Moar Storytelling?

It’s one of the most overworked items in the brand playbook, yet there’s something troubling about the insistence that storytelling is a dominant element in brand building.

For one thing, storytelling typically is Potemkin-esque theater, a curated production of the brand that attempts to massage perceptions in lieu of actual touchpoint experiences. In most cases, we’re not engaged in storytelling; instead, we’re image selling. That’s advertising.

Yes, I know brands advertise, and storytelling is just another advertising gambit in pursuit of commercial appeal or reputational esteem. So, I can’t universally condemn the use of storytelling in these efforts. However, I do wish storytelling was reserved for its proper place in the tactical arsenal of brand development.

Storytelling has a starring role in origin narratives, i.e., how our organization came to be, why our existence matters, how we create value, how we have evolved, challenges we have overcome, and how all that has shaped who we are and what we hope to become. It’s a powerful messaging platform for conveying culture, bearing in mind that, hopefully, employees’ actual experiences should track with our storytelling.

Storytelling for external audiences is more problematic. As far as brand reputation is concerned, value ultimately eclipses values. Perceived or real, experienced value should correspond to the promised or expected value. That’s an authentic brand story worth telling.

However, stories that speak about saving lives, making the world better, bringing hope, etc., are largely disconnected from people’s quotidian concerns such that, at best, they become background noise or are altogether dismissed as propaganda. Worse, this form of storytelling draws too much from the well of good faith and positive intent, which can never be replenished in full; people know when they are being manipulated.

Sure, some people enjoy manipulation (see, Hallmark Channel; December programming), especially when it confirms priors or evokes an identitarian allegiance. I’ll admit this is the sense of branding in which most practitioners operate, i.e., image-making more so than reputation-building. Storytelling is image-selling; your stakeholders’ experiences are reputation-shaping.

Certainly, commercial brands, which are less beholden to authenticity, do benefit from the image-manufacturing methodology of storytelling. You want your audience to see themselves in your mirror — i.e., “our brand is exactly how you want to be seen”— whether it’s part of a lifestyle, taste, or status frameset.

Let’s just be honest about what we’re really doing here, which is marketing under the borrowed license of the brand. But if we are truly trying to engender an emotional connection with our stakeholders, it’s better to focus our efforts on actual brand experiences.