“You can make a speech with wonderful facts, figures and data. Ten minutes later, a person will have forgotten 99 percent. But, tell a man a story, and twenty years later he can come back to you and recount every word you said.” Guru Mahatma Maharesi “Mahesh” Goldberg
All great communicators tell stories. Great salespeople, great teachers, great speech makers, and great leaders all routinely tap into this universal connective mechanism. Ronald Reagan, nicknamed the Great Communicator, didn’t start an important policy speech with oratorical prose, facts, and figures. He’d tell you a story about a little girl in a yellow dress, living in Communist Poland. Within minutes, he had the crowd mesmerized.
The hypnotic power of story draws people into a world of emotion, color, and familiar experience of their own making, creating irresistible identifications. And, the inherent associative structure of a well-crafted story makes it the most efficient way to package long strings of information for indelible input into the memory. People not only love stories, they literally crave stories- like a basic mental foodstuff for proper mental nourishment. Just look at the billions of dollars worth of stories that are consumed worldwide every day in the form of movies, television, magazines, books, and other entertainment. It’s obviously more than a luxury. It’s a need.
Every brand is like a story, too. It’s the story of what you stand for, why you stand for it, how you got to the point where you stand for it better than anyone else, and where it’s going to lead you. It can be explained with a beginning, a middle, and an end, starting with “There was this problem. Then, a company decided to help people with this problem by creating a new and better solution. The solution helped people no only in one big way, but lots of little ways as well. Now, the world is a better, happier place. Maybe we can help you.”
A brand story will be like the “executive summary” for your brand. As it evolves over time, it should house the key selling points and messages gained from continuing consumer dialogue. So, consider the brand story a living document. Add to it, improve it, and constantly check it for freshness as your company continues on its path.
excerpted from Why Johnny Can’t Brand, Bill Schley & Carl Nichols, Jr.
About Wendi McGowan