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Articles filed in: Storytelling
The Three-Act Structure For Brand Stories
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
Every movie you’ve ever watched follows a three-act structure. The screenwriter sets the scene, introducing us to the hero and the main characters. We get a glimpse of his world, relationships and challenges. In the second act, we see the hero attempt to solve his problems or overcome obstacles.
In Toy Story, we’re introduced to Woody who has been Andy’s favourite toy forever. Buzz Lightyear comes along and turns Woody’s world upside down. The whole plot is about how Woody deals with the resulting conflicts while remaining loyal to Andy and true to his values.
We can use this three-act structure in our brand stories, remembering that the customer, not the brand is the hero.
The Three-Act Structure For Brand Stories
SETUP: The customer’s backstory unfolds
We explore his hopes, dreams, wants, needs, values, worldviews, and challenges.
CONFRONTATION: The struggle arises
The customer attempts to solve his problem or fulfil his need and often realises he needs help.
RESOLUTION: Challenges are overcome
The customer’s need is met. He manages to do the thing he wanted to do, but couldn’t.
He is changed, has a new sense of self and set of beliefs about what’s possible.
Analyse any great product or service story from the IKEA chair to Blue Apron meal kits, from Warby Parker to charity: water and you’ll see it follows this three-act structure.
How does your story stack up?
Do you want to tell a better brand story? The Story Strategy Course will show you how.
Image by David Werner.
Why Do They Come?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
There was a twenty-minute wait for croissants at Lune long before the New York Times announced that the best croissants in the world might just be made in Melbourne. Now you can wait for thirty, but people still get up early and hang in there just to try one.
Why would they take a tram across town for a $5 pastry?
Why does someone buy a Maserati, not a Tesla?
Why don’t cinema goers save the $20 and stay at home with Netflix?
Why do your customers come to you?
It’s not possible to tell your story effectively without knowing the answer to this question.
How many of the reasons that you list are reflected in your marketing?
Inage by Lars Ploughmann.
The Real Role Of Storytelling In Marketing
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
When we think about using storytelling as a marketing tactic we often get confused about the purpose of the story. Most marketing tries to tell the story of the product. We invite prospective customers to pay attention to our widget by describing what it does or why it’s better and think we’re telling a story.
Analyse any piece of marketing collateral that resonates with you and you’ll realise that the company doesn’t tell the story of the product at all. What they do instead is tell the story of the customer in the presence of the product. The customer, not the product is the hero of the story.
From Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’ billboards and IKEA’s ‘Start Something New’ folding chair, to Cook Republic’s Panna Cotta and Johanna Basford’s colouring books. The customer is the star of the show and the product is the supporting act.
Your job is to show your customer how your product makes him the hero of his story.
Image by Billie Grace Ward.
Lessons From The Best In B2B Brand Storytelling
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
It’s easy to think of great examples of B2C (business-to-consumer) brand storytelling. The list of B2C companies that leverage storytelling to engage with their customers’ grows daily. The perception in many B2B (business-to-business) companies is that it’s easier to engage with customers through story when you’re selling running shoes with a dose of ‘Just Do It’ motivation. Then there is the concern in B2B about justifying the resources and measuring the return on investment (ROI) in brand storytelling to stakeholders.
These are some of the reasons I’m frequently asked for examples of B2B companies who use storytelling to build their brands. I believe the reason B2B storytelling examples are harder to find is that many B2B companies don’t understand how storytelling creates value for their customers and shareholders, or ultimately how it benefits the bottom line. The following examples not only show you great B2B brand storytelling at work, but they also demonstrate why it’s effective and how B2B companies are leveraging storytelling to impact their businesses in different ways.
5 Leading B2B Brand Storytellers
Maersk Line
It would be easy to lead with an example of a technology company, instead I want to show you how Maersk Line, the world’s largest shipping container company uses visual storytelling to build its brand. Maersk has multiple Instagram accounts that tell the compelling story of the company’s capability, impact and global reach. Maersk is also active on Facebook. The company’s page has over a million likes. Not only does Maersk use social media to build brand awareness, they have a panel of internal experts who create informative content for the company blog. Maersk also uses infographics and data journalism to commuicate the company’s innovative ideas.
Google
We sometimes forget the impact Google has on the business community. The company uses video content and brand storytelling to inform its small business customers about how to use products and services and to inspire business owners by making the business customer the hero of the story. Google also has a dedicated small business blog and Twitter account.
General Electric (GE)
The work GE does is technical and complex. In the Unimpossible Missions video series the company gives us a window into what they do and how they do, while cleverly communicating a sense of their tenacity, ingenuity, pride in their people and company values. My favourite is ‘Catching Lightning in a Bottle’. GE has also built a significant Instagram following. Storytelling can help you to do more than simply educate or sell to customers. It can also give them clues about the kind of company you are and get them excited about doing business with you.
PayPal
What better way to demonstrate the value your business creates than to celebrate the business owners who use your services. PayPal shares small business customer stories on ‘National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day’ on the company’s stories platform.
Microsoft
Microsoft demonstrated its understanding about the importance of brand storytelling by appointing a Chief Storyteller in 2010. He and his team are responsible for collecting and curating stories from all corners of the company. These are shared on the Microsoft Stories platform and social channels. My favourite is the long-form story 88 Acres and the must watch All Aboard the Brilliant Bus on the company’s YouTube channel. Storytelling isn’t simply a mechanism to inform, persuade, convince and convert. It can be used to bring people within the company together around their common purpose. There is an overlooked opportunity to use brand storytelling to shape company culture and increase employee engagement.
While the return on investment in brand storytelling may not always be easy for a B2B business to measure, I think we can agree that story in all its forms has the power to change our perception of a company for the better. How could your company leverage the power of storytelling?
Image by Maersk Line.
True Advantages
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
If I asked you to list the advantages any global brand has over its competitors you’d likely think of things like access to capital, distribution networks, and other resources that the average business doesn’t have. But these brands are the outliers.
When it comes down to it, most businesses have access to similar resources, raw materials, and human capital. Every pizza is made with flour, cheese, and tomato. So why do queues form at this place and not that one? What drives the demand that’s responsible for success?
The one true advantage we all have at our fingertips is how we make people feel, and the story they leave with. Sometimes that story is a two-hour wait, a $5 price tag for a single slice, or a hand-made pizza crafted by a man who has been making them for 50 years.
Understanding how people will tell the story to others is an advantage every business can own.
Image by Lucas Richarz.
Responsive Marketing
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
There are two approaches to selling memberships at the local gym. The first is to show the prospective member the facilities—highlighting the abundance of equipment and classes, and then to offer a ‘limited time only’ joining discount. The second is to spend time listening to the reasons why he wants to join in the first place and then to tailor the sales conversation to those needs.
Two Things Your Marketing Messages Must Do
1. Communicate to the customer that you have understood his unmet needs or unspoken desires.
2. Paint a picture of the customer as the hero of the story in the presence of your product (a lot of marketing messages have this backward).
Average marketing is filled with statements of fact. Great marketing is a response to the customer’s problems and desires. It’s the difference between, ‘this is better’ and ‘this is how we can help you to be better’.
Image by midwestnerd
The Simplest Way To Improve Your Sales Copy
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
I was at the local garden centre on Sunday. There amongst the shrubs, trellis fencing and climbing plants was a comfortable-looking, but otherwise, unremarkable garden chair with wooden arms. Unremarkable that is until you read the description on the flip side of the $300 price tag.
“Meet the Gin & Tonic Chair. The world’s most comfortable garden chair, perfect for relaxing outdoors with your favourite tipple after a long day.”
When we’re writing sales copy for our products and services we tend to describe first and empathise later.
Instead of leading with descriptions and listing the features of your product or service, imagine the customer using the product. Now retell that story. What is he doing? What does he want to do, but can’t? How is your product helping? How is he feeling as a result?
The best copywriters (and companies too) empathise first and create later.
Image by Ben Mizen.
Are Your Marketing Goals Aligned With Customer Objectives?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
As marketers, we often skip the important step of assessing our marketing goals against customer objectives. As a consequence, we fall in love with our message and forget to question what it is the customer needs to know or wants to hear. It’s not hard to check if this is true of your company—simply answer the following two questions.
1. What are the three most important things you want the customer to know about your company, product or service?
2. What are the three most important things the customer wants to know?
The customer, not the company is the hero of every standout brand story.
Image by Glenn Scott.
The Difference Between Saying You Care And Caring
filed in Marketing, Storytelling
I’m not sure when we became defensive about customer care became. I suspect it might have been when we began to put more distance between the customer and us. In the days when there was a cash register that rang with ‘real money’, when we sold eye-to-eye and transacted hand-to-hand, instead of digitally, we had no choice but to ‘see’ our customers. The transaction itself was as good as a handshake. Word and bond. No us and them, only us.
Now we build barriers. We expect the customer, not the company, to take responsibility. We create guarantees that protect us from having to fulfil them. We armour up against customers. We require proof of purchase that leaves no room for us to be exploited by the shady few and sadly, fewer opportunities to delight the honest majority.
So when we find a company that cares, no questions asked we should celebrate them. When I buy a Crumpler bag it comes with a lifetime warranty. If it fails, I can bring it back, and they will repair it. The only proof of purchase I need is the product that let me down. What a breath of fresh air.
Caring is simpler than you think. What story does your customer care tell about your company?
Image by Anna D.
The Value Story
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
During Tulip Mania, the new merchant class who wanted their gardens to reflect their newfound success, is said to have traded acres of land for a single flower bulb. The scarcer the bulbs became, the more valuable they were perceived to be. As a commodity, the tulip’s inherent value was derived from the fact that there were more buyers than tulips.
It wasn’t a sustainable business model.
Today we live in an age of abundance, where it’s becoming more difficult to sustainably create value with a purely status driven, scarcity strategy. Luxury brands like Gucci, Prada and Ralph Lauren are experiencing tough times as they struggle to remain relevant and profitable.
As people’s values change, their value story changes too. What millennials value and invest in,
is different to what their parents were prepared to spend money on.
All business success depends on the business’s value creation story aligning with the customer’s value story. We not only succeed by being important and useful to our customers. We win by being worthy of their time, attention and financial outlay. Our brands become valuable not simply by creating value in the moment, but by valuing and adapting to the changing narrative of the people we serve.
It’s pointless shouting about how great your tulips are to a customer who wants to grow thyme.
Image by Hammerin Man