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Know The Important Differences Between Business Storytelling and StoryBranding

 

Guest articles > Know The Important Differences Between Business Storytelling and StoryBranding

 

by: James Signorelli

 

Business storytelling and storybranding are often thought of as the same thing. Both can be found in the same story toolbox, but they are as different as flat blade and Phillips screwdrivers.

Storytelling is the more commonly used tool.

You may not be aware of it, but anytime you talk about events associated with how you or your company has had to deal with some problem, you are telling a story. If your story is well told, your audience will be able to visualize what happened and identify with the central problem as you describe it. And if you’ve captivated their interest, you might hear a “Wow!,” “Really?,” “Oh No!,” or get some other emotional reaction.

Stories clothe facts with emotion. For this reason, storytelling in business is a way to involve audiences with messages more memorably and with greater impact than facts alone. It’s unlikely that you will ever see anyone get goose bumps looking at a line graph. Embed those same facts within a story? Still, goose bumps may be asking for too much. But the chances of gaining some sort of emotional engagement will definitely be increased.

This is why storytelling has always been a go-to technique in advertising. And it is why more and more companies are training their leaders and salespeople how to use storytelling as a business tool.

Storybranding is a different tool used for a different business purpose.

Unlike storytelling, storybranding isn’t used to help audiences identify with events and the way these events are described by the storyteller. Rather, storybranding is used to help brands associate with a strong and enduring value or belief system. In brand briefs, this is sometimes mistaken for a description of the brand’s personality or how it should be portrayed i.e. bold, unique, caring, or responsive. But directing a brand to exhibit a personality trait is like directing a stage actor to show passion or be courageous. It becomes more natural for the actor to show passion, courage, or any other personality trait by helping him get in touch with his character’s belief system.

Storybranding ratchets brands up to something more powerful than a display of certain personality traits. It does this by defining the brand’s authentic motivational thrust underlying its personality. This thrust could be the strongly adhered to value placed upon scooping competitive rivals with technological advancements, the belief that being friendly is not the same as “doing” friendly, or the importance that is placed on being obsessive about quality control. In effect, storybrands internalize beliefs that more naturally manifest themselves in their outward appearances.

The most important purpose behind storybranding is to help companies become identified with certain ideals. And it’s a purpose that comes with a very big reward. This was demonstrated in a study conducted Jim Stengel, the former global marketing officer with Procter and Gamble. In his book Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit for the World's Greatest Companies, Stengel documents how brands that could be identified by their ideals, outperformed the S&P, on average, by over 400% over a 10-year period.

To take full advantage of how the use storybranding, companies need to first do some internal processing. My friend Joey Reiman best describes the most important aspect of this process in his book, The Purpose of Story. He states that management has to first make clear the distinction between a brand’s point of difference and its point of view. The former has to do with function. The latter has to do with the brand's cause, or a crusade the has decided to lead.

Features and benefits are copied or upgraded all of the time. For this reason, focusing on unique functional properties may provide short-term rewards, at best. But, baring events that could possibly derail their images, storybrands like Harley Davidson, Disney, Virgin and Southwest Airlines will be known for their unique points of view long into the future. The reason for this is that these brands, and others that follow their example, satisfy the primal need for belonging, a need that is satisfied when potential buyers become assured that there's a company that shares their beliefs. Satisfying this need far outweighs the long-term value of any functional benefit the brand provides today and is surpassed by a competitor tomorrow.

In many ways, storybrands are like authors who want to provide their audience something more than an interesting or exciting plot. These are authors who care a great deal about the theme of the their stories as well their plots.

 


Jim Signorelli is the Founder and President of Story-Lab.

Jim started his career selling for a small country radio station. He will tell you that it was hard achieving success selling for a station that played Hank Williams 40 times a day. At least that was true until he discovered his clients didn’t care so much about his station’s music. They cared more about commercials that could generate results. So Jim put his energies against becoming a skilled copywriter. This experience is what launched a successful 30-year career creating advertising for well-known brands like McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, General Electric, Citibank, Burger King, to name a few.

During that time, Jim discovered that success in advertising, sales, or marketing is not achieved soley by boasting “unique” benefits.. Rather, success largely depends on an ability to find, create, and tell stories that build trust while sharing important beliefs and values. He ended up writing two award-winning books on this subject and started conducting workshops for leaders and sales professionals, helping them employ the influential power of story.. This led to what is now Story-Lab, a company he founded and one that conducts storytelling workshops for leaders and sales professionals.


Contributor: James Signorelli

Published here on: 13-Dec-15

Classification: Storytelling, Communication

Website: http://www.story-lab.net/

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Site Menu

| Home | Top | Quick Links | Settings |

Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories |

Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help |

More pages: | Contact | Caveat | About | Students | Webmasters | Awards | Guestbook | Feedback | Sitemap | Changes |

Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate |

 

 

Please help and share:

 

Quick links

Disciplines

* Argument
* Brand management
* Change Management
* Coaching
* Communication
* Counseling
* Game Design
* Human Resources
* Job-finding
* Leadership
* Marketing
* Politics
* Propaganda
* Rhetoric
* Negotiation
* Psychoanalysis
* Sales
* Sociology
* Storytelling
* Teaching
* Warfare
* Workplace design

Techniques

* Assertiveness
* Body language
* Change techniques
* Closing techniques
* Conversation
* Confidence tricks
* Conversion
* Creative techniques
* General techniques
* Happiness
* Hypnotism
* Interrogation
* Language
* Listening
* Negotiation tactics
* Objection handling
* Propaganda
* Problem-solving
* Public speaking
* Questioning
* Using repetition
* Resisting persuasion
* Self-development
* Sequential requests
* Storytelling
* Stress Management
* Tipping
* Using humor
* Willpower

Principles

+ Principles

Explanations

* Behaviors
* Beliefs
* Brain stuff
* Conditioning
* Coping Mechanisms
* Critical Theory
* Culture
* Decisions
* Emotions
* Evolution
* Gender
* Games
* Groups
* Habit
* Identity
* Learning
* Meaning
* Memory
* Motivation
* Models
* Needs
* Personality
* Power
* Preferences
* Research
* Relationships
* SIFT Model
* Social Research
* Stress
* Trust
* Values

Theories

* Alphabetic list
* Theory types

And

About
Guest Articles
Blog!
Books
Changes
Contact
Guestbook
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Students
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