Brandstory – What Marketers and Business Owners Should Know
Brandstory – the Making of Successful Brands
A compelling brandstory is what makes a brand thick. This is the story behind every successful brand. It gives a brand personality, presence and a way to introduce itself.
What more, it helps customers make buying decisions and so helps the brand grow and maintan longevity.
But before talking more about brandstory and how successful brands have used it over the years to build brands that remain popular and relevant among generations after generations, let me ask you a personal question…
If money is not a problem, what brand of car would you love to own and drive?
Here is my take…
Your choice of car would have been influenced by any or a combination of these factors:
• popularity – it’s readily available and almost everyone knows it. Not an unknown or obscure entity you have to explain to your mates.
• product – design, quality and performance align with the image, style and class you want to portray.
On the other hand, if money is tight, it’s logical to say that affordability and fuel consumption may have influenced your choice, right?
Now, let’s get back to…
Brand and Brandstory?
When most people think about brand the things that readily come to mind are logo, slogan, advertising, marketing and something only associated to big corporations. Yes, slogan and logo contribute to branding. But are mainly symbols of recognition. But the recognition is driven by a product/service that has earned a place in the minds and hearts of customers and potential customers. Otherwise logo and slogan mean nothing.
No point devoting energy creating logo and slogan if the product/service they represent have not made emotional connection with your target audience.
So, brand means more than logo and slogan. Brand simply means a sum total of what your customers and potential customers think, say, imagine, suspect, watch, expect and believe about your product and service. It is the meaning the people carry in their heads and hearts about what you do with your products and services. It has little or nothing to do with the size of your business.
A brand meaning can be positive or negative. Therefore in order to succeed as a brand, a great majority must converge on identical positive meanings on your product and service. And that is the challenge for every business owner that wants to build an enduring brand.
So, a brandstory is a compelling narrative, an emotional connection of what your customers and potential customers say about how your product/service helps them meet a certain need and improve their quality of life.
While your audience tells your brandstory you as a business owner navigate it to how you want it to be told.
This should come through and reflect in every aspect of what you do and the value you hold dear. And will include the quality of your product/service, customer service, recruitment, payment system, work environment and corporate social responsibilty etc
The first step of a compelling brandstory journey is to identify the need your product and service will meet for a target audience.
Once you have got a product or service you want to build a brand on, your logo, slogan, website, advertising, sponsorships etc will reinforce your brandstory and keep your brand visible and alive.
Moving On…
How to tell a Compelling Brandstory
Every brand journey starts with a WHY that identifies a need, followed by WHAT that provides solution and HOW that defines a process and WHO that settles with a target audience.
When these 3Ws and H are actualized, there is an emergence of product/ service that customers and potential customers emotionally get attached to and talk about their experiences in what is known as brandstory.
In telling a brandstory, a business owner is simply expressing through his product/service why he is doing what he is doing, how he is doing it
and for whom. This is brandstory, a response to the curiosity of the mind that creates a never-ending story.
Coming up next…
I will be talking about how brands you know have used product, service, logo, slogan, and advertising as part of their brandstory to make you know, remember, and buy from them.
Don’t forget to share your thoughts on your choice of car in our comment section.
Catch you soon!