Here’s a piece I’ve been meaning to post for a long time. First had it scheduled for January, then February, then April, and now here we are.

Some interesting story observations folks have made about marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding:

• Storied characters provide a human way for marketers to relate products to the public. That’s the assertion of a multi-part series about characters in in advertising on the blog hubbub. Interestingly the blogger, who offers his photo and bio, but not, as far as I can tell, his name, says the three archetypes for advertising characters are slaves (from real slaves to corporate servants), heroes, and clowns.
• Customer experiences must tell customers the story you want them to re-tell. That’s the edict of Frank Capek, who writes here. He poses these questions: “What are the stories your customers tell about their experience with you and your business? What do they think you really stand for? What are the most memorable aspects of their experience? What surprises them? What frustrates them? How do you make them feel?” Further:

  Your ability to retain customers is directly related to the nature and quality of the stories they tell themselves about their experience. … If you don’t effectively tell the story… how can ever expect that your customers will either get the message… or have the material to be able to pass the story effectively on to others.

  Most businesses don’t make full use of their customers’ stories, says John Williams on Entrepreneur.com, in an article that no longer seems to be online. But, “the brands that win tomorrow are those whose customers tell the best stories,” writes Alain Thys.

  Want some ideas for how to tell a story customers will re-tell? The blogger behind Rocket Watcher offers 4 Characteristics of a good product story.

  Before branders can expect customers to re-tell the story they want re-told, they should listen to the stories customers are already telling about the product (or service), says Nicholine Hayward on econsultancy Noting that the key drivers of a brand’s storytelling strategy are motive, means, and opportunity, Hayward advises that brands need to give consumers a reason and a reward for telling their own stories, arm them with a storytelling arsenal, and provide channels and platforms that invite and incentivise consumers to tell their stories.

  How about an example storytelling aimed at encouraging customers to re-tell it? That’s what Starbucks did in response to McDonald’s McCafe coffee drinks, which they claimed were an attempt to “commoditize” coffee, wrote Clair Cain Miller in the New York Times. Full-page, text-heavy ads “describe[d] how Starbucks selects only the best 3 percent of beans and roasts them until they pop twice, and gives its part-time workers health insurance,” Miller wrote.

  The Story Lady, Ronda Del Boccio, describes a storied customer experience that started well but didn’t deliver on its initial promise — a server that explained the origin of oil as a dip for bread at Macaroni Grill (but Del Boccio was disappointed that no more storytelling followed).

  Reinforcing this idea of consumer involvement in telling a brand’s story, Ian Tate, creative partner at Poke, said during a creative workshop (reported about on the Amsterdam Ad Blog): “It’s not just about telling a story anymore, the consumer has to be involved and should be able to ‘live the story.”

• Storytelling architecture provides structural patterns that fit brands. Laurence Vincent describes structural patterns, such as the MasterCard “Priceless” campaign:

  The storytelling architecture relies upon telling the story through purchases. Each purchase builds dramatic tension. The denouement occurs with the final element, which has no price. That example is heavily tied to the brand advertising, but there’s no reason the pattern could not extend to other brand touch points. In musical notation, that pattern could be expressed as A-A-A-B, where the A’s are the verses and the B is the chorus.

  What storytelling architecture and patterns can you pick up on in other storied advertising/marketing

• The Unique Story Proposition can anchor every story you tell in branding. Anyone who has ever studied marketing or advertising knows about a product’s or service’s Unique Selling Proposition; the Unique Story Propositions “stem from the reason a brand exists,” writes Alain Thys in an article that helpfully offers The Ten Truths of Branded Storytelling.
• Public relations is the strategic crafting of your story.Those are the words of Seth Godin, who often writes about storytelling in marketing. David E. Henderson, writer I really admire, goes a step further when he writes: “I predict the time will come when traditional public relations agencies and services are replaced by consultants and a new forms of agencies that will have the skills to teach effective storytelling.”

See Part 2 tomorrow.