The impact of brand storytelling in advertising

Communicating a brand story has proved to be an effective tool amongst marketers for generations. Throughout the colourful years of advertising, brand stories have been the foundation for powerful and memorable brand positioning. Today, through the exponential boom of social media, brand storytelling has unprecedented reach and potential to build social currency. 

Storytelling originated as visual stories like primitive cave drawing and shifted to oral traditions, which was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. From there, it moved on to narratives, including written, printed and typed stories. Storytelling was believed to be a good method of maintaining both social and educational information and as such became a norm amongst communities to maintain their way of life and passing down values and traditions. 

Legend has it that a critical moment in the life of David Ogilvy, fondly known as the father of advertising, was the trigger that introduced brand storytelling to advertising.

The story goes that David met a beggar on the road on his way to office. The beggar he met had a sign around his neck with the massage: “I’m blind.” David noticed that the beggar’s cup was empty and so he changed he sign to read: “It’s spring and I’m blind.” That same evening, as David left his office and passed the beggar on the street again, he saw the beggar’s cup was overflowing with loose change. 

David’s simple change promotes the idea that the effectiveness of storytelling lies in more than just delivering your message as an advertisement. Later, stories would diversify into different forms, such as cartoons, dramas, short videos, animations and other web-based applications. 

Today, brand storytelling is supported by the power of the social media revolution of this generation, which enables a consistent and even prolonged conversation around the story behind the brand which can be easily connected to a target audience with options and features. Also, this allows the publisher to monitor the reach of their advertisement to the audience with analytical tools while reducing their advertising cost. 

Sri Lanka has 10.1 million internet connections, 6.4 million active Facebook users, 1.19 million LinkedIn users, 0.99 million Instagram users and a considerable number of TikTok users. This is a big opportunity for Sri Lankan marketers to share their stories and grab the attention of their target audience and positions them well to consider entering international markets. Critical benefits for the marketers include.

• Increases the engagement with your target audience
• Enhances your competitor advantage as competitors cannot copy the same story
• Empowers your brand vision in a creative manner
• Allows you to add people into your brand easily
• Saves your budget 
• Makes it easier for you to increase brand loyalty and increase word of mouth 

As a rule of thumb, marketers should evaluate how their communication translates in the community and test how the brand story is received. They can consider the following: 

Experience of the producer

The producer’s experience is critical in the art of storytelling as they are the content creators that know what kind of story connects the nature of your brand to the target audience. However, you may loss the opportunity of having new ideas and creativity if you consider the experience as the only selection criteria. 

Credibility

Credibility is a vital factor when you select a producer as you are going to share your important information with the producer and non-credible people might share your information with competitors. 

Cost 

You are responsible for managing your budgets and you should carefully evaluate the cost factor without compromising quality and the creativity of your communication.

Story and characters

You have to carefully go through the script/content and characters before approving the story proposed by the producer and you can get the ideas of your team and other experienced persons as support for your decision. 

Advertising appeal 

Select the correct appeal for your brand according to your story, product and target audience. Options can range from humour, sex appeal, fear, emotional appeal, rational appeal, music and many other psychological and sentimental stimulants. 

Ethical and legal factors 

You should have a basic knowledge about the country’s laws, international law and ethics relevant to your advertisement before approving the proposal to avoid unnecessary issues stemming from your marketing. 

Story telling is a powerful and persuasive advertising technique as it increases people’s involvement with your message. Modern marketers tend to use storytelling to grab the attention of their target audience and with the expansion of social media, it has become the future of advertising. This will further improve with the development of new technologies and concepts such as artificial intelligence, neuromarketing techniques and new media. However the current use of storytelling advertisements are at a growing level among Sri Lankan marketers as still they are observing the progress and gradually adapting.         

[The writer, MBA, PG.Dip.M(SL), MSLIM, MAPIEM, MCPM, is Senior Marketing Manager, Maga Neguma Road Construction Equipment Company. He is a Certified Professional Marketer (Asia) and Practicing Marketer (SL).]