See a photo of Jim, his bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.

Q&A with Jim Signorelli, Question 2:

Q: What inspired you to write your book, Storybranding: Creating Standout Brands Through the Power of Story, especially at a time when books about storytelling in business and branding are proliferating? What makes your message unique?

A: As I began to read about stories, my fascination with them snowballed into an avalanche. My questions found answers that raised more questions. Intuitively I knew that brands could benefit from story, but articulating how became a major challenge. It took three years of starting and stopping, backing and forthing, and a lot of paper. How I finally got to something I was satisfied with will also address the other part of your question, as your observation is astute. With so much buzz about storytelling in business and branding, any insights I might be able to offer risked a welcome similar to one given the newest passenger on a crowded bus.

Try as I did, using storytelling as an advertising technique was often a force-fit. Everything was starting to look and sound like a clichéd testimonial, i.e., one day John had a problem (dramatize problem) and found the solution (big smile goes here) with brand XYZ. Logo/Tag line. Music up and out. The End.

After much trial, and mostly error, I came very close to giving up. Reluctantly, I had to admit to the fact that storytelling, albeit a powerful technique for speakers, salespeople, leaders or anyone engaged in persuasion, was not workable in the various constraining forms of the media we typically employ. On the other hand, there could be no denying that story’s purpose was something worth emulating. It was the lightning I needed to bottle.

Then, I was introduced to Kendall Haven’s book Story Proof, the outcome of some 10 years of research on what stories are and how they are structured. Borrowing from Haven’s model of story, I crafted something similar for brands while casting them as heroes trying to overcome obstacles in its quest to establish a relationship with prospects.

Rather than a messaging technique, I had arrived at a strategic-planning technique, one that requires looking beyond what we call their “outer layers” or their functional advantages and benefits — and one that includes a clear understanding for what the brand stands for and how it can better align its unique worldview with targeted prospects. Besides requiring a high degree of empathy for the prospect, staging the brand as a story character helps identify the brand’s underlying beliefs and values, or the brand’s “cause” beyond its profit motive. Applying what we know about our interactions with people, shared beliefs and values contribute greatly to reasons we form and maintain certain relationships.

So you see, StoryBranding is not just another trumpet on the storytelling bandwagon. In fact, StoryBranding is very different from storytelling. Rather it defines both an approach and a process for giving brands the kind of meaning that resonates with prospects. And by doing so, it displaces advertising’s natural inclination to hit the prospect over the head with the brand’s puffed up image of itself.

Why it became a book finds reason in the fact that anything less would have given the subject short shrift. Plus, after three years, I had to do something useful with all that paper.

[Editor’s note: You can download an excerpt from StoryBranding here.]