Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories that you tell – Seth Godin, great American Entrepreneur and author
Storytelling is an art that is learned. It is a vital tool in public relations strategy. It allows companies to better connect with their audience and ultimately stimulate their feelings and behaviour to align with their marketing goals. The power of public relations is in creating brand narratives that explicate their story, vision and mission statements of the brand.
Brand storytelling is the act of using an emotion-evoking narrative to connect your brand to customers, with a focus on creating empathy by aligning your brand values with your customers’ values. The key to telling powerful brand stories is developing an emotional resonance with your audience.
The most powerful brand stories cultivate empathy, capture and hold an audience’s attention, and compel them to take an action which directly benefits both the customer and the brand. We have many brands in our market that have embraced the art of storytelling in driving their narrative and selling their brands.
Typical example is the rested Airtel’s 4G advert series theme: Meet the In Laws. In this advert, Nollywood legend Mama Rainbow was in competition with her in law, the mother of her son’s wife. The scene showed a naming ceremony party of Mama Rainbow’s grandson, and the in law, another Nollywood thespian Ngosu Nwosu wanted to oppress Mama Rainbow.
It is a typical rivalry situation witnessed in our society in Nigeria where Mother in laws struggle to take charge of their son and daughter’s matrimonial home during omugwo (the traditional after birth care and management of a new bride and her new born child in her matrimonial home). In this case Mama Rainbow is an illiterate mother of the groom, Ngozi is a semi educated mother of the bride; both representing Yoruba and Igbo cultures. They are bent to overdo one another. That rivalry which started from home as depicted in the earlier TV commercial series, was brought to the naming ceremony of their grandson. Ngozi wanted to be the ‘life of the party’ by displaying her 4G enabled tablet. She wanted to be the center of attention.
Dressed superbly, she stood up and called attention of everybody at the party to come and take selfie photo with her. She shouted ‘Selfie Time”. Mama Rainbow, looking at her with consternation, rose up, lifted up her own tablet and shouted ‘Selfish Time”. The guests left Ngozi and rushed to Mama Rainbow. And the commercial faded out with the close-up ‘be the life of the party’.
This is a brand story telling at its best.
Airtel has been a child of struggle right from when it came to Nigeria in 2001. It emancipated itself out of the cluster. And warded off all the daring fangs of competition. It fought brand wars and triumphed. The brand has re-invented itself to become centre of attraction with all its brand offerings. It is in the league of best service offering network showing off its 4G power when 4G was newly launched into the Nigerian market.
There are many other brands that use storytelling technique to tell their story and emotionally engage their target audience. They include, Coca Cola, MTN, MasterCard, UBA, First Band etc
The 5Cs of STORYTELLING If you look at the above Airtel brand’ sample, you will realised some key features namely:
- Circumstances
- Curiosity
- Characters
- Conversations
- Conflicts
A brand story is not just a series of events. It’s a journey of suspense during which the audience feels the experience. The circumstances are established, and the target audience can relate with it.
Curiosity is the lust of the mind. For the story to ignite interest there must be suspense. It holds the audience curious to want to know where it is leading them. The brand and the storyline must align in characters. Imagery is the power of storytelling. The pictures, videos and the storyline must be scripted with characters that tell the story.
From the beginning to the end, the conversation must be very striking and engaging. The cognitive mind of the target audience must be held spell bound by conflict of characters, but the import of the story must not be lost.
Whether you are trying to attract new customers or engage your current ones, quality storytelling is the way to go. This goes beyond words, encompassing photographs and videos – the principles remain the same.
Now, more than ever, you must tell your brand story if you want to succeed in the global marketplace. TV is out. The new battle of the brands is being fought on the internet. And the competition is FIERCE.
Omoba Odusote, Mnipr, arpa, is a Partner, Public Affairs/Strategic Communications at CMC Connect LLP (Perception Consultant)
