Many top brands like Marvel, Star Wars and Disney use this timeless tactic as their main product. Stories take advantage of the way human minds think; they build a connection and context to facts that make them memorable.

It has been scientifically proven that stories stimulate the brain. This kind of stimulation can almost force a person to pay attention. They can even stimulate the neurochemicals dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin.

• Dopamine is a powerful neurochemical which affects pleasure, learning, memory, attention, overall mood and a plethora of other behavioral and physical functions like heart rate. Dopamine helps a person pay attention and remember things.
• Oxytocin, “the love hormone” is a neurotransmitter that, when released in the brain, causes calmness, empathy, and trust.
• Lastly, serotonin is the key hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness.

The goal of brand storytelling is to get all these hormones and transmitters activated in your target audience. However, the story must be interesting, original, and memorable enough for these to activate. 

 The human brain also uses imagery to put things together. A story’s flow helps us spot causal relations. It can be difficult to get to the root cause of a problem, but our brains are hardwired to find ties between events.

What is Brand Storytelling?

 Brand storytelling is using a narrative to link your brand to customers, focusing on connecting what you stand for with the values you share with your customers. To put it simply, brand storytelling is the Tupac of strategies.

One of the main components in this strategy is knowing that the client is the main character in this tale, not your brand. The customer is the one who might take time out of their day to even consider your brand. In the time it takes to just consider your brand, the consumer could be looking at cat memes instead. Today, the average person’s attention span is much shorter than it was, just 15 years ago. If you want to attract customers, your brand storytelling must be extremely original, memorable, and eye catching.

• The customer must be the hero to make this cohesive. your brand is more like the sidekick.

• The path to purchase is managed by the customer. Now, the purchasing process is interactive, autonomous, trust based and transparent.

• Ideally, you should be able to summarize your unique brand’s key values in just a few words. For example, Marvel is a superhero comic book and media company; it does not take three paragraphs to explain what the company is and what they do.

One of the great things about storytelling is that it can be used in everything. It can be used in all of your content to give your brand one cohesive theme.

It also helps grow your brand, because if you use the same story in all media, there is a higher chance of people seeing it. For instance, Fulton-Mecklenburg’s theme is the hip-hop culture and aesthetic. This aesthetic has been spread throughout all our content, our website, and even the logo.  

Narrative Elements

By narrative, we mean storytelling components. Every story must include obvious and basic things like a setting, characters, a main conflict, climax, and of course a denouement or ending. Grasping these fundamental concepts allows your target audience to emotionally connect with and remember your story—which is vital in the process of growing your brand.

Brand Voice & Tone

What is a brand voice?

• A brand voice is the personality of your company so it should reflect your brand’s core values.
• It should be consistent and permanent.

What’s brand tone?

Brand tone is much like the tones that we use in casual conversation: emotional inflections in our voice to help convey a particular message depending on the situation.

When your brand tone and voice are cohesively authentic, and embody the company’s values, the audience will emotionally and collectively connect to it.

What’s Brand purpose?

All brands make promises, but what separates them from their competitors is a defining aim.

• There are functional, business-oriented purposes (reasons for business)
• And an intentional purpose (to do some good in the world)

There are many examples of this strategy for instance the baby diaper brand Huggies’ intentional purpose is to encourage new families and parents, especially new mothers. While conversely, its functional purpose is to sell baby diapers.

What It All Means

Brand storytelling is indeed a dynamic methodology that uses some of the most powerful neurochemicals and tactics to attract customers.

Many top brands from Amazon to Apple use brand storytelling. The elements of brand storytelling are all equally critical without one, the others struggle.

• The art of brand storytelling benefits from human thought patterns and builds a connection with them which makes them unforgettable thus, growing the brand.