How to bring your brand to life
We talked about four key ways to bring your brand to life in our last blog. This time, we continue the theme but we’re focusing on something else that’s just as important – your brand story.
Every brilliant brand tells a compelling story where its vision, values and distinctive offer connect emotionally with its target market.
So, how do you go about creating your brand story? First of all, you need to understand your four fundamentals:
- Why you exist
- Who you are
- How you do things
- What you do
We covered them in our last blog and actually run a specific Brand Doctor workshop, which takes you through each one step by step. If you’re interested, let us know.
What’s your brand story?
OK, so once you know your why, who, how and what, you can start to think about your brand story.
Start by defining what you do in more detail. In other words, what’s your unique offer to your customers? What do you do that your competitors don’t. Ask yourself these five questions:
- Do people buy your products or services simply because they’re more affordable?
- Are they innovative or genuinely unique in some way?
- Are they the highest quality ie better than the rest?
- Do you offer the best customer service by a mile?
- Is your service about a user-friendly experience that customers really enjoy?
Is there one that resonates the most? Are there two or three that apply? Or is it something else completely? Now use your answers to begin writing your brand story.
Imagine a relatable scenario where you put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Create a hero struggling with an issue, show you understand their conflict and then provide a workable solution. We all love a happy ending!
This example is how Land Rover used a true story to celebrate its 70th anniversary. ‘The Land of Land Rovers’ is set in a remote area in the Himalayas where a fleet of 1957 Land Rovers are meticulously maintained so that supplies can be transported along treacherous mountain roads between two small villages. The production team spent 10 days getting to know the brave drivers and listening to their accounts of everyday life. The resulting video is stunningly filmed, and these true stories only serve to reinforce the incredible off-road capabilities of Land Rovers.
Here’s another fitting example of brilliant storytelling. As we know, Google is all about advertising, yet it rarely highlights its search engine prowess on the screen. In its Parisian Love advert way back in 2009, we watch as a three-act play unfolds. It starts with a young man googling his up-coming adventure studying in France. All we see is his search history played out to sound effects and a gentle piano track.
We think it’s genius! There’s no hard sell, not even a call to action – just a love story which captures exactly what Google has to offer.
Hope Creative can help to bring your unique brand story to life. Get in touch and we’ll tell you how.
