The Power of Storytelling
Stories are a crucial part of our life. We spend our lives saturated in stories: few shared stories, some untold stories but isn’t it true that the stories are the most potent force in human history. The stories that we tell to ourselves can have a big impact on who we are. Stories are a powerful form of communication, not just to products and services but also for a brand. The stories define what exactly you want the end consumers to remember about you, or how you want to be remembered around people. All it takes is a good story for people to remember you or your Brand. So you need to tell a story to your users that is relatable, understanding, memorable, and meaningful.
The Power of Story
Stories are not just well-crafted information, it’s something more than that. It is a vehicle of emotions to make people laugh, cry, inspire, and change their minds- it’s these emotional experiences that make stories resonate with us. Successful brand stories often evoke emotional responses, whether it’s a smile of delight or make you curious to try out the brand. Yet, by harnessing the power of story, we can make users’ experiences even more engaging and compelling.
A well-told story can lead the audience to take action, this means that incorporating story elements can provoke an emotional connection that will cause users to respond with actions. Telling a story is not that easy. Most of the Brands fail because they do not resonate with the end customers or at times they do not have a unique proposition around which their brand revolves.
Before telling your story, every Brand must come to terms with the competitive research about their target audience or their competitor in the market. Knowing the stage of awareness the audience is in their customer journey helps to understand the narrative for the brand. With this kind of awareness, the tone becomes very crucial to stories. So having a consistent brand voice throughout the story can make your brand stand out.
Emotional Design
Incorporating story techniques into your Brand is only one-half of the equation. The other half comes from the user. If your users don’t make an emotional connection with your story then you must try to understand where you have done wrong in the whole process. The story that your users want to listen to is more important than the story you want to tell, that’s why research always comes in handy when you create a Brand. As a result, it’s valuable to understand how people emotionally experience a Brand Story.
There are three levels of emotional response to a Brand:
Visceral emotion: These are the emotions that we are born with and have little control over it.
Behavioral emotion: These are the emotions we experience while performing a given behavior, the kind of emotions users evoke all the time when they relate to it. As a result, when a user walks into a store, they might feel pleased after selecting a product that they might have been looking for. In contrast, a user may feel uncertain if they choose a product and do not get all the information that they are looking for, then it’s’ too hard for a user to believe in the product as it doesn’t live up to its claim. The more truthful you are in your advertising, the more effectively your message will be accepted by your prospects. If the Brand tries to lie in their copy, they are only deceiving themselves. Consumers really appreciate the truth and since they are smart enough to understand a product, they will pick out a phony statement every time.
Reflective emotion- It is the emotion that happens as we reflect on past experiences. These emotions can include nostalgia or wistfulness, however, when it comes to branding, reflective emotion can also have broad implications about how users feel about a product and the likelihood that they will use the product again.
Incorporating Story into Brands
Consider Pacing
The pace of the story is important, whether it’s a Brand or a movie, or a novel. Too much information at one time can be inundating, provide too little and you will bore them. This is the same for Brands. The key to ensure your Brand story pacing grabs and holds your users is to stay true to your advertising. Your advertising must be honest. This doesn’t mean that if you are dishonest in your message you won’t achieve a successful result. The more truthful you are in your advertising, the more effectively your message will be accepted by your prospects.
Impose Sequence
In a book, movie, or TV show, a story’s sequence is key to our enjoyment. If a story fails to inform its audience about the progress of the events, the audience will get confused and disoriented. It makes the audience want to know if there is more such content that they can consume, after taking in just one part of the overall story. A good Brand story would always keep you on an edge wanting to know more, what will happen next, and will let you anticipate with its power of sequencing.
Keep Tone Consistent
Tone is crucial to stories. It builds familiarity and trust, whether it’s terse and businesslike, laid back and conversational, or something else entirely. Tone is driven by the voice of the author. While words are crucial to establishing tone, it’s also important to remember images are too. If you remember the Old Spice ads, you will find that their ads are both iconic and memorable, and they make sure to carry that all the way through the look and feel of their website. The color Red often is considered to be alarming and brash but the way they have managed to find the energy in color by aligning it with a very fun and energetic attitude is overwhelming and outstanding from the branding perspective.
Successful products have a point of view that narrates events to the user. Their voice is consistent but also dynamic. They don’t break character, but that character evolves as the product develops and changes. These pieces play a part in defining a brand experience, and the more thought that goes into them, the easier it will be for brand advocates to become followers for life.
