"Kuch meetha hojaye?"

These three words by Dairy Milk revolutionized storytelling in the Indian Market. If there’s any festival around the corner, Cadbury makes sure to evoke emotional appeal by mirroring occurrences that happen in every household.

Not just Cadbury, almost every brand on the face of the planet incorporates storytelling in their communication.

One of my favorite advertisements – Moments by Volvo shows a little girl’s conversation in conversation with her mother about everything she wants to achieve and all adventures she wants to be a part of, as she overcomes her fear of her first day in school.

This goes by a flash as you see another story playing out at the same time, a distracted woman driving to work while the little girl crosses the road. The two stories meet in a nerve-wracking way as she brakes at the right time.

Do not worry, this ends well.

The little girl and the woman driving to work go on with their day happily giving out a beautiful message that moments that never happen are the ones that matter the most.

The crux of this is to elucidate how extensively a story can impact your mind.

I was talking to my little cousin the other day about his favorite bedtime stories and it got me thinking about how brands leverage that to create exceptional campaigns that resonate with kids. Children’s culture is based on the concept of discovery.

Discovery could be in the form of slapstick magic tricks or through a long list of absurd questions like “why is a fan called a fan?”.

Their humor is typically restricted to knock-knock jokes or quirky riddles. Stories to children portray a simplified view of the concept of life! The beauty of a story is that you can explain the most challenging scenarios in the simplest forms.

Once upon a time…... ZZzzzZZZ

No, not all stories make you sleepy. In fact, stories have the potential to rewire your brain, give it a different perspective on things and quench your thirst for learning.

Just imagine you are wanting to become more environmentally conscious and you take a step towards educating yourself about the benefits of adopting the lifestyle.

You ask two friends who are on the same path, one of them sends you a list of bullet points elucidating the advantages of contributing to the environment and the other one articulates his experiences in the form of a story to tell you how being environmentally aware has changed his life.

Which one would you be more convinced by? Well, if you are anything like the 99.9% of the population, I am pretty sure you would choose the latter!

If we go by the books, storytelling is the act of telling or writing stories or narratives. Frankly speaking, storytelling is an art and requires a high degree of creativity and skill.

It is not something that you would learn from a YouTube video. To master storytelling, you need to experience a lot of trial and error to see what works out for your audience. Don’t just storytell for the sake of storytelling, it should add some kind of value to your audience’s life.

It would be ideal if you could brainstorm and create a mindmap of your target audience and see what kinds of content they like to consume. After that, pick a few of the topics from the brainstorming session and narrate them as stories. This way, you can test for what kinds of topics resonate with your audience and continue to work your way up from there.

Storytelling has been in this world for ages. You could see artifacts used by cavemen in museums to this day. Since the start of human civilization, humans have interacted through cave wall art. Few of the most primitive pieces of evidence of storytelling have been discovered through cave drawings in Lascaux and Chavaux, France 30,000 years ago.

These cave wall art portrayed animals, humans, weapons, and other objects used to communicate via storytelling.

But how can “Storytelling” benefit my brand?

If you are an entrepreneur or know one, you would probably know how pivotal brand loyalty is. Storytelling can immensely help with attaining brand loyalty through personalization and uncovering your audience's motives beyond the surface level.

Weave stories that hit home

If you want to stand out, take the user through your story that makes them feel a sense of familiarity. Connecting your product to a part of users' life can absolutely change your marketing trajectory. Let them in on your growth, learning curve, and processes.

If you can easily articulate your offerings in your stories, you can outshine your competitors and build a loyal audience.

Human touch is essential

Touching the hearts of your audience will not just help you conquer your goals, but would reinforce your mission and vision as a brand. Humanizing your brand can foster a positive impact on your audience.

The centerpiece of your efforts

Stories can aid in meshing all of your marketing efforts together by creating a fluid structure that has more to do with creating an impact than straight out seeming “pushy” to sell.

Human touch is essential

Touching the hearts of your audience will not just help you conquer your goals, but would reinforce your mission and vision as a brand. Humanizing your brand can foster a positive impact on your audience.

5 Brands that have mastered the Art of Storytelling

Dove

(Source - Click here)

Dove has always been at the forefront of supporting social causes with several campaigns that elucidate how everyone is beautiful regardless of their race, sexual orientation, age, body type, etc. Their #DoveSelfie campaign garnered a lot of attention. If you haven’t watched the campaign, it entails a number of women narrating their experiences of their perceptions of what they do not like about themselves, they go through a series of events thereafter wherein they realize that no one has to change their appearance for anyone and that everyone is beautiful the way they are!

Their storytelling approach in all their inner beauty campaigns has earned them a rock-solid loyal audience. Through sharing a social message through their brand, they do not require any additional marketing efforts as their customers are emotionally linked to the brand.

Airbnb

(Source - Click here)

If I think of brand-driven storytelling, Airbnb for some reason tops the list in my mind due to the way they hit home with their campaigns. Every campaign that they have ever come out with is so user-centric and memorable.

Most of their campaigns encapsulate the little joys of life, narrating real stories from travelers and mavericks who are always on the go! A huge amount of Airbnb’s content revolves around community and hospitality to cultivate trust among its audience.

Spotify

(Source - Click here)

Spotify has one of the quirkiest storytelling strategies, a major example being Spotify Wrapped which is a personalized highlight of music created for every user. Since people tend to listen to music when they feel emotion, Spotify embraced this aspect to help the user realize that they have been there for them throughout their journey of ups and downs.

This adds a rather human touch to the way they connect with their audience.

Red Bull

(Source - Click here)

Despite the hefty lawsuit associated with the tagline, “Red bull gives you wings” had captured a huge chunk of the audience and created a revolutionary impact on the brand itself.

The rebel, go-getter brand image is translated through their advertisements and content. Today, Red bull runs its social media on co-creating stories with its audience.

Deciem

(Source - Click here)

If you are a skincare fanatic like me, you probably know Deciem for its quality products. If you are a marketing fanatic, also like me, then you probably know Deciem for its quirky illustrations.

They foster honest communication with their audience and promote natural beauty by avoiding the stigma of being a certain type to fit in the beauty segment. Their storytelling approach amalgamated with their brand persona has led them to build a loyal audience.

Here are some numbers if you’re still not convinced:

• We’re exposed to 5,000+ brand messages every day, but we’re aware of about 86, with only 12 making a lasting impression - The Drum.

• 81% of consumers say they need to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them -. Edelman

• Storytelling can boost conversion rates by 30% - Search Engine Watch.

• If people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in the future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately -. Headstream

• Even 62% of B2B marketers hold storytelling in high regard as an effective content marketing tactic - Search Engine Watch.

(Source - Click here)

The final call….

Storytelling is the way to go! Try incorporating it into your content strategy and observe the numbers growing. In this day and age where personalization is given prime importance, there is no better way to gain a loyal audience than capturing their hearts through relatable stories!

What do you think? Is content better with storytelling? Leave us a DM on our IG @designfuel. Stay tuned for more insightful blogs! Our upcoming blog is curated for the creators of tomorrow so stay tuned for it! Until then, Ciao!