Becoming a Storyteller

In diagnosing the lead-up to the recent financial meltdown, Nassim Nicholas Taleb points to something he calls “the narrative fallacy”. The reason things got so bad, he writes, is that investment bankers, like us regular folks, are natural born pattern-seekers: we look for patterns (i.e., causal relationships) to help structure our thoughts and ideas.

Taleb uses the example of history to illustrate that our memories of past events are more clear-cut than reality might suggest. This, he writes, is because someone (our unconscious self, or maybe a well-meaning historian) has woven an seemingly random set of events into a narrative—each one linked through a web of discreet and readily observable causes.

But history is just one example. The fact is that Taleb’s fallacy applies to all aspects of human life, including financial markets, religious belief, gambling behavior, and, crucially for our purposes, brand development. As we shall see, it’s quite possible to capitalize on the underlying tendency for “causal thinking” in the creation of compelling brands.

Taleb’s oeuvre goes well beyond the scope of this post, and that’s perfectly fine—I’m only referring to it here to illustrate the immense power that narratives have in communicating complicated ideas. Nowhere is this trait more important than in the third and final step of the brand creation process—Execution—where the fledgling brand is released into the wild.

The importance of stories

SbyD is all about avoiding the threat of miscommunication. Whereas empiricism helps transfer insights from market to practitioner (Inspiration), and prototyping enables practitioners to effectively share ideas (Ideation), narratives ensure that our ideas can transfer back into the market place (Execution). This is really what SbyD is all about: effective communication throughout the design process.

In “Storytelling—Branding in Practice”, Fog et al takes the ideas of brand narratives to the logical next step: brand stories. This is, after all, what a narrative really is: “a story that is created in a constructive format…that describes a sequence…of events” (Wikipedia, 2010). A compelling brand story, the authors argue, is increasingly becoming a bare minimum for market success:

“We navigate our world using symbols and visual expressions that signal our personality and our values. And strong brands are one of the means by which we do this. A pair of hiking boots from Timberland and a Kevlar jacket from North Face for example, signal an outdoorsy, active type. But this also works the other way around, such as when we boycott companies that fail to meet up to our moral expectations. Increasingly we are using the shopping-cart to “vote”, expressing ourselves through our purchases. And strong brands are becoming an important tool for communicating these ideas.”

If you’ve read part one and two of this series, you’ll recognize the importance of culture in the above quotation. It’s not mentioned outright, but reading between the lines we see that storytelling is a tool with which to organize “clusters of cultural ideas”. Storytelling is the glue, so to speak, with which these ideas can be arranged and linked together in a compelling fashion.

This is important because people don’t remember facts; they remember stories. And that’s why branding has become big business. Just as the raconteur has captivated listeners around campfires for generations, brands are now garnering attention by speaking directly to our innate needs and desires.

Brands are, in this sense of the word, the new storytellers. They provide narratives; stories that people use to make sense of the world around them. Nike, for example, isn’t in the business of selling footwear—they are in the business of selling the story of personal achievement to millions of people around the globe. That’s not a bad business to be in: the market for high-end running shoes is really quite small compared to the market of self-actualization.

Finding your story

Whatever the business, you’ll need an effective narrative if you are to break through the clutter and connect with your audience. But finding this narrative is hard, and finding people willing to listen is likely to be even harder.

Let’s tackle the second problem first.

Finding people willing to listen to your message might be hard, but it’s often hard for the wrong reason. In his recent book “Start with why”, Simon Sinek speaks to the reason of why this it: people are willing to listen, he says, if you genuinely have something to say. Thing is, few companies do.

Sinek makes use of a simple three-circle diagram to point out a fact that is so obvious it often gets overlooked: most companies talk only about the “How” and the “What” of their business, and they consequently fall by the wayside. Successful companies—companies like Apple, Nike, and Virgin—speaks to the “Why”. They lead with their raison d’etre. They lead with a story.

The reason I bring this up is simple: you won’t get anywhere if you don’t stand for something. But if you (or the company for which you are developing the brand) does stand for something, you’re unlikely to be troubled with finding people willing to listen. They’re out there. Finding them is a task for the folks in MarCom.

Lets turn out attention to the problem of “finding” our narrative. Again, if you’ve read parts one and two, you’ve likely already struck upon the idea of using the Brand Molecule as a jumping-off point. That’s good, because the molecule should contain all the relevant building blocks we need. The only think missing is the “glue”—the story line. And for that we again turn our attention to Fog et al.

The four elements of storytelling

There is no one-size-fits all formula for good storytelling, but “[a] peak into the annals of literary history shows that most stories—from Aristotle to Hans Christian Andersen—entail at least some fixed basic elements. These elements can be mixed, matched and applied in a variety of ways depending on the context in which the story is told, and its purpose.”

Fog et al identifies the following four basic elements:

• Message—Without a clearly defined message, there’s no reason to tell stories. Volvo is about safety, Nike about self-actualization.
• Conflict—As storytellers, we get our message across through conflict and its resolution. Apple is the antonym of Microsoft; Avis tries harder than Hertz.
• Characters—Heros, adversaries, supporters, and benefactors. Whatever the cast, it’s important that the audience can identify with the characters.
• Plot—The narrative or sequence of events. Ford created the Model-T a hundred years ago, and now they’ve created the Volt.

There’s enough material here to fill several posts, but I will skip the details and go straight to the moral of this story: by presenting your brand as part of a narrative—a story with a clear message, a dramatic conflict, a strong character set, and an intriguing plot—you’ll make it easier for your audience to understand your brand and take it to heart.

Taleb wrote about the “narrative fallacy” in his 2008 best-seller “the Black Swan.” To him, it was a problem to be shunned at all costs. But to us, as branding practitioners, it serves only as an acute reminder as to the power that storytelling can have over the human condition. It’s a force to be reckoned with. And that is why it’s so important when developing brand strategy by design.