Story power + experience = brand legends

In the article ‘Storytelling in a virtual world’ (Market Leader, Quarter 3, 2011), Julian Saunders argues that the decline of advertising is endangering the storytelling that brands such as Orange and Nescafé have historically used so memorably. And he laments this danger because storytelling is so fundamental to how humans communicate and relate to each other.

Our research and experience confirm the declining role of traditional advertising-based storytelling. In today’s radically transparent world, brands don’t get to tell their own story much, and the reality of the customer experience dominates. But what’s declining is the narrative storytelling isolated from the ad campaign. A new storytelling is emerging that’s more authentic and linked to the brand experience, creating the stories that people spontaneously pick up and retell. It’s this that will be at the core of building tomorrow’s brands.

When we measure a brand, we look at two dimensions of customer perception: ‘story power’, which describes how favourably consumers at large rate the brand; and ‘experience power’, which describes how much the brand is loved by the people who actually use it and know it through their direct experience. The successes, the ‘brand legends’, are those that score well above average for their sectors on both storytelling and experience: legends are great stories based on a truth.

Examples of success

Brand legends in our most recent UK research include O2 in telecoms, Apple in electronics, and BMW in automotive. By contrast the ‘brand myths’ are those that score above average on story power only: myths are great stories that are not based on a truth. Not surprisingly, we find that the financial performance of brand legends is consistently stronger than that of brand myths: an average of 8% annual growth in revenues for brand legends in the UK, for example, compared with an average of -1% annual decline in revenues for brand myths.

Instead of spending most of their money telling stories directly, the brand legends create branded experiences that stimulate people to discover and retell their stories for them: the reward treatment and treats from O2, the physical delight of using Apple products, and the thrill of perfection from BMW.

Are these the sort of values-based stories that Julian Saunders is craving? Arguably they are. Behind O2’s indulgences is an enlightened belief in investing in long term customer relationships rather than short-term exploitation; behind Apple’s delight is an appreciation of pure design craft and usability over technological gizmos and features; behind the BMW thrill is the reward that comes from their perfectionist engineering of every detail.

To create such strong, branded experiences, a focus on the brand story is crucial. But that brand story is no longer the advertising narrative. It’s the succinct expression of the brand idea that is so simple and relevant that people can relate to it, and want to retell it because it’s touched them emotionally. It is so purposeful that people want to attach themselves to its values, and so tangible that it permeates the experience and gives customers something real, not just myth, to love.

The form of the story may have changed, but the need for it has not. Brands that embrace the new digital channels as ends in themselves, not as new means of storytelling, will become bland. Digital conversation tactics won’t work without a ‘being-worth-talking- about’ strategy.

Simon Glynn is a senior partner and European head of Lippincott.

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Brand legends are great stories based on a truth