5 Examples Of Great Brand Storytelling

The best way to make a true con­nec­tion with con­sumers is by incor­po­rat­ing sto­ry­telling. Here are five great exam­ples of brands doing it right.

Chad Koskie By Chad Koskie from LeadMD. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Mak­ing a true con­nec­tion is the holy grail of mod­ern mar­ket­ing. But what’s the best way to do that? By incor­po­rat­ing sto­ry­telling. That’s the quick­est and best way to hit those all-impor­tant emo­tion­al hooks that make con­nec­tions.


In this mar­ket­ing-sat­u­rat­ed world, it’s more cru­cial than ever for brands to rise above the noise.

Peo­ple are bored. And when they’re hit up with stan­dard mar­ket­ing tac­tics, their eyes glaze over. Any­thing that isn’t even remote­ly inter­est­ing inter­est­ing gets the delete but­ton quick­er than a Trump state­ment gets media cov­er­age.

Humans have been telling sto­ries for thou­sands of years. It’s the orig­i­nal way to trans­fer infor­ma­tion.

For­tu­nate­ly, with the explo­sion in pop­u­lar­i­ty of online video over the past decade, build­ing com­pelling sto­ries around your brand is eas­i­er than ever. Video is unique in that it can key up emo­tions and attach­ment much eas­i­er than most any form of con­tent.

Here are five great exam­ples of brands doing it right.

GoPro – Firefighter Saves Kitten

Did this one give you goose­bumps? The wide range of emo­tions in this sim­ple sto­ry hits aren’t some­thing you’ll soon for­get.

GoPro didn’t have to list out any fea­tures, or real­ly even show the prod­uct. They showed the prod­uct in action in a com­pelling way. That’s enough.

Fire­fight­er saves kit­ten. Intense, dra­mat­ic, mov­ing, human. And it fits per­fect­ly with their tagline – “Be a Hero.”

Google – Parisian Love

This is an inno­vat­ing way of sto­ry­telling, for sure. The entire arc of a clas­sic Amer­i­can-in-Paris love sto­ry is told through Google’s prod­uct inter­face.

Sound effects are thrown in for a lit­tle action and sweet­ness.

Wrap­ping some­thing as seem­ing­ly mun­dane as a search results in a love sto­ry is a great way to show off the huge range of every­day activ­i­ties that Google can enable and enhance.



Crispy M&Ms – Days of Thunder Spoof

Sports mar­ket­ing is so huge now peo­ple for­get that motor­sports was one of the first to embrace it. Despite the influx of mar­ket­ing into almost every aspect of mod­ern sport­ing events, motor­sports still offer up the best exam­ples of it. There’s a rea­son that NASCAR fans are some of the most brand-loy­al peo­ple.

For those who are unaware, this video offers a new spin on the 1990 Tom Cruise cult clas­sic “Days of Thun­der”. It’s most any rac­ing fan’s favorite movie.

That’s what makes this video so clever: it suc­cess­ful­ly co-ops the pos­i­tive feel­ings peo­ple have for this movie, and adds a bit of M&Ms brand­ing into them.

Dollar Shave Club – Our Blades are F***ing Great

The explain­er video to end all explain­er videos. Accord­ing to Michael Dubin, the founder and star of the video, the spot only cost $4,500 to pro­duce.

The video itself is sim­ple, to the point, and full of irrev­er­ent humor. It’s also a great exam­ple of how to frame the prob­lem and empha­size the pain point your poten­tial cus­tomers expe­ri­ence.

And real­ly, this video remains the stan­dard that start­up explain­er videos are held to, and for good rea­son: it launched Dol­lar Shave Club to lit­er­al overnight suc­cess.



Apple – 1984

For this last one, I’m going a bit old school.

A clever play on George Orwell’s clas­sic 1984, this dates from the era when Apple was still a scrap­py out­sider work­ing to posi­tion itself as a lone inno­va­tor going against the mono­lith­ic grain. This Super Bowl ad deliv­ers that mes­sage in spades.

Now, 31 years lat­er, there’s a good chance you’re read­ing this arti­cle on an Apple prod­uct. It was writ­ten on one. And this ad is part of the rea­son for that.

Conclusion

Craft­ing com­pelling sto­ry around even the most mun­dane brand or prod­uct is a win­ning strat­e­gy that savvy mar­keters should employ every time. When you can work to make those all-impor­tant con­nec­tions with peo­ple, you’ll see true suc­cess. And with the pop­u­lar­i­ty of online video only set to increase, this will be eas­i­er than ever.

Chad Koskie

Written by Chad Koskie

Content Marketing Manager, LeadMD

Chad Koskie is content marketing manager at LeadMD. Chad has several years of experience in the realm of content marketing, and enjoys putting his background in journalism to use in crafting unique stories for brands. More of Chad's expertise can be found on LeadMD's blog.

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