Storytelling... A wonderful opportunity for brand communication.

VOL. 0068 – FLORIDA, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2025

Juan F. Arjona Harry

President & CEO Strategee   

This second decade of the twenty-first century is increasingly generating new challenges in the process of Branding that should guide brands responsibly.

The XXI Century, called the Century of inclusion, is bringing huge changes to the anthropological human species, much as they are reinventing the relationship of trust, loyalty, friendship, love, couple, boss to subordinate, from parents to children, from state to citizens, among many others. Today on the planet must fit all, no matter if you are white, Indian or African; no matter if you are Catholic, Jewish, Christian or Muslim; no matter if you have different sexual orientations; universities, schools, companies and other recreational areas should have multiple environments and aids.  In the Age of inclusion, advocating constitutional reforms being minorities are welcome, promoting respect and inclusion as compelling part of any regulatory framework.

Added to this, from the perspective of Marketing 3.0, brands must share any of the pain or suffering of an entire society or a large segment of it, to help in their fight to make the world a better world for people. This raises a conscious human side of brands and is forcing brands to have souls. It is now necessary that a brand is seen as an entity that shares warmly and genuinely a socio-anthropological concern and this concern should lead to concrete programs to help society or part of it to withstand the condition.

Technology is breaking down the boundaries and barriers that prevent many (usually poorer) groups of people found out something and comment. Technology as a vehicle for the emergence of virtual social networks blurs the lines that previously divided society for certain aspects and enables an environment where every second a trend is established, internalized and adopted in the daily lives of consumers regardless their buying power.

These changes have led to a saturation of information that invades our virtual world of social networking, devouring our time in the need of understanding what is happening and finally getting into context.

As a response to an increasingly interconnected world, more aware, but more competitive; also as a response to the coldness of seven billion Internet connected solitudes, evaluating everything through the prism of criticality, skepticism to cynicism, arises a wonderful communication platform for brands, the Storytelling.

Storytelling has been called -from Branding- to the strategy of building brands using stories told under some communication standards that achieve -very quickly- emotional impacts of the audience. This is its power.

Storytelling has a foundation from the Psychology and Consumer Behavior and is just that those who are in the audience of the story have the following characteristics from the point of view of human species:

1. They have no precedent.

2. The rudeness of the world today makes clamor for underworld or part of it, where, cutest, sweetest, less harsh, more cheerful and above all, more humane living for pleasant things is needed.

3. They generate a buzz as the story is told. They are almost children waiting expectantly for a nice story that excites those moments in their lives.

4. The context of the story promotes his audience the credibility of it.

5. The use of third party validates the story to the audience.

6. Their exaggerated level of criticism, skepticism and cynicism about conventional marketing paid strategies, makes a larger base of credibility to the story.

7. Like a child who first hears a tale of the Grimm brothers, active listening opens immediately the mind to the brand positioning.

Link brand through well conducted Story Telling strategy seems that has huge advantages in the current context. Now, specifically... How is the Storytelling executed?

The brand uses scripts that revolve around a theme previously defined. In the execution of the scripts a story is created, absolutely contextualized in a particular environment and about a narrative-axis, tells a real, credible, positive and emotionally charged story.

I. Types of Storytelling: There are different kinds of Storytelling, which are three-dimensional hermeneutical contexts in which the strategy can be armed:

1. Self-Story: that is when the script of the story is drawn from the same purposes of the brand.

2. Laborious-Story: whose script is composed of community participation of tens / hundreds / thousands of consumers or customers who make part of the advertising piece with their own stories. It may or may not be the type Collage (because every story can be single or multiple stories can make one piece).

3. Interactive-Story: script technologically aided, that usually leads to the participation of the customer or consumer with a particular brand or makes an imaginary journey through a world of the brand's history.

4. Utilitarian-Story: whose script is built by demonstrating the usefulness of the brand's consumption for achieving terminal values.

5. Collective-Story: whose script is developed from the collective participation of clients and / or consumers of the brand in a single advertising piece that has a single narrative line.

6. Product-Story: prepares the script from real situations in which the product of a brand is being used or consumed, but with only a narrative axis, which is usually the one that connects to one of the most important brand's values.

For the choice of Storytelling, is very important to consider the category in which the brand competes, the type of product in question, the main anthropological and psychosocial characteristics of the audience and especially the moments of the brand and the market. Also set the grill or mixture chosen for broadcast media will contribute greatly to the cost efficiency of investment.

II. Requirements in the script production for Storytelling:

1. The issue around the story must be relevant to the audience.

2. Must have inspiring elements with an exciting history point.

3. Must have own genre elements containing narrative pace; i.e., beginning, middle, and end outcome.

4. The story should be emphasized, never the brand.

5. Must have first-person accounts.

6. Must be real and/or believable or demonstrable.

7. The script should be developed in the midst of cultural references that enable decoding and interpretation.

8. Must exalt or leave residual of how good always triumphs over evil.

9. Must connect with an actual value of the brand (which ultimately is what we want to highlight).

10. It must be absolutely fascinating and engaging for the audience.

III. Advantages of Storytelling:

1. Generates for the brand a special gratitude for not being perceived as one piece with a commercial interest.

2. Helps the brand to be perceived as a brand with soul.

3. Promotes its awareness.

4. Generates greater confidence in the brand.

5. Raises brand reputation.

6. Allow quick positioning and strengthening the brand with special glue; since there is no precedent scheme.

7. Power the emotional side of the brand, greatly contributing to building Brand Equity.

IV. How to insert the Storytelling in the Branding strategy of the Corporation?

It can be in two ways:

1. Treat it as a single strategy, in which by using creativity matrices, stories can be created.

2. Or could be part of a defined strategy, considering that there is a common thread in the type of Storytelling defined.

In the current context, in which big brands are demolished and fall out of favor in the market as heavy and old trees to be felled to prevent accidents, and in which new brands break into the categories creating blue oceans and challenging leaders time in each sector, differentiated communication like Storytelling can be a decisive factor in the tough and challenging task to achieve and build Brand Equity.