Brand Audits Update x Christine Moody
Everyone loves a good story
Whether your brand is a start up or an established organisation, every brand has a good story to tell. A brand story gives your products and services context, meaning, and emotion. It also allows you to tell a unique story to your stakeholders—staff, potential and existing customers, and suppliers.
Writing the brand story is the first thing to do when you are creating a new product or service. For example, when I have an idea for a new product or service the first thing I do is buy a new Moleskine notebook. This notebook serves as the main repository to capture my thoughts, research, clippings, and notes all in one place. It also serves as a place to start documenting and writing the brand story.
It is one of the most important things you will do as it forms the framework for any future decisions.
Only after the brand story has been written do I talk to a range of trusted advisors about my idea. The feedback and insights from this process helps inform the prototype. The brand story influences everything I do and say around the new product, eg, it informs my narrative on social media as well as the content of the brief to the photographer. It is one of the most important things you will do as forms the foundation for any future decisions.
Here are a selection of articles on brand story creation and why creating your brand’s story is so important.
Forbes
“Disney’s “content marketing” strategy goes in reverse compared to most brands. Meaning, where most brands start with a
physical product and then build a story around it in the form of “content marketing,” companies like Disney do exactly the opposite. They create a brand story – a movie – and then build products around that story.”
Inc.com
How to tell stories that make your brand x First Round Review
“A startup’s story needs to be a shapeshifter. You need a version that will convince people to give you money, another to persuade star talent to join your team, another for those first customers taking a chance on you. These stories live in different places and have different purposes. One may never be written down, one may only be emailed to select people, one may live at the top of your website in the form of a video. But they should all stem from the same core.”
The New York Times
Quenching consumer’ thirst for ‘authentic’ brands x Matthew Hutson
“Knowing where their products come from allows them to keep tabs on the way many of their products are made. The narratives also connect consumers to other people and places, adding a personal and experiential component to a tangible good and giving it an aura of authenticity.”
*Christine Moody is one of Australia’s leading brand strategists and the founder brand management consultancy, Brand Audits. With more than 30 years’ professional experience, Christine has helped a diverse client base of local and international brands, including Gold Coast City Council, Hilton Hotels, and Wrigleys USA, to develop, protect and achieve brand differentiation.