative comments get put to rest.

Ok. I guess you’re sick of Lululemon now.

2. Old Spice

Old Spice sticks to their brand, and provides value to customers through humour.

This type of humour is geared towards their target audience, and is mimicked on Old Spice’s Facebook page.

Although it may seem cheesy or silly, each comment that is posted on the Facebook page is “liked” by well over a thousand people, many of whom also make comments. On Facebook whenever someone likes a page, unless they have tweaked their settings, all of their friends will receive a notice in their news feed indicating that “John” has just liked the comment from Old Spice. Not only are Old Spice creating value, but they are also maintaining top of mind awareness with all of their fans and with their followers on Twitter, and with many people who are friends with their followers and fans.

This low cost brand reinforcement is certainly strengthening the brand relationship between this audience and the company.

3. Dell

On Twitter through @DellOutlet and @DellOutletUK, Dell provides value to their target audiences that are on Twitter. Although @DellOutlet the US version, has many more followers than the UK partner site, both provide value by offering refurbished one-off discount computers for sale. Both these social media sites also provide codes for discounts off hardware and software products, which keeps customers engaged and keeps them planning about their next Dell purchase.

One interesting thing that Dell also does with these two outlet sites, is it has the picture and information of the person who will be responding on their Twitter background. This ads a personal touch, and it helps to remind customers that you are not speaking to an automated system- you are speaking to Stephen or Stephanie.

4. Disney

Although their Twitter feeds are simply news and don’t provide anything special to fans (I guess Disney’s audience aren’t on Twitter- their parents are!) they do have a Facebook page that can keep fans occupied for hours.

The value that Disney provides to their audience in Facebook is providing a new way to interact with their favorite characters. Showing trailers for upcoming movies and letting fans share them with friends, they creating a custom Disney experience where their audiences are.

5. Oxfam

Oxfam has created a unique Facebook page, recognising that their supporters are spending time in Facebook. This interactive page allows fans and visitors to get information about races and marathons.

The Sports Events page on the Oxfam Facebook page is an example of a utility very fit for the medium. Using such a social online platform such as Facebook, it provides an easy way for teams to get together, for friends to plan, without sending e-mails, without making calls. It can all be arranged in Facebook.

These are some of our favorite examples of companies using social media to create value for customers. Just to have a page is not enough if you really want to take advantage of the medium and really engage with your audience.

Taking advantage of social media platforms to reach your audience, as in the examples shown, really strengthens brand relationships, and can help to clarify a brand personality to the audience. Showing brand personality to an audience is best demonstrated by the funny, quirky Old Spice messages. What is your brand personality? How are you providing value to your audience?

Sitting here writing a blog on branding, I am surrounded by brands. I’m working on my MacBook Pro, and next to me there’s a Sharpie pen. The Gap blazer that I wore yesterday is hung over the back of the armchair. I’m wearing Lululemon and there’s a Burt’s Bees lip balm on the table next to me. I can see Tuesday’s Guardian and Telegram which I’ll read on the weekend and a box of eco-friendly tissues next to me for my soon coming head cold, although I have no idea what the brand is.

Every time we see a brand that we recognize, we immediately paint a picture in our minds and have a positive, negative or neutral impression of that brand. In most instances your impression of the brand is largely shaped by your experiences with the brand, which is why it is critical that brand promises match a customer’s experience. I recently read that people get greater happiness and satisfaction from experiences than they do from buying and consuming products. Whether that’s true or not, it does speak to the importance of your customers’ experience with your brand, whether that’s with your product, service or as the intended recipient of strategic communications.

This is the first blog post from the upcoming series on branding. If there are any branding topics that you are interested in seeing in the series, just let us know!

Each business and organisation faces unique challenges when it comes to branding, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Unless you engage with an integrated agency to work with you to analyze your current and ideal brand positioning, you’ll have to make due with our top 5 branding aspects to consider, and add this blog to your RSS feeds to check back a few times in the next few weeks to keep up with our branding series.

1. If your brand was a person, would you be their friend?

Would you look up to them, or would you want to help them out? What kind of car would they drive? How old would they be? Would they have a big house, or live in a modern, open concept flat? Would they wear glasses? How would they vote? Although this question asks “would you be their friend”, the more important question is “would your target audience be their friend?”.

2. I have a brand. See- here’s my logo.

Tricked you! A logo isn’t a brand. A logo is often used as a visual signature, a visual mnemonic or cue that is used to represent the company. This logo is in alignment with your organisations’ brand identity and graphic standards (hopefully), which all help to create a cohesive and consistent way of communicating internally and externally. A logo is essential, it’s something to put on your company letterhead, to put on your website and something to have on your business card, but it’s not your brand. It’s important that your customers and potential customers and clients recognise your organisation visually, but each time someone hears the name of your brand, sees an ad for your brand, or communicates with someone from your organisation they are building an impression of your brand in their mind. Hopefully this impression will be exactly what you want it to be. If you’re confused, you should visit this blog every day for the next two weeks to learn all about branding.

3. Everyone in our company loves the brand.

Internal buy-in is important in ‘living’ the brand. In making important brand related decisions, it’s important that the decision-makers are trusted to make the best decision for the company. When there is a group of people making a decision, there are many different, varied, opinions involved. Once a consensus has been reached, the resulting decision usually satisfies all varied opinions. This direction, this consensus, in satisfying all parties, is suddenly a less committed version of the strategy. I’m not suggesting that consensus based decisions are not effective, just providing a message of caution. When something so important as brand is concerned, a consensus based decision is not always what’s best for the brand. Caution is good in preventing poor decisions, but not always in the case of brand strategy. Once everyone around the board room table agrees on how to move forward, suddenly your customers may mistake your direction for that of your competitors.

4. Measurement

Although not all of us are numerically oriented, measurement is an important part of branding. In order to accurately know where you want to be in terms of a customer’s perception of your brand, you need to know where you are. If you have the resources, it is important to understand how your customers perceive your brand. For advertising and future communications purposes, knowing how effective your efforts have been also demonstrates how you need to proceed.

5. Copying your competition

In the world of branding and competitive advantage, recognizing that your competition are moving in a certain direction and mimicking that direction will certainly result in your brand having a lesser-than version of your competitor’s brand. If you want your own brand, it’s important to know what your competitors are doing, and it’s important to know how your brand is different.

Stay tuned for the rest of our blog series on branding.

While browsing in a local Oxfordshire shop last week, I was trying to decide which washing-up liquid to purchase, because mine had run out. It just so happens that I place a high value on helping the environment, and when I am deciding which products to purchase, I usually don’t mind paying a slight premium for products which are organic, derived from plants, and/or will have a minimal impact on the environment.

Interested in moving away from purchasing a leading brand, I considered the various options neatly displayed on the store shelf. Upon a quick glance, one alternative was in a clear/greenish container, had an illustration of a plant on it, and had some sort of ‘eco’ messaging on the label. I grabbed it, put it in my hand basket, and kept walking. Just for curiosity and because I was in no rush, I decided to actually read the label of the washing-up liquid, to see how much better this eco-branded product was than the other leading brands. Without revealing too much, it turned out that the eco-branded product that I had just been prepared to pay a premium for, was actually no more natural, and no more eco-friendly than any other product on the shelf.

My shopping companion who is already very skeptical of ‘spin’, found it very deviously satisfying when I discovered that the eco-friendly looking label on the bottle meant that I could recycle the package (as you can with all bottles of washing-up liquid). Also, when looking at the back and reading the fine print, the list of ingredients was no different than any of the other brands. After a careful search- (after all, I was eager to not only purchase eco-friendly washing-up liquid, but to prove to my shopping companion that there was some fact behind the eco packaging) I was not able to find a single justification on the packaging, other than the world “eco”, the color of the bottle and a picture of a flower on the front, to justify any bit of eco-friendliness. The cute illustration of a plant, it turns out, was just communicating that the product had been ‘inspired’ by nature.

As described in the last post on competitive advantage, appealing to consumers who have a particular value set creates an area of uniqueness, of differentiation. The brand of washing-up liquid that I was drawn to did have what appeared to be eco- branding, and perhaps actually was more environmentally friendly, or natural, than the competition- but the package certainly didn’t communicate that. This is an example of how not to do it. I am forever cursed to read each, last label to determine how eco-friendly a product actually is.

Social media and green-living agency Max Gladwell presented their research on the four types of green-teen social media consumers:

1. The first type of green teen is one who is ‘living green’. This teen eats organically, shops in vintage and thrift shops and genuinely wants to make the world a better place, one used sweater at a time.
2. The second type of green teen is a ‘core fashionista’. This teen is in a powerful social position and is not a trend follower, but buys from eco-friendly brands.
3. A ‘walking-green’ teen feels a sense of belonging to a green community and is a trend follower for this lifestyle subculture.
4. The fourth and final group is the ‘spending green’ teen. This shopper views eco-friendly purchases as a luxury not a sacrifice, and feels a sense of exclusivity when enjoying eco-splurges.

By no means are these categories mutually exclusive or definite, and are based on the research of this firm only. However, these teen consumer profiles do give us a slight insight into some of the motivations of green consumers, and who these customers might be in ten or twenty years. Not being a teen, and not wanting to box myself in to either category listed above, I do wonder would these teens read the label of the washing-up liquid as I did? Is having a green image enough?

As someone who has spent a great deal of time learning about branding, a little piece of my heart gets chipped away each time I see a product image or brand that is clearly not an accurate representation of the product or service. It’s a shame, because I do know that there are many companies who are making genuine efforts to be environmentally friendly and who want to provide these types of products and services to their customers. As this market grows- no matter if you are targeting none, one or all of the green-teen consumer profiles listed, are you accurately communicating your message and your brand identity to these customers? Will they put your washing-up liquid back on the shelf like I did?

Curious? Why not start tracking one of many eco-hashtags on Twitter, like #EcoMonday, #green, or #eco-friendly and see what motivates this audience.

Yesterday saw the very successful press launch of re-plenish, the food bank charity set up in Oxford. I was proud to be part of it and witness the brand and website, created by MTD, unveiled. Last night and today we have already seen extensive TV and press coverage.

The re-plenish charity is operating an Oxford food bank, which takes unsold food from local supermarkets and suppliers and redistributes it to existing community food projects. Following a pilot phase the project is now up and running in and around Oxford taking surplus and ‘at sell by date’ food from local Sainsbury’s and Co-Operative supermarkets. This simple system provides healthy, wholesome food to people who need it and reduces the amount of unsold food that ends up in landfill. Currently approximately 20 million tonnes of food waste goes into landfill every year!

MTD got involved with this project about 18 months ago when we met Steve Moralee, the Chair of Trustees. We shared his belief, vision and infectious passion for this cause and quickly realised that our marketing expertise could help. You can read more about it in our latest news.

We have been overwhelmed by the dedication and effort that those involved have shown to get to this point, all volunteers, often holding down full time jobs. They are all to be congratulated for making this real and I hope that everyone that can, finds a way to get involved. After all, it affects every one of us.

This amusing re-imagining of the new Pepsi logo just highlights the positive and negative effects of the digital age on brands. Today, anyone can take a company’s brand, mess around with it and redistribute it in a instant.

When people embrace a brand and make it their own, that can be a good thing. However, not everyone is that loving as the image above brilliantly demonstrates. Pepsi may be getting viral exposure, but not the kind they really want.

That’s why brands need to be aware and seek to influence where they can. If the kids are skate boarding on your car, why not build them a ramp to keep them occupied?

When Dr Pepper promised to give ‘everyone in America’ a free can of Dr Pepper if Guns N’ Roses released ‘Chinese Democracy’ in 2008, they probably thought (like the rest of us) that it was rather unlikely to occur. Of course, these things have a habit of coming back to haunt you. The album was finally released (after 15 years in production) on 23th November 2008.

To add to the soft drinks company’s woes – their online free drink redemption system failed last weekend, leaving many fans and customers feeling angry and let down. Dr Pepper are trying to make good on their offer, but I can’t help thinking that it’s the band who’ll come out of this better off.

The Dr Pepper brand may be getting lots of exposure, but unless they turn things around and deliver on their promise, the negative press will be damaging to the brand and its sales. Afterall, who’s going to buy a Dr Pepper when they feel entitled to a free one?

It seems that attitudes towards discount brands are changing rapidly here in Britain. Shoppers are swallowing their pride and embracing the likes of Lidl and Aldi in their droves. The other mid-market and luxury brands are fighting back of course, but it’s going to be tough. M&S, one of the worst hit, recently held an out-of-character 20% Discount Day and continue to run the popular ‘Dinner for 2 for £10’, which is great for a weekend dining treat, but less so for your weekly shop.

Tesco have decided to take the discounters on at their own game with Tesco Discount Brands. Tesco knows that middle-income shoppers are turned off by the Tesco Value brand and have made up new brands such as ‘Oak Lane’, ‘Daisy’ and ‘Trattoria Verdi’ to sell cheaper Tesco own brand products. It’s too early to tell whether this will pay off, but one worry is it could damage the Tesco brand. And a return to the old days of stack it high and sell it cheap would be shame for a brand that has transformed itself in recent years. Perhaps just a good old drop in prices would have been easier?

Sainsbury’s, who only a couple of years ago were struggling to keep up with Tesco, has been one of the other surprise winners. Seen by many as a better value Waitrose, it has seen its customer base stay loyal whilst acquiring those who wouldn’t be seen dead in the rest of them. And with Morrison’s new fresher brand look in place just in time, it too is in prime position to benefit from the downturn.

Anyone for a Aldi Snackrite Crisp?