What’s Your Brand Story?

From start to finish, a well-executed brand is just about telling a good story. Well-written stories are pretty predictable in their format; they have a beginning, middle, and end. The pieces of the story that are being told are consistent with and advance the storyline. They don’t pursue irrelevant tangents; each paragraph and chapter builds on the last. Eventually, they all come together in one excellent, neat package that fulfills the promise the story has been building toward ever since the beginning.

Write Your Own Brand Story

The lessons of the story are well applied to creating a fantastic brand. No matter how new or old our business is, there will be parts of the story you choose not to tell when you choose your logical beginning. It’s OK if you don’t get the moment right when you start your branding story because you can always use flashbacks. The important part is to pick a beginning because there will never be a brand without one. Once the brand story starts, you must stay true to your storyline. That means you must be consistent and ensure that every opportunity to advance the story to the community stays true to your chosen brand. With each variation of the story, each time you explain your brand position, elaborate on your tagline, and advertise for your company, the story deepens. This is true both externally and internally, so it needs to be a compelling story everyone wants to continue reading. It won’t do any good if your story is not persuasive and hooks the audience. Being the author of this tale also means you must continue telling it concisely and consistently. It means resisting the temptation to pursue irrelevant tangents to the brand story. Perhaps most importantly, it also means that you must continue to tell your brand story, not abandon it partially. There are significant momentums amid a great story; generating that momentum will help your brand story to take on a life of its own and keep the audience, community, potential customers, customers, employees, and stakeholders coming back for more. So, what is your brand story? Are you telling it? If not, there’s no time like the present.