In an article entitled "Let them reason, let us tell stories", the official account of Luo Ji's WeChat wrote: "All industries in the future will be the media industry, and the future advertising, marketing, games and even wider commercial fields should be good at using stories to make the audience feel * * *."

A marketing god named Daniel Pinker said: Storytelling will become one of the most important basic abilities in the 2 1 century.

The following example may give you one or two ideas. This is an online video I have seen before:

This is the power of the story.

In my opinion, "I am blind, please help me" is reasonable. This clever girl wrote a story.

A story is not a story made up for entertainment, but a situation in which people breathe and beat together. In this case, people's empathy will be more easily stimulated, and then unexpected results will be achieved in education, communication, product marketing, brand promotion and so on.

How does story thinking play a role in brand promotion? I found the answer in the book Identity: The Art of Packaging Facts with Stories by Jim Sinorelli in marketing guru, USA.

Jim Sinorelli is a world-class marketing expert, who has done marketing and advertising planning for world-famous brands such as Citibank, Kraft Foods and General Electric. Not surprisingly, this book is about marketing, specifically, how to promote brands by telling stories.

The so-called brand promotion, in the vernacular, is to spread your brand and impress it deeply in the minds of consumers.

The reason is simple, but it is actually very difficult to do.

The author points out in the book that the brand has two attributes: the external attribute refers to the function that the brand can meet a certain demand of consumers, and the internal attribute refers to the beliefs and values advocated by the brand. Similarly, consumers also have internal and external attributes: the external attribute refers to the demand for a certain function, and the internal attribute refers to the internal values they adhere to.

Understand this truth, it is not difficult to understand: the best brand promotion is to link the internal and external attributes of the brand with the internal and external attributes of consumers respectively. Yes, this is the ultimate meaning of brand promotion.

In real life, most of the brand promotion we can see can't do this. They often only complete the external connection between brands and consumers, that is, they only meet the needs of consumers for a certain function.

But the author mentioned in the book that consumers, as your potential sales targets, are individuals first, and people have feelings and values. If you can dig out the value orientation of your own brand (that is, internal attributes) and make consumers feel that your value orientation is exactly what he insists on, you can hit it off and complete the internal connection. And this connection is quite strong. Even if other brands later put forward the same value orientation as you, consumers will involuntarily think that it is just imitating you. This preconceived value is enough to maintain a considerable degree of brand loyalty.

You will find that these slogans put forward by these successful big brands all reflect a value orientation, not just product function introduction. The purpose is to attract people with the same value orientation and keep it sticky.

At this time, if you come to another "Mi" mobile phone brand and put forward the concept of "born for fever", how would you feel?

The author points out that in order to establish the internal relationship between brands and potential consumers, we must break through four obstacles: product function cognition, product specificity understanding, brand cognition and brand identity.

It is easy to understand that the cognition of a brand begins with the cognition of a product of the brand.

First of all, what is this product used for? What practical problems can be solved? (product function cognition); So, what are the specific advantages of this product compared with other brands? Why should I choose your products instead of others? (product characteristics understanding); Then realize the existence of your brand (brand awareness) through this product; Finally, because I agree with the value concept advocated by the brand, I deeply agree with the brand (brand identity). The fourth stage, brand identity, is also the ultimate goal of brand promotion.

So how can we break through the four barriers between brands and consumers?

The answer is: telling stories. This is the brand story.

Traditional boastful brand marketing strategy can basically break through the first three obstacles and realize consumers' cognition of product functions, product characteristics and brand. However, it is very difficult to break through the fourth barrier and realize brand identity.

Because no one wants others to tell him how to think.

Because they are telling the truth, they are always bored or even annoyed, so there will be a situation that "they can't live a good life after listening to a lot of truth".

That's not the story. Stories are often persuasive and persuasive. They don't tell you a certain truth naked, but tell you a series of events, so that you can feel the hidden truth behind these events.

Consumers will identify with their feelings through their own feelings, because this is their own business, not what you impose on them.

The author points out that there are two elements in a story: plot and theme.

Plot refers to the events that make up a story. Theme refers to the hidden things behind the event, which need readers to understand themselves.

The plot and theme of the story just correspond to the products and brands promoted by marketing.

The story is like a product, and it must provide a truly valuable experience to prove that the time and money spent by consumers are worthwhile.

Theme is like the intrinsic value of a brand. By telling a story, it not only introduces the function and specific advantages of the product, but also naturally conveys the implicit and unspecified value orientation to consumers. So as to break through the fourth barrier, realize the internal relationship between brands and consumers, realize brand identity and achieve the ultimate goal of brand promotion.

In the book, the author provides a "six C steps" to build a brand story:

In general, it is to find out how the brand originated, how it developed and how it is now. Then, through the method of prototype analysis, locate the brand itself and tap its own values; Then locate the target consumer groups; The fourth step is to combine these two orientations to achieve the effect of maximizing benefits; The fifth step is to break through the four barriers between them on the basis of good positioning; The last step is to complete the writing of the story summary.

It is worth mentioning that the traditional marketing methods are generally ahead of the target group positioning, and then decide what we produce according to what consumers need. The author suggests that it is difficult to break through the fourth barrier and realize brand identity. To do this, we must deeply analyze our own value orientation, put forward our own unique value proposition (UVP), and then attract those consumers who share your values, so as to achieve accurate positioning and brand recognition. In fact, this is similar to the fan economy that is very popular now.

I won't go into details about the spatial relationship and specific content. Interested readers may wish to read the book Identity: The Art of Packaging Facts with Stories.

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