We have an inbuilt ability to be able to recall stories more than we do with the modern day disease called 'intrusive push advertising'.
In the not too distant past brands were the custodian of how we perceived them, this was primarily driven by brand awareness ad campaigns across all relevant mediums, especially digital.
They told us what they stood for and if we 'related' to that message we might be swayed to choose 'Coke over Pepsi', 'Wrangler over Levi's', 'Nike over Reebok', 'BMW over Mercedes'.
The basis of this branding message is still very much the same, but as social media has opened up our ability to do our own research around those 'brand promises' we tend to be swayed more so by those closest to us.
Since humans became the social animal we are we have passed on our knowledge via stories, and in many cases through songs.
This is something that all tribes around the world have done in order to keep the history and culture alive.
Analog thinking in a digital world is (IMO) what's holding companies back from genuine and authentic relationship building with prospects and existing customers alike.
Nothing can make me 'scroll' or as we say in Manchester 'jog on' faster than brands who regurgitate corporate content whilst trying to get their message across.
It's all totally sanitised and then spewed out with the corporate brand police doing the post rather than the employees who can probably tell a more authentic story anyway.
The reality is everyone is saying 'we're the best', or 'great innovation', worse still is the 'look at us, 'we just won this award for the fastest boiling kettle'.
Virtually every brand/company we benchmark on social media talk endlessly about themselves, they think that showing us pictures and video's of the gifts they shower on the new intern, or (pre-Covid) that corporate 'get together' is something that's going to endear us to them.
This is simply analog thinking in a socially savvy digital world, so please stop producing corporate vomit.
Stop selling, start telling more stories, because social media is our new campfire and we all have a story to tell, and when told in the right way we're more inclined to share them.
Storytelling describes the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values.[1] Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. The term "storytelling" can refer in a narrow sense specifically to oral storytelling and also in a looser sense to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story.
unknownx500
