Continuing interesting story observations folks have made about marketing, advertising, public relations, and branding, from yesterday’s entry …

• Even names and labels can tell a story. Sarah Mahoney says (in an article that now appears to be password-protected) many marketers miss the opportunity to create a storyline through labels, especially when attempting to tout green products. Meanwhile, Russ Meyer blogs at What’s up below deck?
about the Mortgage Lifter tomato and the story behind it (the tomato became so popular that its developer was able to pay off his mortgage). Not every product can have an enigmatic, intriguing name that begs to have its story told, but it doesn’t hurt for your product (or service) to have a compelling, storied name.
• Stories that your audience experiences make your marketing message memorable and resonant. Randy Gage writes: “Simply assaulting your audience with facts, statistics and information will never create a bond. … But tell them a story of something that happened to you that illustrates a point - and they’ll often remember the story (and thus the point), five years later. … when you do it right — the recipient will not hear the story, or read the story - they will experience it!
• The narrative freedom of the Internet is changing patterns of story consumption and production. That was story/branding guru Michael Margolis’s assertion in an interview he did with Sarah Welt of the Custom Publishing Council Blog. But hark! Here’s an opposing view of that point from Nathan C. Ford on Art=Work, who asserts that advertising has failed on the Internet “because of the tired notion that people want to hear a story about the brands they consume. The internet is a social medium, and stories do not make for engaging conversation.” Stories do not make for engaging conversation? Really? That’s not the case in my world.
• A marketing campaign story must be connected to the company’s overall story. So says my friend Ardath Albee, continuing: “Stories are not just used in the way articles are written to inspire dialogue, but serve as the thread that pulls a buyer from interest through consideration to purchase.” In the same a blog entry, Ardath offers an excellent set of bullet points characterizing a good company story.
• Terrific examples of storytelling in marketing abound. Here’s where you can find some:
• Barbara Rozgonyi offers numerous examples in Storyteller Marketing | Search Engine Strategies Coverage on Wired PR Works.
• The Ford Motor Company has had a couple of successful storied campaigns. Read a case study of the “Ford Cars: Built to Last” campaign and about the winner of a Mustang Stories Contest, described by Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford.
• The Brand Story Web Marketing Process by Jerry Bader offers examples.
• Dr. Pamela Rutledge discusses Hang in There Jack: A Case Study in Cross-Platform Digital Storytelling on the Media Psychology Blog (the advertiser is Jack in the Box).
• A commenter, Ernest Nicastro, to this blog entry cited a classic ad, They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano But When I Started to Play! by famed copywriter John Caples as “probably the greatest example of storytelling in marketing.”
• The blog Storytelling To Create Impact Brands cites the Coke commercial below, “Happiness Factory,” as a nice example of storytelling in advertising.