The English word "storytelling" refers to a precise persuasive communication strategy. Literally, the term means "to tell a story", but in marketing this concept is enriched with partly different shades of meaning.
"Storytelling", in fact, does not simply mean telling a story. Certainly the origins of this art are as old as humans, indeed we can say that it was precisely the need of men to come together as a community that gave birth to the narrative itself. However, the essence of this marketing technique is to leverage the innate human passion for stories to achieve engagement and involvement with great effectiveness.
In other words, storytelling is a communication method that every company or brand should use: by taking advantage of the right storytelling techniques, a brand that adopts this strategy manages to arouse emotions, to seduce the heart of the potential client and to retain the already acquired clientele. It is not for nothing that the key word to remember when it comes to storytelling is involvement: the potential customer must be involved in the stories the brand will choose to tell, inevitably ending up getting closer to it, seduced by the emotions conveyed through the chosen words and images.
Successful storytelling: the cases of Adidas and Tiffany & co.
There is therefore no doubt about how effective an emotional narrative is to retain customers and attract new ones. But if you look at Return on Investment, ROI, are the results of this strategy equally effective? The answer is yes, and the case studies of some important world-renowned brands prove it.
Back in 2007, Adidas conquered its audience with the famous commercials introduced by the slogan "impossible is nothing": in those commercials the product never appeared, but gave way to the compelling story of the life of sports champions, such as Lionel Messi or Elena Isinbaeva, and how they managed to make their dreams come true despite the physique seeming to make it impossible. These spots really excited us and after thirteen years we still remember them for the sensations that made us feel.
The example of Adidas shows how it is possible to present and promote a brand through its values, building its identity with the story of its mission.
Another example is offered by Tiffany & co., The famous New York jewelry brought to glory by the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany" with Audrey Hepburn. To win over new customers and retain existing ones, Tiffany & co. he chose the storytelling technique.
In 2011, the company created a website consisting of 4 sections dedicated to love and the city of New York: in one section the couples customers of Tiffany & co. they told how they had fallen in love, in another the best places in New York were presented for a romantic date, in another the people could pin on a map of Manhattan the places significant for their love story.
In this case, Tiffany & co. gave voice to its customers, who thus also told the central values of the mission of the jewelry itself: love and New York city. The entire company was widely sponsored in the company's social channels and in a short time the share price of Tiffany & co. increased by $ 10.
It is clear that storytelling alone is not enough to raise stock prices on the stock exchange, but certainly these examples demonstrate how a storytelling-based marketing strategy can have a certain importance for the success of a brand.
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